Earlier this week, I had a long discussion with a client (you know who you are) about what licenses they would need for a deployment of “zero client” devices. We’ve written a lot about Microsoft and Citrix licensing, about XenDesktop...
Category: Virtualization
Citrix, Licensing, Microsoft, Virtualization
Thin Clients vs. Cheap PCs
We have, for a long time, been fans of thin client devices. However, if you run the numbers, it turns out that thin clients may not necessarily be the most cost-effective client devices for a VDI deployment. Just before writing...
Best Practices, Citrix, Virtualization
Top 10 VDI Mistakes (According to Dan Feller)
Dan Feller is a Lead Architect with the Citrix Consulting group, and has written extensively about XenDesktop. We found his series on the top ten mistakes people make when implementing desktop virtualization to be quite enlightening. In case you missed...
Citrix, Virtualization
Machine Creation Services and KMS
We’ve written extensively here about the challenges of using Citrix Provisioning Services to provision VMs that require key activation (i.e., Vista, Win7, and Server 2008/2008R2). We publicly rejoiced when the news broke that PVS v5.6, SP1, supported both KMS and...
Citrix, Microsoft, Virtualization
VM Hosted Apps – and Why You Should Care
I’ve found that one of the least-understood features of XenApp is “VM hosted apps.” So, gentle reader, I thought it was time to try to bring some clarity to what is actually a very cool piece of technology, and may...
Citrix, Microsoft, Virtualization
Citrix Fixes the Provisioning Services – KMS Problem
This is big news for anyone who wants to use XenDesktop to facilitate a Windows 7 migration. Here’s why: It only takes a moment’s thought to realize that if your desktop virtualization project simply trades inexpensive desktop SATA storage for...
Citrix, Licensing, Microsoft, Virtualization
More on Provisioning Services and KMS
Last fall, we posted about Citrix Provisioning Services and Microsoft KMS activation. To briefly recap, here’s the issue: When you convert a Windows 7 OS image to a shared image for provisioning, it breaks the Microsoft license key. The way...
Citrix, Licensing, Microsoft, Virtualization
Provisioning Services, Microsoft Licenses, and KMS
Citrix Provisioning Services, which evolved from their acquisition of the Ardence technology, enables some great concepts: Since the first time a Citrix customer deployed more than one WinFrame server, we’ve struggled with the issue of change control – how do...