Remote PC

Last Modified: Aug 20, 2024 @ 8:53 am

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Remote PC Catalog

  1. In Citrix Studio, create a Machine Catalog.
  2. In the Introduction page, click Next.
  3. In the Operating System page, select Remote PC Access, and click Next.
  4. In the Machine Accounts page, click Add OUs.
  5. Browse to an OU containing office PCs. Check the box next to Include subfolders, and click OK.
  6. Then click Next.
  7. Name the catalog Remote PC or similar, and then click Finish.
  8. After the Catalog is created, you can Edit Machine Catalog to add more OUs.

  9. Or explicitly add individual machines to the Catalog.

Remote PC Delivery Group

  1. Create a Delivery Group.
  2. In the Introduction page, click Next.
  3. In the Machines page, highlight the Remote PC catalog, and click Next.
  4. Add users that can access the Remote PCs, and then click Next.
  5. In the Desktop Assignment Rules page, adding an entry here will let users connect to unassigned machines. If you don’t add anything here, then users can only connect to machines to which they’ve been explicitly assigned. Click Next.
  6. In the Summary page, enter a name for the Delivery Group, and then click Finish.
  7. Click Yes when prompted that there are no desktops to deliver.

Remote PC Citrix Policy

  • Citrix Policy 2106 and newer have a User Setting (user half of GPO) named Disconnected session timer for Remote PC Access.

    • Make sure you also configure the Disconnected session timer interval.

Multiple Users per PC

Citrix CTX137805 How to Switch Off Remote PC Access Multiple User Assignment in XenDesktop 7.x: By default, when using Remote PC Access in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD), anybody that logs into the console session of the physical PC is automatically assigned to the Catalog machine in Citrix Studio. This can result in multiple users assigned to the same machine. For IT desktop support staff that routinely log into multiple PCs to support them, the IT staff could see many more machines in StoreFront than they intend.

To stop this, on every Delivery Controller, configure the following registry value so only the first user to log on to the machine after it has registered with the Citrix Broker service gets assigned to the machine. You can still manually assign users to machines using Studio or Director.

  • HKLM\Software\Citrix\DesktopServer\
    • AllowMultipleRemotePCAssignments (DWORD) = 0

Wake On LAN

As of CVAD 2012, this SCCM integration feature has been deprecated. The replacement Wake on LAN feature in CVAD 2009 and newer no longer needs SCCM and is configured using PowerShell as detailed at Configure Wake on LAN at Citrix Docs.

If you have SCCM configured for Wake On LAN, you can connect Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) to SCCM to power manage the Remote PC machines.

  1. In Citrix Studio, go to Configuration, right-click Hosting, and click Add Connection and Resources.
  2. In the Connection page, change the selection to Create a new connection.
  3. Change the Connection type to Microsoft Configuration Manager Wake on LAN.
  4. Enter the SCCM server’s FQDN.
  5. Enter SCCM credentials. The SCCM credentials you specify must include collections in the scope, and the Remote Tools Operator role.
  6. Give the Connection a name, and click Next.
  7. In the Summary page, click Finish.
  8. Edit the Remote PC Machine Catalog.
  9. In the Power Management page, change the selection to Yes, and click OK

