Yet another experience posting: Citrix XenDesktop 4 Express – part 1
Two months ago, I heard Citrix was giving away a free VDI version called XenDesktop Express for a maximum of 10 users. The general idea is that you can experience the Citrix product advantages without investing anything but time and hardware. I downloaded it but didn’t have time to actually get some hands-on experience until last Wednesday.
I had some time on my hands and I got this crazy idea: why not try out XenDesktop for kicks. So I unpacked the ZIP file with the ISO’s, a license file and an idiotproof instruction video. In all my enthousiasm, I installed a Windows 2008 server on my VMware host, uploaded the Citrix Desktop Controller ISO to my ISO store and mounted it. First disappointment: a screen informing me that this product ONLY works on a Windows 2003 server. Excuse me? This is supposed to be modern technology and it only runs on a 8 year old platform?
OK, so back to the drawing board. Watch the vid first. It starts with an installation of XenServer, which I don’t need as a virtual platform is already in place. I skipped the XenServer part and moved to the Xen Desktop Controller installation. The vid states “for this example we use a Windows 2003 server..”. It never states you CANNOT RUN it on a Windows 2008 server. Ah well, let’s not criticize all the small details. Moving on, start the installation of XDC. Erm, I’m not quite there yet. I first need to build me a 2003 server. I already deleted all ancient ISO’s from my ISO store so I need to put one up first.
So, I uploaded a Windows 2003 ISO, installed a fresh new server and started again. The installation procedure first installs IIS as part of it’s requirements (webaccess) but then it starts installing the various components. After installing the prerequisites, the license server and the webaccess server, I am confronted with this:
How I love errors like this. It really reminds of you of the old days, in more ways than one. (Personally, I always read errors like this as a ‘fuck you’ message, they piss me off) And it really was becoming the old days. I dived into this nice-to-find and easy-to-read logfile (8 megs of plain text lines to scroll through) to find the following message:
- Saturday, March 27, 2010 13:57:30: Installation of MSI File ‘Z:\w2k3\en\Citrix Presentation Server\MPS.msi’ failed with code ‘1603’
- Saturday, March 27, 2010 13:57:30: Failed to install component ‘Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller’
- Saturday, March 27, 2010 13:57:30: Recording installation failure from component ‘Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller’
- Saturday, March 27, 2010 13:57:30: Installation failed
Excuse me? Presentation Server? How oldschool is this?! Anyway, if you dig into the eventlogs of the server, you find even more ancient artifacts:
- Product: Citrix Presentation Server for Windows — Error 1904. Module C:\Program Files\Citrix\system32\icaperf.dll failed to register. HRESULT -2147220991. Contact your support personnel.
Jolly, I am my own support personnel, gents.. not cool. If you search the net for this message, it turns up nada. If you dig a bit deeper, it seems that it has to do with the good old Windows performance counters errors, language settings and acces rights. The articles I found are all dated back to the day that Windows 2003 was all new and most of us still ran Windows 2000. Eventid.net, one site you probably all know, even pointed me to fixed that are not available any longer.
Anyway, as the other boys know me, I’m not a person known for his unlimited patience. In fact, it’s more the opposite. So I will put this project aside for now until I find the motivation to give it another go. There are some things that I’d like to point out though:
- The ‘instruction video’ states you should be finished within 90 minutes. After nerding around for at least 4 hours, it still is far from up and running. So much for that statement
- The message about “Presentation Server” brought me back to the old days of Citrix. Finding this message in ‘modern’ technology makes me go ‘hmm’ about Citrix clean-up policy in their installation packages.
- Also, the requirement of Windows 2003 points out, in my opinion, that this product isn’t the latest technology around
- Even with no configuration at all and all settings done in the ‘next-next-finish” way, this ‘easy to install’ package is certainly not as easy. Searching the net doesn’t point you to an immediate solution apart from alot of forum messages at Citrix where the majority of the offered solutions require you to do some manual (or even programming) labour.
I must say that it is pretty disappointing. Even with Citrix in cooperation with Microsoft in their ‘V-Alliance’ are moving up to position their VDI solution based on this XenDesktop, this product, to me, looks far from ‘the razors edge’ of technique.
Now I know that all you Citrix lovers out there will want to hunt me down and shoot me for this, but my experience here is pretty clear. It looks like it that in a extremely simple straight forward ‘next-next-finish’ scenario with a product to propagate a VDI solution, it simply fails to do the most basic thing: installing..
I will try to troubleshoot this and get back to you all with my experiences.
…to be continued..
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Try copying the installer files to a local drive and installing from there.
I've come across similar issues with Citrix installers before when running straight from the ISO/CD.
Hi Alex, I completely understand you're feelings about this. As a Senior Consultant, working on Desktop Virtualization Projects since 4 years, I know View, XenDesktop, Redhat, Microsoft and IBM's Desktop Virtualization Solutions. For sure, you have to understand from where Citrix is coming, and it's really not easy to understand why it's so complicated. I did now 3 middle sized XD 4 Projects and now you know the small parts you should think about before you start installing XD4.
I'm still believing in VMWare's View4.5 Solution but it comes very slowly and I'm really not very happy about this way to do politics but they lost the path for a while. Let's stick together and help VMWare to build a great complete solution to show Citrix how it can go. For comments I'm very happy to read from all of you!
First disappointment: a screen informing me that this product ONLY works on a Windows 2003 server. Excuse me? This is supposed to be modern technology and it only runs on a 8 year old platform?
nice to know that VMware view 4 only supports Windows XP and not Windows 7.. so VMWare's VDI solution only works with Windows XP…. (9 year old)
i visited the official implementing xen desktop 3/4 training the last two days.
