Wednesday, December 3, 2014

XenApp 7.5 does not support streaming

There are a lot of discussions online on Citrix kills or honors Application Streaming feature starting from version 7.1. (http://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/news/2240184559/Citrix-kills-its-Application-Streaming-feature-directs-users-to-App-V)

I installed Citrix XenApp 7.5 with Microsoft App-V 5.0 integrated. The facts I see are following:
  1. Citrix does not provide streaming of any kind anymore.
  2. App-V provides Streaming to Server feature as was named in prior versions of XenApp.
  3. There is no Streaming to Desktop feature at all.
This is how XenApp/App-V streaming works:
  1. Citrix Studio pulls App-V package index from App-V server
  2. Citrix publishes App-V applications alongside with Citrix applications
  3. App-V applications show as regular local applications on Citrix Master Image or Server
  4. When an App-V application is launched by user on client computer, Citrix Receiver runs a remote App-V application seemingly local on client's desktop. The App-V application is actually delivered or streamed from App-V Sequencer to Citrix Master Image and physically runs there, not on client's or user's desktop.
A few points for a successful XenApp 7.5 and App-V installation/integration:
  1. App-V Server is installed using App-V for Desktop edition package on a dedicated system.
  2. App-V Sequencer is installed using App-V for RDS edition package on a dedicated system.
  3. App-V Client is installed using App-V for RDS edition package on Citrix Master Image or server.
  4. User's workstation only needs to install Citrix Receiver.
Useful documentation: http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xendesktop-71/app-v-installation.html

Hint: You may need to install a Microsoft Hotfix 2897087 to make App-V work on Windows 2012.

App-V client syncing with App-V server is now through PowerShell only. Some copy and paste content:

In the machine catalog or workhorse system, launch PowerShell through Run. Enter following commands:
set-executionpolicy remotesigned

Once installed we need to configure the client to get updates from a publishing server for updates, we can do this via PowerShell.  Firstly import the App-V Client PowerShell module:
Import-Module appvclient
Then to register the publishing server:
 Add-AppvPublishingServer -Name displayname -URL http://publishingservername:port
Then we can carry out an initial sync to test connectivity:
Sync-AppvPublishingServer -ServerId 1
This command will check in with the publishing server to check the current entitlements against what has been configured on the management server.