vmware vmtools installation with XenDesktop VDA

December 2016 – Blog post updated : http://www.archy.net/vmware-vmtools-installation-with-xendesktop-xenapp-7-x-vdas/

This is the personalized installation I do when I deploy vmtools on the VMs with VDA to install on it. Don’t forget to install vmtools before Citrix Virtual Desktop Agent !

It always good to have this information shared because I had a lot of question regarding vmware vmtools installation with Citrix XenDesktop VDAs.

Toolbox – Enable – Used for functions like time synchronization and clean shutdown of guest.

Memory Control Driver – Enable – Driver for improved memory management in the virtual machine. This driver is available and recommended if you use VMware vSphere. Excluding this driver hinders the memory management capabilities of the virtual machine in a vSphere deployment.

Thin Print Driver – Disable – Handled by Citrix printing in VDA.

Paravirtual SCSI – Disable – Used in high I/O operation with SAN and mostly is applicable to Server VMs and not VDA. This driver is for PVSCSI adapters, which enhance the performance of some virtualized applications.

Mouse Driver – Enable – Needs the mouse driver as it improves fixes in glitches with the mouse.

File System Sync Driver – Disable – Driver for the synchronization of the file system within the virtual machine. For example, for preparation of backups. Only used if you have dedicated VMs and used agents in VMs to backup VMs. In VDA environments most common settings is profile management in which data is moved to a share as opposed to being local on VMs.

Shared Folders – Disable – Directory for data exchange between host system and guest system. Currently only works with VMware Workstation and have seen it cause a lot of synchronization issues.

SCSI Driver – Enable – Installs and improves BusLogic SCSI driver. If you use LSI Logic this driver is not required.

SVGA Driver – Disable – We want to use the Citrix VGA adapter and not the VMware VGA. Use CTX 123952 (below) as work around if using Windows 7.

Audio Driver – Enable – Needs audio driver to playback sound. This sound driver is required for all 64-bit Windows guest operating systems and 32-bit Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista guest operating systems if you use the virtual machine with VMware Server, Workstation, or Fusion.

VMXNet NIC Driver – Enable – Network card driver for the VMXNet VMware network card. Improves network performance of the virtual machine, especially in gigabit environments. Furthermore the CPU usage is not as high as with AMD PCNet32. Using this driver requires a modification in the configuration file of the guest system.

VMXNet3 NIC Driver – Enable – Network card driver for the VMXNet3 VMware network card. Improves network performance of the virtual machine, especially in gigabit environments. Furthermore the CPU usage is not as high as with AMD PCNet32. Using this driver requires a modification in the configuration file of the guest system.

VMCI Drivers – Disable – The Virtual Machine Communication Interface driver allows fast and efficient communication between virtual machines. Developers can write client-server applications to the VMCI Sock (vsock) interface to make use of the VMCI virtual device.

Wyse Multimedia Support – Disable – Driver to enhance the remote desktop multimedia experience.

Guest SDK  – Enable – Allow applications in the guest to access information about virtual machine state and performance.

If you have any comment, just post bellow and share your experiences !