In my environment I have nearly 100 persistent MCS VDAs. Our developers, contractors, and even us IT people need the ability to change things on our VDI desktops (install/uninstall/set registry/create local IIS sites/etc.) and have them persist reboots. Luckily, the only software I have to maintain on these desktops is the VDA itself. That still means when Citrix releases a new version that I want to move to, I have to upgrade almost 100 individual desktops. The last time I had to do this I wanted to rip my hair out, and decided to write a script to automate the task. It has saved me TONS of time, so I want to share it in hopes that it can save someone else some time (and hair).
I wrote the script specifically for my MCS environment, which runs on XenServer, but with a little tweaking it can be modified for any environment.
How it works (the short version):
- Gets the computer(s) you set – can be manual input or a delivery controller query
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On each computer it will create 2 scripts, and 2 scheduled tasks
- The first script loads auto logon info into the registry
- The second script handles the vda removal and install
- One scheduled task runs once to run the first script and reboot
- The second scheduled task runs the second script at logon (first script sets up a user – in my case the local administrator – to logon automatically)
Most things are explained in the script, and this time I’ve also created a youtube video to go through it all/show it in action.