Citrix Provisioning – Create Devices

Last Modified: Aug 12, 2021 @ 4:15 am


This article applies to all 7.x versions of Citrix Provisioning, including 2106, LTSR 1912 CU3, 1909, and LTSR 7.15.39 (aka LTSR 7.15 CU8).

💡  = Recently Updated

Change Log

Target Device Template – vSphere


  1. Shut down the original virtual machine.
  7. In the Ready to complete page, click Finish.

Target Device Template – Hyper-V


  5. In the Configure Hardware page, click Next.
  9. In the Summary page, click Create.

Citrix Virtual Desktops (aka XenDesktop) Setup Wizard


If you prefer to script much of this wizard, see:

Do the following to launch the Citrix Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard:

  15. In the Virtual machines page:
    1. Enter the number of machines you want to create.
    5. Select BDM disk or PXE boot.
  16. Click Next.
  17. In the Active Directory page, click Next.
  18. In the Active Directory accounts and location page
    1. Select an OU.
  19. Click Next.
  21. Then click Done.

Target Device Power Operation



Boot Disk Manager (BDM) Partition Update



  2. Make sure the Target Devices are powered off.
  4. Click Update Devices.
  5. Click Close when done.

Citrix Studio Catalog of Citrix Provisioning Machines




For Citrix Provisioning 1903 and older, do the following:

  1. In Citrix Studio, create a new Catalog.
  2. On the Introduction page, click Next.
  11. In the Device Collection page, click Connect.

Write Cache Disk

Write Cache Drive Letter


Write Cache File Name



Write Cache Filling Up Cache Disk

The vdisk cache is basically a difference disk and only contains the blocks that are written to the system drive so you cannot mount it or read the file, it is just block data.  Use a tool like Process Monitor from Microsoft (used to be sysinternals) and monitor the system drive. Any write to the system drive is redirected by the Citrix Provisioning software to the cache file.  Make sure that any software that is installed on the target image does not have an auto update feature enabled, redirect all user data to a network share and educate your users to make sure they are not doing something that will fill up the cache like downloading a video to the local system drive.



Write Cache Size Monitoring



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142 thoughts on “Citrix Provisioning – Create Devices”

  1. I’ve created at Win10 template, it’s in my one and only Datastore, I have a connection to vSphere in Studio and PVS Console but when I run Citrix Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard I receive “No Standard Image vDisk exists in this Site. You need at least one Standard Image vDisk to perform this action”

      1. Now I get this on the Esx Windows 10 vms when I try to boot them “efi system partition (esp) error: unsupported streaming aborted”

          1. From an ISO? I downloaded the Windows 10 iso from Mircrosoft site, then I installed a Windows 10 vm on ESX, cloned a template then used PVS to created a couple of machines with Citrix Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard. WIN10P01 and WIN10P02.
            Now I get the error on both of them whether I boot them from the PVS console or within VSphere console.
            And I chose BDM disk rather than PXE boot at some stage.

          2. Your BDM disk is an ISO? Did you use the PVS Boot Disk Creator to create the ISO? If so, there’s a checkbox on the first screen to create a UEFI ISO.

          3. If your machines can’t do PXE, then you need some other way of booting them. One option is to create an ISO and boot from the ISO. Another option is to use the Virtual Desktop Setup Wizard and burn the boot partition into the disk that is added to each machine. The BDM partition and the boot ISO are basically the same. I would hope that the wizard creates a UEFI BDM partition. But you can also try running Boot Device Manager to create a UEFI ISO and see if that works. You’ll need DHCP option 11 to specify the PVS Server IPs.

          4. It’s flakey as all fuck this shit isn’t it.
            I reckon even if I get it working a well directed fart would easily break it.

  2. Hi Carl,
    I have a full Citrix FARM 1912 CU1 with Provisionining
    When I try to use the Citrix Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard it returns error

    Unable to access the virtual machine configuration: Unable to access file [DataStoreName] FileName
    The file is present and the host have only local ssd not shared.

    Can you help me?
    I Open a ticket to citrix 2 days ago and no one contact me

  3. is there a way to use the same target names after i change the write cache size? basically i want to just change the write cache size and redeploy to my targets?

    1. Hi there, it depends on your configured write cache types and deployment. The value for write cache is defined during creation of new pvs target devices with the “XenDesktop Wizard” (now called “Wizard for Virtual Apps and Desktops”). I think you can’t change the write cache size for already created target devices cause of the local write cache disk which is assigned to the VM. I think you can delete your old target devices and create just new target devices with new write cache size and using their old names.

      I would try following steps (of course only for a single testing target device) to achieve your requirement:
      *1. delete your old target devices within your target device collection
      *2. delete the VM in your hypervisor management (Citrix Xencenter or VMware vSphere for example)
      *3. Create new target devices with your new write cache size. You can find the wizard context menu for Virtual Apps and Desktops by rightclicking the sites within pvs console
      *4. Give your new target devices their old names. Check also that machine account password (in AD DS) reset option is enabled. You can add also a name scheme with last digits or letters. You can also configure the amount of needed target devices.
      *5. When starting new created pvs target device, the new write cache disk will be initialized once. So the new write cache disk can be accessed by the OS, therefore the VM will be restarted automatically again on the first use.

  4. We don’t have DDC on-prem… so when running the XenDesktop Setup Wizard in PVS specify one of our local cloud connector servers. In 7.15 it worked like a charm.

    Now after upgrading to 1912, I get the error “FullAdmin or MachineAdmin Permission Required” when I try to run the setup wizard from PVS.

    Since the delivery controller is cloud, I’m not seeing how or where to grant this permission to my account or my PVS service account.. Can you give me a nudge in the right direction please?

        1. The PVS Config Wizard lets you specify the service account that is used to login to SQL and to run the PVS Services. The service account should be a local admin on the PVS server.

          The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup wizard connects to Cloud Connector but you can enter your account instead of the service account.

          1. I normally run the PVS console under my own account, but I’ve also tried running PVS console under the service account and both methods produce the same result with the Virtual Desktops Setup Wizard.

            The service account we specified in the PVS config wizard is a local admin on all PVS servers. Does it need to be also on the Cloud Connectors?

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