Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

Dynamic window preview for seamless applications

Overview

Starting with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2511, seamless applications have improved support for dynamic window preview, also known as taskbar icon thumbnail preview.

Prerequisites

The prerequisites for the improved Dynamic Window Preview support for Seamless Applications are as follows:

  • Windows endpoint running CWA for windows 2511 or later
  • Windows VDA running VDA 2511 or later

The feature is only available on the following VDA operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2025
  • Windows 11 Single-session & Multi-session

Note:

Please note that Dynamic Window Preview is not available for seamless applications published on Windows 10 or Server 2022 and earlier.

No additional configuration is required, and support is provided out-of-the-box.

The legacy Citrix Policy for Dynamic Window Preview, is no longer needed when the prerequisites above are met, and the policy will be ignored.

The native client OS will be responsible for creating and displaying the thumbnail previews.

For VDA’s running older versions and for Windows 10 clients, the policy remains applicable.

Note:

Please be aware that the legacy ‘Dynamic Windows Preview’ policy does not work on Windows 11 clients.

Content-protected windows

Content-protected Windows of seamless applications will be protected and will not display the thumbnail preview when hovering over the icon in the taskbar. This behavior is by design and cannot be configured. When a content-protected Windows is (partially) occluded on the VDA, the thumbnail will show the window on top instead of the content-protected Windows.

Video playback with dynamic window preview

For each window that has an active video playback, Dynamic Window Preview thumbnails will update at least 5 times per second.

Note:

Running multiple seamless windows with active video playback could impact performance and server scalability, especially on 4K windows.

Dynamic window preview for seamless applications