Install VDA on PC

  1. On the PC, install .NET Framework 4.8 (or newer).
  2. Disable power saving options (e.g. Hibernate, Sleep, etc.)
  3. If Wake on LAN is desired, configure the PC’s BIOS and NIC to enable Wake on LAN.
  4. Download Standalone Single-session OS (aka Desktop OS) installers for Virtual Delivery Agent 2407, Virtual Delivery Agent 2402 LTSR CU1, Virtual Delivery Agent 2203 LTSR CU5, or Virtual Delivery Agent 1912 LTSR CU9.
    1. The standalone VDA installers are in the Components that are on the product ISO but also packaged separately section.
    2. The Single-session OS Core Services VDA is designed specifically for Remote PC and is the smallest installer available.  However, the Core Services installer does not include Profile Management, which means Director cannot show you logon durations.
  5. Remote PC is typically installed on many distributed PCs. Use a software deployment tool to install the VDA package using CLI parameters. See Use the standalone VDA installer at Citrix Docs for more information.
  6. For Teams Redirection and Browser Content Redirection (BCR) in VDA 1912 and older, use the full VDA installer with the /remotepc switch: 
    VDAWorkstationSetup_1912.exe /quiet /remotepc /controllers "xdc01.corp.local xdc02.corp.local" /enable_hdx_ports /noreboot
  7. VDA 2003 and newer support Teams Redirection and Browser Content Redirection (BCR) in the Core Services installer: 
    VDAWorkstationCoreSetup_2407.exe /quiet /controllers "xdc01.corp.local xdc02.corp.local" /enable_hdx_ports /enable_hdx_tls_dtls /noresume /noreboot
    • If you instead use the full VDA installer (VDAWorkstationSetup_2407.exe) in VDA 2206 and newer, see Citrix Docs for the syntax. For example, VDA 2206 and newer require the /remotepc and /physicalmachine switches.
    • /enable_hdx_tls_dtls is for HDX Direct in CVAD 2311 and newer.
  8. CTX256820 When a user connects to his physical VDA using Remote PC Access, the monitor layout order changes.
    1. On the Remote PC machine, in regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\Graphics
    2. Create a DWORD named  UseSDCForLocalModes and set it to 1.
  9. Vrajesh Subrahari at Remote PC Solution Issue – The virtual machine ‘Unknown’ cannot accept additional sessions at Citrix Discussions recommends disabling Fast Boot.
    1. On the Remote PC machine, in regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power\.
    2. Set HiberbootEnabled to 0.
  10. After the machine is rebooted, if the machine is in one of the OUs assigned to the Remote PC Catalog, then the machine will be automatically added to the Catalog and the Delivery Group.
  11. When somebody logs into the console of the machine, that user will be automatically assigned to the machine. You can use the Change User link on the right to change or add users. Multiple users can be assigned to one machine.

  12. When the user logs into StoreFront, the user will see the actual machine name.
  13. In CVAD 2407 and newer, the Machine Allocation page lets you change the machine Display name shown to the user.

    • Or the name displayed in StoreFront can be changed by running Set-BrokerPrivateDesktop MyMachine -PublishedName MyDisplayName.
  14. When viewing machines in Studio or Director, there’s a new column for Desktop Display Name.

Remote PC Maintenance

Assign/Un-assign users – There are four methods of assigning users to desktops:

  • Let Remote PC do it automatically. The first user that logs into the physical machine will be assigned to the desktop. If single user mode is not enabled then all other users that log into the machine will also be assigned to the desktop.
  • In Citrix Studio, find the machine, right-click it, and click Change User.
  • In Director, go to machine details and click Manage Users.
  • Use PowerShell: 
    asnp citrix.*
Remove-BrokerUser -Machine 'CORP\WIN1002' -Name 'CORP\user01'
Add-BrokerUser -Machine 'CORP\WIN1002' -Name 'CORP\user01'

Rename desktop icon – For Remote PC, the icon displayed to the user is the actual machine name. This sometimes is not very intuitive. The name displayed to the user can be changed by running a PowerShell command.

asnp citrix.*
Set-BrokerPrivateDesktop CORP\WIN10002 -PublishedName "Users Desktop"

Display last login time for the machines – Use the following PowerShell to display desktops sorted by when they were last used. Adjust the date filter as desired. You can manually remove the older machines or pipe the results to Remove-BrokerMachine.

asnp citrix.*

Get-BrokerDesktop -CatalogName "Remote PC" -filter {LastConnectionTime -le "2015-02-28"} 
-property AssociatedUserNames,MachineName,LastConnectionTime | Sort-Object LastConnectionTime

The above PowerShell command uses the -filter and -property switches. These switches process the filtering on the server-side, which improves performance.

172 thoughts on “Remote PC”

  1. Thanks, Carl, for all these great articles. Any tips/recommendations on migrating (2k+) Remote PC Machine Catalog to a new farm? Currently, a GPO is handling the VDA registration which will need to be updated. Also, the MC is configured for an OU that include the sub-OU. There are a few users who have multiple Remote PCs. Is there a way to export/Import to the new farm?

