Does anyone have a solid document that explains to...
# citrix-vada
Arthur
09/12/2026, 5:41 AMDoes anyone have a solid document that explains to a technical and non technical audience why Citrix VDA session hosts need to be restarted regularly? Looking for something I can put in front of management rather than another forum thread.
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James Rankin
09/12/2026, 7:54 AMThey don't, per se. Rubbish software being installed on them is why they need to be restarted regularly. I once worked with a customer where their application set was stable and reliable, and it remains the only project where I have never had to implement a reboot schedule.
Citrix maintain a reboot schedule is a good thing to avoid the support calls and noise that come with such rubbish software being hosted, IMHO
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Balint Oberrauch
09/12/2026, 11:48 AMCompare it to a physical windows notebook. If you don't reboot your notebook for 1 week, performance is crap.
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Arthur
09/12/2026, 12:43 PMTime to produce one… 🤷♂️
Arthur
09/12/2026, 7:49 PMPlease check attached document - I just need your opinion 😉
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Balint Oberrauch
09/12/2026, 8:35 PMNo exec stakeholder reads 31 pages ;) Maybe let's take a step back - who needs to know why a VDA needs to be restarted on a regular basis and who approves the change?
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James Rankin
09/12/2026, 8:46 PMYeah no execs even care IME
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Arthur
09/13/2026, 10:26 AMThis is a deep dive, not something anyone is meant to read end to end. Page 3 is a one page brief for whoever approves it, and the rest is there for the moment somebody asks "how do you know that".
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James Rankin
09/13/2026, 10:58 AMSeems like a waste of time TBF. I've never needed to justify why a system (particularly a Windows one) ever needed rebooting. I think after thirty years the flakiness of Windows apps is pretty much well established
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Arthur
09/13/2026, 12:53 PMBelieve me: there are tons of people who don't get this. The funniest thing is the claim that Citrix is so lousy it has to be restarted so often… 😂😂😂
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James Rankin
09/13/2026, 1:02 PMi don't see why people need to be told why sh*t software needs restarts in great detail. I don't see the need to understand why my car needs a service down to the precise minutiae
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Arthur
09/13/2026, 8:30 PMIf their approval is mandatory, you don't have a choice. Sign-off equals liability - nobody approves downtime without the details on the ticket to cover their ass.
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James Rankin
09/13/2026, 8:39 PMBut the necessity is well established. It's not like Windows software has undergone some kind of recent revolution that means regular reboots now need revisiting as a principle. Unless your software stack has dramatically changed, I don't see why people approving changes need to have a detailed technical write-up of the "why". And does every scheduled reboot need a change request? Not IME
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Balint Oberrauch
09/13/2026, 8:59 PMChange request for setting up the reboot schedule would be probably the easiest way
Balint Oberrauch
09/13/2026, 9:06 PMGemini's summary for the change:
• The recommendation is to implement a scheduled reboot policy because multi-user Windows servers experience a cumulative, predictable exhaustion of shared kernel resources that only a restart can reclaim. To maintain platform stability, the policy mandates a daily staggered restart during quiet hours as the standard rule, permits a weekly weekend-wave pattern for continuous services, and enforces a strict ceiling where no Windows host exceeds (enter number of days here) days of continuous uptime.
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Daniel Marsh
09/13/2026, 10:41 PMI inherited a customer once and found their MCS delivery group of 12 VDAs hadn't been restarted in ~2 years (which also means they hadn't been patched of course 😬)
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Scott Knights
09/13/2026, 11:19 PMCrappy applications mainly. And if they are MCS, getting them back to their nice known image state.
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geir.sandstad
09/14/2026, 6:48 AMI might be a bit cheeky here, but ask them if they restart their Windows computers often, and why. If they don't, ask them how stable their Powerpoint presentations and Teams are after 1 month of not rebooting.
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Rob Beekmans
09/14/2026, 10:54 AMit could be a very short one slide presentation.
To keep your desktops up-to-date with the latest security updates, and remove unwanted crap from previous session, a reboot/refresh is required.
if you don't want that, sign at the bottom relieving me from liability in case of damage done to the company.
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Arthur
09/14/2026, 3:37 PMThis is a deep dive to cover the topic as thoroughly as possible, as it doesn't seem to be documented anywhere yet. A one-pager is attached :)
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