And yes, the ddc is just a abused presentation server. Take a look at the policies. Copy of Presentation Server polices, managed by the Presentation Server Console (the old java console, not mmc).
The training was for citrix partners only and all of us agreed that xendesktop (and also vmware view of course) will not a BIG strategic product.. Maybe for hoster who will provide full desktop. But in companys? I dont think so…
True, View 4 does not officially support Windows 7 yet but it is compatible with Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Ultimate, Business or Enterprise, AND Windows 7.
Though the Windows 7 support is subject to discussion because support is 'Experimental'. This does not mean it is not supported but VMware support is based on best effort (if I'm informed correctly).
Back on XD. XD doesn't even install on Win 2008 so it isn't even compatible. So in my opinion Alex does have a point. Besides that, the issue is not only ancient product support but primarily the 'ease' of the installation. Installation and configuration should nowadays be pretty straightforward, the time when we had to edit config files and autoexec's is long gone. So, if I read Alex's report, Citrix has a long way to go with XD…….
If funny the article says that Citrix Xendesktop don't support windows 2008 but sorry is the View Composer support 2008??? the answer is NO. besides of that Xendesktop is by far more complete solution then View and support windows7 32Bits and 64Bits (i am already using windows 7 64bits over Xendesktop4 and is GREAT!)
Broker for terminal server and VDI
Citrix yes,
Vmware View Yes
Terminal server solution
Citrix Yes
Vmware NO
SSL VPN or Web SSL only
Citrix yes
Vmware NO
Protocol
Citrix ICA
Vmware PCOIP
Citrix better provide a better user experience, support more client devices(Iphone,Linux,windows,MACetc) , more features(Voip, webcam,Media stream…etc
Provision desktop
Citrix PVS
Vmware Clones
Citrix solution is agnostic(you can stream to Physical machines,Thin client,Virtual Desktop,server etc) Vmware Clones works only with ESX
Single Sign-on product
Citrix Yes
Vmware no
Record VDI on Terminal session
Citrix yes
Vmware no
Windows Profile Management
Citrix Yes
Vmware yes
Monitoring and reporting tool
Citrix yes
Vmware no
Remote support tool VDI session
Citrix yes (Goto Assist)
Vmware no
Besides of this comparison there other component that help on the delivery
Wanscaler solution
Citrix YES
Vmware NO
An overall idea of what each company have today to support solutions.
Regards
Jorge
Jorge,
You are comparing a lot of things 1 to 1 but its more like apples with pears in my opinion, why should VMware have a terminal server solution? If you have a VDI you don't need a terminal server solution. Both companies do nice and good things to help our customers. Both have their own approach how they see a VDI solution. Citrix sees a virtual desktop as part of a wider range for mixed environments and hybrid ones, while VMware just delivers a virtual desktop through VMware View for customers who need a virtual desktop for their users. For both approaches their will be customers.
While comparing the whole range of products from Citrix, you missed a lot of great solutions from VMware where Citrix does not have any product in that segment. VMware brings a lot of nice solutions like SRM, VMware Workstation, Lab Manager and many more.
It is good that there is competition between more vendors so our customers benefit from the battle. But the whole post above was not about comparing the one with the other it is just to point out that Alex is a bit disappointed about some things he encountered during testing Citrix XenDesktop 4 Express.
Edwin,
Why? so why vmware is start broke terminal session(not very well but is a start)? i guess that see value otherwise they simple
don't “waste” their time build bits to something that they haven't in their protofolio.
i have put terminal server solution for a simple reason what the users need for doing their work? applications! most of VDI cases can fit in a Terminal solution with much better ROI (Hardware requirements,storage,windows licensing, user density per box double of the user at the minimum, installation,etc), for the rest of the cases delivery a VDI a solution.
This allow customer choose for each their departments the best solution with the best ROI and not only one single option VDI and for that Citrix is in a better position because can delivery both with the best user experience and cost (a xendesktop license give access to both solution), plus if you have a terminal server solution you can also access from a VDI session to that applications too reducing on that way the CPU cycles of the server and the memory requirement of each virtual machine.
About the the Lab Manager and SRM Citrix have that too, you can check that in Citrix website.
I forgot to mention in my previous comment about printing (very important)
Citrix yes
Vmware no..OEM with thinprint.
i made my comment because who read felt that is a bad product but today is the best product and give more solution options comparing with Vmware, but i guess your opinion is a bit different then mine :)
@Jorge,
I totally agree with you that at this moment Citrix, with XenDesktop, has the more mature product although I think you're comparison is a little bit far fetched and has some errors.
But Alex's post was not intended as a comparison. It discusses his experience with setting up a XenDesktop environment and although the Citrix product is more mature at the moment the install lacks some ease and usability. With the new version of VMware View coming up I think Citrix should improve on these areas to keep their current advantage. And believe me, I'm currently beta testing the new View version and I think it is a huge step forward.
Bottom line:Sure Citrix has an advantage but with the new View version(s) VMware is going to give Citrix a run for their money!
I built a complete host/xenserver/ddc and VM in less than an hour following the video and I'm a VM novice…
It wasn't difficult.
Don't understand. Not having any troubles installing xendesktop. Easy to install without any errors!!! Had my first vdi desktop up and running in about 1 hour. Using WAN it is the better product. I think it's Alex who did an incorrect installation?
Very non elegant install process. I am on day two and it was no fun. DDC quit in mid stream. I hope when I am don it is worth the trouble. clunky at best also. Still using 2003?
The original post above is refering to the windows 2003 server not being part of a domain. He said he installed windows 2003 from ISO thus I gathered this is still in a workgroup right?