    Reply

  2. Random question: I’m currently chasing down a issue that we are having with our Remote PC environment.

    Issue: When an end user has a local session running and then leaves and tries to remote back in, they receive a message stating no available sessions. Thoughts?

    Reply

  3. Hi Carl, really appreciate all these guides you do! I have set this up for one of our users that has a VM in Azure he uses for development. He has been logging in to VDI (Citrix Cloud Azure Windows 10) and then remoting on to the development VM. I said I’d look at setting up Remote PC to cut out the middle man (VDI) so he can connect to the development VM directly.

    Everything installed fine, and the VM is registered and assigned to the user, but when he launches a session, he just gets a grey screen, and the session doesn’t even show in Web Studio.

    We use FAS, and all the settings are applied to the development VM via GPO, which matched the VDI config.

    I’m stumped! Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks

    Reply

    1. Are you doing Rendezvous protocol? Is the outbound firewall open from the Remote PC?

      Any GPUs in the Remote PC?

      Any proxy servers or other content inspection firewalls?

      Reply

      1. Hi Carl,

        Not using Rendezvous, and the firewall is open outbound as I checked it was the same as the current VDI firewall.

        No GPU’s just a standard D4s v3 VM. No proxies in play here either.

        Thanks

        Reply

  4. Is there a way on a Citrix Remote PC VDA device to allow the end user access but not allow RDP for the end user?

    Reply

    1. Isn’t that the default for non-admins? Usually, non-admins must be added to local Direct Access Users group to allow RDP.

      Reply

  5. Hi Carl,
    I installed the VDA with remote pc access, on a Win10 VM.
    I configured the machine catalog and map the virtual VM.
    I create a delivery with the virtual VM.
    The VM is registered on Citrix Cloud Apps and Desktop without issues.
    But how should I connect on the VM, if I open the Citrix Workspace the VM doesn’t appear like other VM created with MCS ? why ?

    Reply

  6. Hi Carl, what is the difference between Citrix Remote pc, installing with virtual apps and desktops.iso and VDAWorkstationCoreSetup.exe?

    Reply

    1. VDAWorkstationCoreSetup.exe is much smaller and only contains the installs that Remote PC needs. It’s designed for software deployment (e.g. SCCM) so you only push a few hundred MB instead of a few GB.

      Reply

  7. Anyone seeing issues doing an in place upgrade on physical systems with the VDA installed? It seems like the service doesn’t startup after the in place upgrade reboot. Not sure if its just us or a known issue. I cannot find the issue listed in Citrix’s known issues list.

    Reply

  8. Hello Carl,

    we have set up a Machine Catalog based on an OU and linked it to a new Delivery Group. The Controller managed to add all Clients from the OU into the new Machine Catalog.
    Now the following problem occures: When we move a new Client into the OU, it often takes a very long time for the Client to appear in the Collection. Some times it happens after seconds, sometimes it takes over 24 hours. Is there a special trigger we could use to rescan the OU?

    Thank you very much

    Reply

  9. Hi, Carl.
    For example, I have catalog of 220 RemotePCs and 200 Virtual Desktop licenses.
    Each PC has assigned user. Most of users never logs off from PCs and disconnects just pressing button Disconnect in Workspace. So I have never more than 150 simultaneously connected sessions.
    However all desktop sessions status is always “active” and consumes license.
    Is it possible to tell Citrix server somehow to count only active connections for licensing?

    Reply

  10. I am seeing an issue with a remote PC running VDA 2103 registered on 1912 CU1 DDC where after the user disconnects from their machine the DDC is still reporting that user as connected with an active session. I am able to reproduce this issue with my own account so I can confirm the workspace dropdown is being used and the option to disconnect is being selected, so this is not an issue with an abrupt loss of connection. Other than this issue, the machine catalog and delivery group created work fine and I am able to access the target machine through the storefront successfully. The only way I can get the connection status to update in director/studio is to log the user out of the machine completely. I have tried multiple versions of the VDA and still the same issue. Any suggestions?

    Reply

  11. Hi Carl, do you know if it’s possible to remove the PublishedName of a PC after it has been set? I tried Set-BrokerPrivateDesktop “ComputerName” -PublishedName “” but it gives me an error saying “The argument length is not within the required range.” I’m guessing it doesn’t like an empty string… so how to make it null again? Thanks!

