System requirements and compatibility

The system requirements in this article were valid when this Citrix Provisioning™ version was released. Updates are made periodically. Components not covered here (such as StoreFront, host systems, and Citrix Receivers) are described in their respective documentation.

For more information about using this Current Release (CR) in a Long Term Service (LTSR) environment and other FAQ, see the Knowledge Center article.

Important:

Review the preinstallation tasks article before installing Citrix Provisioning.

Unless otherwise noted, the component installer deploys software prerequisites automatically (such as .NET elements) if the required versions are not detected on the machine. The Citrix® installation media also has some of this prerequisite software.

Note:

• During installation of the prerequisites, Citrix Provisioning installers only ask for a reboot when it is requested by the prerequisite that was installed. The Citrix Provisioning installer starts only when all prerequisites are installed.
• Microsoft Edge Webview 2 Runtime uses the Evergreen technology that updates itself if the system has access to the internet. The Citrix Provisioning installer cannot control this after it is run.
• All prerequisites are included in the Citrix Provisioning iso so that Citrix Provisioning can be installed in an environment without internet access.

Database

For the list of supported databases, see Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops- System requirements.

For information about database support for Citrix Provisioning on Microsoft Azure, see Azure database services.

The Microsoft OLE DB Driver is installed.

Note:

Currently, Citrix Provisioning does not support installing SQL Server on the same system where a production Citrix Provisioning Server instance is installed. However, this scenario is possible in the testing environment.

Database clustering is supported.

When creating databases for provisioning, ensure that the collation selected for the database is the one that ends with _CI_AS_KS. See FAQ: Recommended database collations for Citrix Products for more information. If you use the Citrix Provisioning Configuration Wizard to create the farm database, it selects collation SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.

See Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops- System requirements for information on supported SQL Server features.

Note

See Supported Databases for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Components in the Knowledge Center for additional information about supported databases and clients.

License

The Citrix Licensing Server download for this release is included with the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops™ installation media. Use the most recent Citrix License Server to get the latest features.

Important:

Citrix Provisioning servers must be connected to the License Server to operate successfully. The PVS Configuration Wizard will not complete unless a supported License Server is configured. For more information, see Licensing.

Provisioning server

Operating systems

Windows Server Standard, Datacenter, and Core editions of:

• Windows Server 2025
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2019

Refer to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops System Requirements page for a complete list of supported provisioning server operating systems.

English, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese versions are supported.

Processors

The following processors are supported:

• Intel or AMD x64 compatible; 2 GHz minimum; 3 GHz preferred

• 3.5 GHz Dual Core/HT or similar for loads greater than 250 target devices

  Note:

  To support HA in the face of Citrix Provisioning Server failure, no more than 2k target devices must be created per Citrix Provisioning Server in a site.

• Minimum of 2 cores for each Citrix Provisioning Server.

Memory sizing

The recommended memory sizing for the Citrix Provisioning Server is:

2 GiB + (Multi-Session-OS_vDisk x 4 GiB) + (Single-Session-OS_vDisk x 2 GiB) + 15% (Buffer)

Storage

A Provisioning Server can have many vDisks stored on it, and each disk can be several GB in size. Improve your streaming performance by using a RAID array, SAN, or NAS.

Note:

If you use SMB Continuous Availability (CA) features to provide high availability of the store, this might impact storage or server I/O latency due to implementation issues with the CA feature. Examples of features that provide CA for storage include:

• Microsoft Scaled Out File System: “always on”. Note that Citrix Provisioning is not a recommended application for this CA solution. See Enable Continuous Availability in existing SMB volumes
• Netapp: “Continuous Availability”
• Isilon (Dell Powerscale): Continuous Availability

There must be enough space on the hard disk to store the vDisks.

