Citrix Provisioning Services is a great solution for the rapid deployment of Windows workloads from a master image. However, rapid deployment is not a replacement for a consistent, repeatable method of creating that master image.

Adobe Reader XI is now available and along with this release comes some interesting tools for deployment:

Note: this article covers a product that is in beta at the time of writing; therefore the specifics of the approach outlined in this article may be subject to change. This is not a recommendation to use this approach in production; rather it’s an exercise in understanding what’s possible with a new data synchronisation product.

Rory asks via Twitter - can we pre-cache App-V packages on laptop clients so that all applications are available offline, using AppSense Environment Manager?:

It’s a simple task to virtualize Firefox, as it lends itself well to application virtualization; however getting it right takes a little more effort. I’ve previously shown you how to sequence Firefox 8, Firefox 7 and Firefox 5. Before embarking on sequencing Firefox, please refer to this companion article - Prepare Mozilla Firefox for Enterprise Deployment and Virtualization - which covers configuring a Firefox installation for virtualizing. It’s important that Firefox is configured correctly for virtualization by disabling specific features..

There’s one thing that I can’t get enough of when automating Windows deployments, it’s ambiguous and confusing error messages. More please, I’m a sucker for punishment.

Deploying Citrix Receiver (full or Enterprise) via an unattended command-line, may result in the installer running indefinitely and not completing until you interact with the target machine.

I shared a lightning round session at BriForum London 2012 with Dan Brinkmann. I rolled two lightning rounds (including Should Office Be in the Base Image?) into one with The Definitive Guide to delivering Office with App-V.