    Reply

  12. Hi Carl, when a local user PResses Ctrl+Alt+DEL on my machine while I have the HDX session connected, the session is dropped and a lock screen appears at Local machine end.
    i have added the SASNotification under POrtICA regkey with DWORD value =1 , still wont help. Any idea how I can fix this?

    Reply

  13. Carl , great gem of a site
    I’m having an issue and can’t quite wrap my head around it or find solution / workaround.
    I’ve opened a ticket with Citrix …waiting for response
    I Connect to remote pc vda 3 screen setup and every reconnect all my windows layout moves around. mostly on screen 1 and 2.
    I connect to a virtual desktop using same citrix and windows account with same 3 screen setup and windows layout remains intact at reconnect.
    If another user logs into my remote pc vda from my setup at home they are fine with layout.
    If I log into a different remote pc vda I again have the same issue with layout.

    I’ve tried from my setup or someone else’s ….the only constant is my account on VDA cannot save “windows” applications layouts on reconnect.

    I’ve tried the fix for monitor changing positions
    I have not tried the fix for icons ( however I have done the right click refresh before disconnecting )
    all images are windows 10 same issue on 1809 and 1909 build

    I’ve also recreated local profile on windows
    my question could also be where does Citrix save windows and applications positions on disconnect and reconnect
    I would then be able to monitor if the file attempts to save

    Thank you any help will be greatly appreciated

    Reply

  14. Hi Carl and thanks for all the great docs you provide on your blog.

    I got a short question: I installed the VDA on my PC and set up everythign on the farm and it is working as expected, but:
    Whenever I am working locally on my PC and open ANY citrix app (published app from a terminal server) for the first time, my local session gets locked as citrix tries to roam my console session to a remote session via the workspace app.

    For our deployment it is required that the remote pc access is also available In-House in rare cases.

    Is it possible to disable that behaviour? For example only roam the session when the console session is disconnected (locked)?
    I tried
    `Set-BrokerEntitlementPolicyRule ‘Workstation-Access’ -SessionReconnection DisconnectedOnly`
    But that seems to be only available for multisession delivery groups.

    Reply

      1. Hi Carl,

        Sorry, I know it’s an old post… I have a question regarding the link you refer to.

        When we attempted to upgrade the Receiver client on a XenApp 6.5 published Desktop with the newer Workspace app, we experienced the issue mentioned by Alex, specifically with users connecting with thin clients.

        We temporarily reverted and researching the issue I had found the article you referred to. We haven’t unfortunately had a chance to test the new setting yet, with remote work, covid and limited resources…

        But my question is, wouldn’t changing the reconnect mode change the roaming behavior of users? With users moving between stations, wouldn’t this prevent them from reconnecting to sessions when they connect to a different station?

        Thanks

        Btw, long time lurker, first time poster, love your site, it’s a treasured reference!

        Reply

  15. Should AppDisk VDA plugin be installed when running the VDA install via command line? I noticed it being included even with the /remotepc switch

    Reply

  16. I have an odd issue and havent been able to find a solution. I have created a Remote PC Access Machine Catalogue and added some physical workstations paired with users, then created a Delivery Group and assigned the Machine Catalogue to the Delivery Group (without a Desktop Assignment Rule as we want them manually assigned). This works great. However when adding a new machine to the Machine Catalogue, I cant seem to get it assigned to the Delivery Group… When looking at the Catalogues tab on the Delivery Group, I can see the number of machines in the assigned catalogue has gone up, but when looking at the Desktops tab, it hasn’t…. Using the “Add Machine” button results in an error that its already assigned…

    How do i get the Delivery Group to update with the newly added machines ?

    Reply

  17. If the remote local host accessing Remote PC is a Mac, can printers be made available? I can see local storage, but not locally connected (USB) printers. WiFi printing would be awesome, but even USB would do.

    Reply

  18. Hello Carl!

    Firstly: Great job you do!
    My question: I face black monitors on W10 notebooks when installing Remote PC VDA on them. Happens after a reboot. Monitor on dockingstation is not detected any more than. Unplug the dock and replug helps if only 1 monitor attached. If 2 are attached, only 1 gets detected again. Anyone already has also facedc this issue and maybe already has a solution?