More requirements depend on several factors such as:

• Hard disk capacity – The requirements of the operating system and applications running on a target device. Citrix recommends adding 20% to the base size of the final installed image.
• Private Image Mode – The number of target devices using a virtual disk in private image mode. vDisks in private image mode must be backed up.
• Standard Image Mode – The number of target devices using a virtual disk in standard image mode. Best practice is to make a copy of every virtual disk created.

Minimum estimated common storage sizes:

• 250 MB for the database
• 5 GB on a clean Windows system
• 15 GB per virtual disk for Windows 10 images
• 64GB per virtual disk for Windows 11 images. See Windows 11 requirements

Network adaptor

• Fixed IP (either statically assigned or through a DHCP reservation) unless a DNS name is used to locate one or more login servers.
• Network connection with minimum 1Gb Ethernet, or higher preferred (10Gb Ethernet recommended for more than 250 target devices).

Note:

For information specific to network adapters for Citrix Provisioning on Microsoft Azure, see Citrix Provisioning on Microsoft Azure.

Citrix Provisioning dependencies

• Microsoft .Net Framework 4.8
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable x64 (Required by Microsoft OLE DB Driver 19 for SQL Server and Microsoft Edge Webview 2 Runtime)
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable x86 (Microsoft OLE DB Driver 19 for SQL Server)
• Microsoft OLE DB Driver 19 for SQL Server
• Citrix CDF x64
• Citrix Infrastructure Monitor Agent
• Citrix Workspace Environment Manager
• Microsoft Edge Webview 2 Runtime (Required by Citrix Remote PS SDK)
• Citrix Remote PS SDK (Only the version that ships with the PVS Release - Don’t update or change this). Citrix Telemetry Service x64

Network

The following list describes each network type and the associated port.

UDP and TCP ports

See Communication Ports Used by Citrix Technologies for a full list of TCP and UDP ports required by Citrix products.

• Provisioning server to provisioning server communication: Each provisioning server must be configured to use the same ports (UDP) to communicate with each other. At least five ports must exist in the selected port range. Configure the port range on the Stream Services dialog when running the Configuration Wizard.

  Note:

  If you are configuring for high availability, all provisioning servers selected as failover servers must reside within the same Citrix Provisioning site. High availability is not intended to cross between sites.

  Default port range (UDP): 6890–6909

• Provisioning servers to target device communication: Each provisioning server must be configured to use the same ports (UDP) to communicate with target devices using the StreamProcess. The port range is configured using the Console Network tab on the Server Properties dialog.

  Note:

  The first 3 ports are reserved for Citrix Provisioning.

  Default port range (UDP): 6910–6930

• Target device to Citrix Provisioning communication: Unlike provisioning servers to target device port numbers, which you can configure using the configuration wizard, target device to Citrix Provisioning communication cannot be configured because the client port numbers are static.

Tip:

Make sure that port 6901 is open for target device communication. If you are using the installation wizard to open ports manually, be sure to include port 6901 to prevent communication problems between the target device and provisioning server. If you have chosen to use the default settings when using the wizard, you will not have the option to manually set this port.

Ports (UDP): 6901, 6902, 6905

• Login server communication: Each provisioning server used as a login server must be configured on the Stream Servers Boot List dialog when running the Configuration wizard.

  Default port (UDP): 6910

• Citrix Provisioning console communication: The SOAP Server is used when accessing the provisioning console. The ports (TCP) are configured on the Stream Services dialog when running the Configuration Wizard. For PowerShell: MCLI-Run SetupConnection. For MCLI: MCLI Run SetupConnection.

Trivial FTP (TFTP)

• The TFTP port value used by the TFTP server is stored in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BNTFTP\Parameters Port

  Default port (TFTP): 69

Note:

You can’t change the port used for TFTP.

Citrix Provisioning console to Provisioning server communication: While using Citrix Provisioning console to specify a Citrix Provisioning server, use a hostname instead of a numeric IP address. This implementation ensures that the insecure Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) protocol is not used and might be disabled on your network.

If you want to use a numeric IP address, then you must configure the DNS reverse lookup zones to translate the IP address to a hostname.

