Hello,
Setup:
I have a test environment consisting of 5 physical Windows 2008 Servers. Two are domain controllers, one is the vCenter server, and the last two are file servers. The vCenter server supports a few ESXi 4.1 servers. All those components are working as expected.
Problem:
Since this is a test environment, I don't really have the hardware available to stand up Windows 7 workstations to install vSphere client on, so I installed the vSphere client on both domain controllers and both file servers. As a domain administrator, I can perform any action within vSphere that I want. However, any domain users (which may need to interact with the ESXi servers for testing) cannot connect the CD-rom device. Upon inserting the CD/DVD into the phsyical server and selecting CD-> Connect to drive D:, the vSphere client immediately notifies the user that "The device D: has been disconnected".
After some investigation, it's obvious this is a limitation with 2008 server. It appears the users are not allowed to interact with the CD-ROM at all.
Attempted Solutions:
I have already attempted to modify Group Policy on the domain to allow users to use the CD-ROM. This has granted access to the floppy drive, but not to the CD/DVD drive.
I know this is not exactly a vSphere problem, but I am hoping someone in VMware community has run across this and knows how to solve it. From what I am seeing, it may be a hard-coded limiation Windows set in 2008, but my research into this has't come up with any conclusive solutions.
Thanks in advance,
Chad