    Thanks

    Reply

  19. Any Recommendations for fine-tuning of remote pc access on Citrix XenDesktop 7.15 ltsr cu5???
    Since the user is using his remote PC with Citrix and connected the Citrix storefront URL through a third-party VPN. ( Not using Netscaler )
    Citrix infrastructure in on-premise.
    Remote PC is having 3D graphical applications installed on it and user wants high definition experience. ( No lag in performance )

    FYI – the endpoint is having 10 Mbps dedicated bandwidth ( Work from Home)

    Reply

    1. The newest VDA has the newest Citrix codecs, which should perform better.

      VDA 1912 and newer supports EDT MTU Discovery.

      Reply

      1. If VDA version (ex: 7.15 CU6/1912) is higher than the studio version (say 7.15 CU5), will it affect citrix policies ability to apply effectively ?

        Reply

  20. Hi Carl,

    Do session limits apply to Remote PCs (when published as a desktop)?

    Thanks and Regards,
    Vaibhav

    Reply

  21. Carl,
    Do you have any suggestions or best practices regarding the Citrix Policies assigned to Remote PC Access? I would assume they would be much the same as other VDA connections but I’d like to optimize the experience for my customers.
    Thank you.

    Reply

  22. I’m sure every other org is in the same boat now, but RemotePC currently has a lot of shine on it. We’re trying to make it DR capable in the short term; we have a separate site built out in another datacenter and we were hoping to export the current Machines/AssignedUsers from the Active site to a CSV and then import those machines/assignedusers to the DR site in the case of an event. At the moment we can’t just join these delivery controllers to the existing site. However, we’re running into some issues with machines that have multiple users assigned (a few PCs do need multiple assignments and some are support staff/test machines).

    here’s what we are trying to use at the moment:
    get-brokermachine -adminaddress DeliveryControllerName -desktopgroupname “remotepc” | Select MachineName, @{l=”AssignedUserSIDs”;e={$_.AssignedUserSIDs -join “;”}} | export-csv C:\test.csv -append -notypeinformation

    The issue i guess is we need the AssignedUserSIDs converted to SamAccountNames and associated with the proper Machines still. Has anyone else ran into this issue and found a solution? Or a citrix provided script possibly? Thanks!

    Reply

      1. I have not yet but I certainly will look into it. Doing a quick read that may not work for us though as it says it does it in batches of 500. We have several thousand RemotePCs in our environment so we’d have to run it multiple (30+) times. Thanks!

        Reply

    2. I searched high and low to find a way to nightly export all of the users and computers that we had added to our RemotePC deployment.

      The following has worked for me:

      Get-BrokerMachine -AdminAddress “Controllername:80” -MaxRecordCount 10000 -Filter “((DesktopGroupName -eq `”DeliveryGroupName`”))” | Select {$_.AssociatedUserNames}, {$_.DNSName}, {$_.RegistrationState} | Export-csv -path c:\remotepc.csv

      Just replace Controllername with the FQDN of your controller and replace DeliveryGroupName with the name of your RemotePC Delivery Group name.

      You can remove the RegistrationState info, as I don’t think you would need that.

      You’d then just need to create a new csv file from the exported info in order to Import the computers & users and then upload to your DR site. You may have to use the Excel Concatenate formula to adjust the computernames into a Domain\computer name format for the import csv file. That’s the way I have been uploading into my Machine Catolog. But maybe the fully qualified machine name from the export will also work.

      The above will show the multiple user names associated with a computer, however, you may have to manually adjust those for the import csv. I have not yet tried importing multiple user names per computer.

      Reply

      1. The reason we didn’t use AssociatedUserNames is because sometimes that doesn’t always match up to who is actually assigned to the device. We have multiple PCs that show 2+ AssociatedUserNames but when we look at who is actually assigned in studio (AssignedUserSIDs) there is only 1 person. When users log into the RemotePC they are not automatically assigned. I suppose it has to do with how RemotePC was setup but i assume you don’t encounter this in your environment?

        Reply

  23. Hi Carl great document!
    Is it possible to start remote pc when another user is logged on? like remote desktop when you can disconnect user?

    Reply

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