Supported IP addresses

Citrix Provisioning supports the following types of streaming IP addresses:

• IPv4
• IPv6

Note:

Citrix Provisioning supports IPv6 streaming of only UEFI based targets. This feature is applicable to the following hypervisors:

• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• Hyper-V
• Azure
• XenServer 8

Requirements to stream targets over IPv6 are:

• Enable DHCv6: the DHCPv6 Server must include the DNS Servers option (option 23) if you want to use DNS names to locate the server to connect to.
• Routers must publish the prefix route for the IPv6 network.

Target device

In most implementations, there is a single virtual disk providing a standard image for multiple target devices. To simplify virtual disk and target device maintenance, create and maintain fewer vDisks and assign more target devices to each virtual disk.

Tip:

Citrix recommends that all Windows updates and components are current before installing Citrix Provisioning.

When provisioning target devices, consider the following:

• Citrix Provisioning only supports adding new UEFI based target devices. Existing BIOS based targets will continue to run but support for BIOS is deprecated and will be removed at some point.
• All target devices sharing the same vDisk must have certain similarities to ensure that the OS has the necessary drivers required to run properly. The three key components are the motherboard (including processor manufacturer), network card, and video card. Best practice is to use the same VM template for the master VM and provisioned VMs.
• If you use teaming, Install and configure the OEM NIC teaming software before you install the target device software.
• Dual boot virtual disk images are not supported.
• BitLocker encryption is not supported on a provisioned target device virtual disk.
• Citrix Provisioning supports layered images for Citrix App Layering functionality. See the System requirements for more information.

Supported Operating Systems

• Windows Server Standard, Datacenter, and Core editions:

  • Windows Server 2025
  • Windows Server 2022
  • Windows Server 2019
• All Microsoft supported Windows 11 versions
• All Microsoft supported 64-bit X64 Windows 10 versions except Windows 10 IoT Core and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise. See the Microsoft documentation for more information.

Refer to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops System Requirements page for a complete list of supported target device operating systems.

Consider the following when provisioning target devices:

• Citrix Provisioning supports publicly available Windows OS version at the time of the release.
• Citrix recommends that you reboot after installing each Windows update.

About Gen 2 VMs

Gen 2 VMs are supported across all operating systems.

Note:

The Streamed VM wizard setup does not support SCVMM Gen 2 VMs or templates. Therefore, can’t be used for creating SCVMM targets. The Steamed VM Wizard utility is deprecated and will be removed in the future.

Linux streaming

Using the Linux streaming feature with Citrix Provisioning, you can provision Linux virtual desktops in the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops environment. For more information about the Linux streaming feature, see Use Citrix Provisioning to create Linux VMs

See Create Linux VDAs using Citrix Provisioning for details of supported Linux distributions with Citrix Provisioning.

Ensure that you follow the installation recommendations in Streaming Linux target devices.

More dependencies

• Microsoft .Net Framework 4.8
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable x64
• Citrix CDF x64

Microsoft licensing

Consider the following when using Microsoft licensing keys with target devices:

• Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022, and Windows Server 2025 are deployed using one of:

  • Key Management Server (KMS). See KMS client activation and product keys for information.

  • Microsoft Multiple Activation Key (MAK) volume licensing keys. See Find and use product keys for volume licensing for information.

    Note:

    For MAK licensing to work, the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) for that client OS must be installed on all login servers within a farm.

  • AD Based activation. See Activate using Active Directory-based activation

• Windows Office 2010, Office 2013, and Office 2016 are deployed using KMS licensing. You must arrange for the license to be activated on every boot of each target device using either GPO or a startup script configured in the vDisk. To activate, run script <Office install location>\ospp.vbs" /act.

Both Private and Standard Image Modes support MAK, KMS and AD based activation.

File system type

• NTFS
• For Linux streaming, the following file system types are supported: EXT4, BTRFS, XFS.

