Application Deployment: Citrix Receiver

Deploying the Citrix Receiver has been an ongoing challenge; if you deploy it while the user is logged in chances are you’ll kill a VDI or published app that is running and disrupt the user. Conversely if you deploy only when the user is not logged in you’re penetration of the new client is going to be slim at best.

As of SCCM CB 1702 you can now specify install behaviour which allows you to specify any executable’s that must not be running before the deployment can run.

For Citrix, when a published app or a VDI is run Wfica32.exe is called and runs for the duration of the use of the application or the VDI. So by specifying this in the install behaviour you allow you’re deployment to run as required without impacting the users active sessions. 2017-11-16_9-22-08

The second piece to this is in the deployment where you are able to specify whether to automatically these executable’s if they are running. For Citrix I opt not to do this because it’s more about the user experience.

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Where the deployment runs and Citrix is being used the user will be presented with the below prompt, keep in mind the deployment will fail but it will re-run as per your Software Deployment re-evaluation under client settings.

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For more information see – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/apps/deploy-use/deploy-applications