Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Install and upgrade

Personal vDisk 7.x is supported on the current Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops version (and earlier versions, beginning with XenDesktop 5.6). The “System requirements” documentation for each version lists the supported operating systems for Virtual Delivery Agents (VDAs), and the supported versions of hosts (virtualization resources), and Citrix Provisioning (formerly Provisioning Services). For details about Citrix Provisioning tasks, see its current documentation.

Install and enable PvD

You can install and then enable PvD components when you install or upgrade a VDA for Desktop OS on a machine. These actions are selected on the Additional Components and Features pages of the installation wizard, respectively. For more information, see Install VDAs.

If you update the PvD software after installing the VDA, use the PvD MSI provided on the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops installation media.

Enabling PvD:

  • If you are using Machine Creation Services (MCS), PvD is enabled automatically when you create a machine catalog of desktop OS machines that will use a personal vDisk.
  • If you are using Citrix Provisioning, PvD is enabled automatically when you run the inventory during the master (base) image creation process, or when auto-update runs the inventory for you.

Therefore, if you install the PvD components but do not enable them during VDA installation, you can use the same image to create both PvD desktops and non-PvD desktops, because PvD is enabled during the catalog creation process.

Add personal vDisks

You add personal vDisks to hosts when you configure a Site. You can choose to use the same storage on the host for VMs and personal vDisks, or you can use different storage for personal vDisks.

Later, you can also add personal vDisks and their storage to existing hosts (connections), but not machine catalogs.

  1. Select Configuration > Hosting in the Studio navigation pane.
  2. Select Add Personal vDisk storage in the Actions pane, and specify the storage location.

Upgrade PvD

The easiest way to upgrade personal vDisk from an earlier 7.x version is to simply upgrade your desktop OS VDAs to the version provided with the most recent Citrix Virtual Desktops version. Then, run the PvD inventory.

Uninstall PvD

You can use one of two ways to remove the PvD software:

  • Uninstall the VDA. This removes the PvD software as well.
  • If you updated PvD using the PvD MSI, then you can uninstall it from the Programs list.

If you uninstall PvD and then want to reinstall the same or a newer version, first back up the registry key HKLM\Software\Citrix\personal vDisk\config, which contains environment configuration settings that might have changed. Then, after installing PvD, reset the registry values that might have changed, by comparing them with the backed-up version.

Uninstalling may fail when a personal vDisk with Windows 7 (64 bit) is installed in the base image. To resolve this issue, Citrix recommends that you remove the personal vDisk before upgrading.

  1. Select the appropriate copy of the vDisk installer from the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops media. Locate the latest personal vDisk MSI installer in one of the following directories (depending on whether the upgraded VM is 32 or 64-bits):

    • 32-bit: XA and XD\x86\Virtual Desktop Components\personalvDisk_x86.msi
    • 64-bit: XA and XD\x64\Virtual Desktop Components\personalvDisk_x64.msi

    Product media directory location

  2. Remove the personal vDisk installation. Select the personal vDisk MSI installer package found in step 1. The personal vDisk setup screen appears.

  3. Select Remove personal vDisk.

  4. Click Finish.

    Remove personal vDisk dialog box

  5. The Reboot Requirement page appears. Click Next:

    Reboot Requirement page

  6. Click Yes to restart the system and to apply your configuration changes:

    Confirm restart

Install and upgrade