Supported operating systems include English on English, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Russian versions.

Citrix Provisioning console

Processor: Minimum 1 GHz, 2 GHz preferred

Memory: Minimum 1 GB, 2 GB preferred

Hard disk: Minimum 500 MB

Operating systems:

• Windows Server Standard and Datacenter editions
  • Windows Server 2025
  • Windows Server 2022
  • Windows Server 2019
• All Microsoft supported Windows 11 versions
• All Microsoft supported Windows 10 versions

More dependencies:

• Microsoft .Net Framework 4.8
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable x64 (Required by Microsoft Edge Webview 2 Runtime)
• Citrix CDF x64
• Microsoft Edge Webview 2 Runtime (Required by Citrix Remote PS SDK)
• Citrix Remote PS SDK (Only the version that ships with the Citrix Provisioning Release. Don’t update or change this).

Note:

Don’t install both the Citrix Provisioning Console and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops MMC Studio on the same machine.

Citrix Virtual Apps™ and Desktops Setup wizard

Requirements include:

Permissions:

Tip:

Some of the permissions that are noted in this section relate only to on-premises deployments.

Consider the following:

• vCenter, Nutanix, SCVMM, and XenServer minimum permissions must be configured.
• When using the Citrix Provisioning console to provision Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops VDAs:
  • The user must be configured as a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops administrator. The administrator must also exist in the provisioning SiteAdmin group.
  • In addition, the SOAP Server user account must have Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops full administrator privileges.
  • When creating accounts in the Console, the user needs the Active Directory Create Accounts permission. To use existing accounts, Active Directory accounts have to exist in a known OU for selection.

• When using WebStudio (aka Common Stack) provisioning:

  • The studio user must be an XXXX and will be given Farm Admin rights for the Provisioning Server.
  • Audit records will include the name of the studio user.
  • When creating a machine catalog in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, the boot device file is created automatically. Creating it automatically eliminates the need to boot using PXE. An unformatted write cache disk is automatically attached and formatted on first boot.
• When updating the Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) on the virtual disk image, set the appropriate functional level for the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops catalog using the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops console. See the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops upgrade topics for more information.

SCVMM:

• The number of required connections for an SCVMM server must be greater than or equal to the number of hosted hypervisors used by the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard. For example: to set connections to 25 from a PowerShell prompt, run: winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxShellsPerUser="25"}winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxConcurrentUsers="25"}.
• For Microsoft SCVMM to support Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, run the following PowerShell command: set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted on SCVMM. For Microsoft SCVMM, verify that the MAC address for the template is not 00-00-00-00-00-00 before attempting to clone the template.
• If necessary, use the Template Properties dialog to assign a MAC address.

More requirements:

• If you are running a vCenter server on alternate ports, the following registry modifications must be made to connect to it using Citrix Provisioning: Create a new key HKLM\Software\Citrix\ProvisioningServices\PlatformEsx - Create a string in the Platform ESX key named ServerConnectionString and set it to <http://{0}:PORT\#/sdk>
• If you are using port 300, set ServerConnectionString=<http://{0}:300/sdk>.
• If you are using multiple NICs, the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard assumes that the first NIC is the Citrix Provisioning NIC. The Setup Wizard configures it as the streaming NIC. This item is the first NIC listed in the virtual machines properties.
• Citrix Provisioning only supports Gen 2 VMs with synthetic NICs when using SCVMM.
• Multi-NIC support exists for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.
• Legacy Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops agents are supported on VMs. For details, see VDA requirements in the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops documentation.

Hypervisor

The following sections include configuration information about supported hypervisors. For updated information on the supported versions, see CTX131239

Citrix Hypervisor 8.2-CU1

The template MAC address can’t be 00-00-00-00-00-00-00.

