topic Re: WebView2 requirement in Webex Administration

WebView2 requirement

nstankus — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 20:11:26 GMT

As you may know, we are working to upgrade Webex’s embedded browser to Microsoft’s WebView2. Beginning with version 42.6 of Webex (June 2022), WebView2 will be required to use the Webex App on Windows. (The Mac and Linux clients are not affected.)

WebView2 can be installed on users' PCs in one of several ways:

Users can receive WebView2 from a typical Windows Update.
IT admins can install WebView2 on users’ machines using Microsoft’s Evergreen installer.
(Beginning with 42.3) A running instance of Webex can install WebView2 if a flag is enabled for your org. This “silent” installation is invisible to the user and is configured to stagger downloads across your org to reduce bandwidth concerns. By the end of March, we plan to enable silent installation for all orgs to expedite adoption of WebView2.
(Beginning with 42.4) Admin installs of Webex can optionally install WebView2. (More details to come.)

VDI Environments
The Webex App will not install WebView2 in VDI environments. Administrators must install WebView2 in VDI environments before updating to the June 2022 release (Webex App version 42.6).

We encourage you to review the options and take steps to expedite the adoption rate of WebView2 at your organization.

More information is available in the WebView2 Help article. If you have any questions, please respond to this post.

Re: WebView2 requirement

Cole Callahan — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 20:13:59 GMT

Thank you @nstankus for keeping us informed here in the community. We appreciate the detail and transparency here.

Re: WebView2 requirement

JOHN.CRAWFORD@FOUNDERSFCU.COM — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 13:40:24 GMT

Once installed, how is WebView2 updated and patched? Will this be through Microsoft Updates?

Re: WebView2 requirement

nstankus — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 20:32:56 GMT

Yes JOHN.CRAWFORD@FOUNDERSFCU.COM -- we're using Microsoft's Evergreen Installer, so, once WV2 is installed, Microsoft takes care of the rest.

Re: WebView2 requirement

lucas.lara — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 04:19:29 GMT

Hi Nstankus,

Thanks for the information presented within the community.

Re: WebView2 requirement

jim-j — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 21:58:52 GMT

@nstankuscan you provide any more details on the recommended method to install this in a Microsoft VDI environment?

Re: WebView2 requirement

sully213 — Tue, 03 May 2022 15:42:05 GMT

As with jim-j above, I too would appreciate further elaboration on VDI environments. Yes, we should install WV2 initially, but since we use non-persistent systems how is the "evergreen" installer expected to behave, for example? Can the HVD installer of Webex perform a similar WV2 install flag along with 42.4? Is there a cutoff of supported WV2 versions in Webex so we know how often updates of WV2 should be performed in our golden images? etc.

Re: WebView2 requirement

nstankus — Thu, 05 May 2022 16:22:16 GMT

@jim-j @sully213 We recommend that you include WebView2 in the golden VM image you use to build those machines nightly. Anything after version 100.x.x.x would suffice.

Re: WebView2 requirement

elwalsh@cisco.com — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 16:18:34 GMT

This was very insightful. Thank you

Re: WebView2 requirement

hbjerkan — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 09:27:04 GMT

Thank you for your informative post - thanks for sharing!

Re: WebView2 requirement

Ever Figueroa — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 20:58:03 GMT

thanks for sharing! very informative

Re: WebView2 requirement

Robert Casipit — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 15:12:58 GMT

The FedRAMP Webex app is unable to seamlessly log users in via Okta SSO after your recent MS Edge Webview2 Runtime requirement. The login stalls at a Windows Security Popup box whereas, previously, the client would detect the user's desktop SSO and then log them straight into the Webex app. I've been working with FedRAMP TAC for months on this problem. The Webex app is the ONLY app that is requiring webview2 for login. Not even Microsoft Skype or Teams is using Webview2 so why is Cisco forcing this on everyone? TAC has provided a workaround of using the registry setting PreferredAuthenticationBrowser=MSHTML but MSHTML has vulnerabilities. Come on Cisco, make it so that the Webex app uses the default browser for authentication and call it a day.

Re: WebView2 requirement

sully213 — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 14:34:50 GMT

We're seeing something similar (non-FedRAMP) but it only occurs occasionally and TAC has been unable to provide a root cause for us. Are you seeing it consistently across the board or also sporadically? I'd just like to know what to look for going forward as we have yet to update from 42.4 in our non-persistent VDI images (long story...).

Re: WebView2 requirement

Robert Casipit — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 15:02:39 GMT

It is consistent and happens every time. According to Webex engineers it is because the client does not know which certificate on the local machine to select when authenticating and they've provided us with a test client that will log which certs the client sees and which one it selects for authentication. Enterprise machines will have multiple certs so I hope they can solve this problem.

Re: WebView2 requirement

nstankus — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:23:09 GMT

FYI: the minimum supported version of WebView2 is now 118.0.2088.69.

https://help.webex.com/en-us/article/nzpgci2/Webex-App-%7C-WebView2-requirement

Re: WebView2 requirement

sully213 — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 19:13:28 GMT

At which version of the app does the v118 requirement go into effect? The link does not address when this version change is mandated.

Re: WebView2 requirement

nstankus — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 15:23:39 GMT

v43.11 of the Webex App, which was just released on 7th November.