Part 7: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Publishing Applications and Desktops using PVS

Let’s get to the point, finally! Let’s start publishing applications. The main reason for XenApp is for it’s capability of publishing applications to many users. This post is going to cover the application publishing how to!

• Part 1: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Introduction
• Part 2: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – What’s the difference between FMA and IMA?
• Part 3: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Delivery Controller, Studio, Director, and StoreFront
• Part 4: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Site Creation
• Part 5: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Virtual Delivery Agent
• Part 6: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Configuring StoreFront
• Part 7: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Publishing Applications and Desktops using PVS
• Part 8: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Publishing Applications and Desktops using MCS
• Part 9: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Installing Receiver and Configuring Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Part 10: Deploying XenDesktop 7.6 – Installing Provisioning Services (PVS)

So, you’ve got your XenApp/XenDesktop infrastructure deployed and you’re ready to publish some apps! The first thing we need to do is create the Machine Catalog, so open up Studio Management Console and navigate to Machine Catalog -> Create Machine Catalog

Click Next on the Introduction page

On the Operating System page, select the first option “Windows Server OS” as we’re going to be deploying applications on a Windows Server Operating System

Under Machine Management page, we’re going to select the following:

• Machines that are power managed
• Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS)

For the Device collection, we’ll need to point to the provisioning server

Once connected, select the PVS collection we want to use and click on Next

Give your Machine Catalog an appropriate name and click on Finish

We now have our Machine Catalog (Base Image 2012 R2) created

The next step, is to create the Delivery Groups, so navigate to Delivery Groups -> Create Delivery Group

Click Next on the Introduction page

Select the Machine Catalog we created earlier and chose the number of machines we want to deploy for this virtual delivery group

On the Delivery Type, we’re going to chose Desktop and Applications

Define the users who will access the delivery group

Let’s go ahead and chose the applications we want to publish

For the Storefront options, we’re going to chose the option “Manually, using a Storefront server address that I will provide later” because we’re going to be using GPOs to automatically push the server address to the clients

Click on Next then Finish