Citrix Provisioning supports Citrix Hypervisor 8.2-CU1 functionality, guest UEFI boot, and secure boot. This functionality enables VMs running Windows 10 (64-bit), or Windows Server 2019 (64-bit) to boot in UEFI mode. UEFI boot provides a richer interface for the guest operating systems to interact with the hardware, which can significantly reduce Windows VM boot times. See the XenServer documentation for more information.

Earlier releases of the Citrix Hypervisor are not supported.

XenServer 8.4 and newer

XenServer was formerly known as Citrix Hypervisor. XenServer 8 is the newer version of the product and contains the latest features and fixes. XenServer 8 is based on the same platform as Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 CU1 and so shares the same major version. For updated information on the supported versions, see CTX131239.

Secure boot in UEFI

Citrix Provisioning supports Secure Boot in UEFI on these platforms:

• Physical machines with UEFI firmware and the Secure Boot option.
• Hyper-V 2016 and later VMs that use the Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority template in the Secure Boot setting. Hyper-V 2012 R2 is not supported.
• ESX version 6.7 or later, and 7.0 update 3.
• Nutanix AHV 6.5 LTS or later.
• XenServer 8.0 and Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 LTSR CU1
• Guest UEFI boot and secure boot for Citrix 8.1 Hypervisors are supported. See the XenServer documentation for more information.

Nutanix Acropolis Prism Elements

Nutanix Acropolis Prism Elements hypervisors are supported using the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard. The following is not supported:

• Boot Device Manager (BDM) partition

For configuration information, see Deploying virtual desktops to VMs using the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Configuration Wizard.

Important:

An Acropolis hypervisor (AHV) plug-in from Nutanix that supports Citrix Provisioning is required. Download this plug-in from the Nutanix support site. See the Nutanix documentation portal for installation information.

Citrix Provisioning supports Windows 11 on Nutanix AHV 6.5 Long Term Support (LTS). Using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard, you can create single and multi-session Nutanix AHV 6.5 catalogs. For more information on Nutanix AHV, see the following Nutanix documents:

• AHV Overview
• Securing AHV VMs with vTPM

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) VMM 2019 and newer

Consider the following when configuring this type of hypervisor:

• Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2019, 2022, and 2025 are supported.
• Citrix Provisioning supports all Microsoft supported Windows 11 versions.
• Only UEFI (Gen2) based VMs using synthetic NICs are supported with SCVMM
• When creating a VMM template, make sure you select None. Customization not required as the Guest OS profile in Configure Operating System menu.

VMware vSphere ESX 7.0 and later

• Supported Citrix Provisioning PXE NIC: ESX 7.0 and newer
• Template VM and the main VM: Both must have the same guest operating system, configuration, and virtual machine version. Mismatches cause the process to stop unexpectedly.

• Citrix Provisioning and ESX VM version:

  • The virtual machine version must be changed before OS installation.
  • The template and the main VM must have the same virtual machine version.
  • Citrix Provisioning supports ESX 7.0 and later.
  • Citrix Provisioning supports all Microsoft supported Windows 11 versions.
  • Citrix Provisioning supports VMware vSAN 8.0. You can upgrade your existing vSAN environment to vSAN 8.0.
• ESX: You must choose UEFI as the boot method.
• Host record: Regardless of the ESX version, the host’s address for the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops host is the vCenter system. Do not enter the address used by the web client.

Support for Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)

Citrix Provisioning supports client using SR-IOV on the following hypervisors:

• Hyper-V
• VMware vSphere
• Azure (also known as Accelerated Networking)

Note:

For information specific to Citrix Provisioning on Microsoft Azure, see Citrix Provisioning on Microsoft Azure.

Support for cloud platforms

Citrix Provisioning supports the following cloud platforms:

• Citrix Provisioning on Microsoft Azure
• Citrix Provisioning on Google Cloud Platform
• Citrix Provisioning in Nutanix on AWS

• VMware cloud and partner solutions: The following VMware cloud variants are supported:

  • Azure VMware Solution (AVS) integration
  • VMware Cloud on AWS
  • Google Cloud VMware Engine