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we personally use a task sequence with PDQ Deploy but a similar one can be done w/ SCCM but basically yes, we run the VDA Cleanup Utility first (has 3 reboots in total i believe) and then the new VDA install after that

I use Chocolatey to deploy the VDA so a chocolatey uninstall then reinstall seems to work fine

@James Rankin awesome idea! just found your blog post on that method. so that way just installs over the top then or no?

Chocolatey kinda manages the whole install itself, so you do a "choco uninstall citrixvda" which removes all of it, and then a "choco install citrixvda" which puts it back. Reboot might be needed in between sadly

Automation/software deployment tools.

@Andrew Gresbach Thanks, so you run the cleanup utility and it removes the old sw as part of its process?

@Josh Bilsky right, in the task sequence i run the VDA Uninstall Utility w/ command line like this: c:\windows\temp\VDACleanupUtility.exe /unattended 3 times with a reboot inbetween each pass (reboots after it see's a success code of 0) and after the 3 passes the old VDA is completely removed and then run the silent install of the new VDA

thanks man, it's been so long since i've upgraded our VDAs lol

Would just note that the VDA cleanup utility didn't really really work for the 2203 CUs. It left the installs in a really weird state that was painful to recover from. We found running the new CU2 installer with the same switches we used on CU1 was enough to have a reliable VDA upgrade

Good to know. Maybe they improved the installer from the older versions. We're still running 1912. I'm just trying to find the path of least resistance to address the security vulnerability.

Totally understand. If you are running 1912 on your VDAs still the VDA cleanup utility is definitely the right way to go. Upgrades on 1912 without it were error prone.

I don't use the ISO, i use the standalone installer. its a self extracting .exe that contains all the prerequisites and much smalled then the ISO. i usually upgrade unless the client is really behind on their vda updates.

@newbie1998 is there a standalone download for the vda installer?

definitely is......i forget exactly the menu to go into but theres a section for the main CVAD version for something like "other components available on their own " or something like that

Yeah you can get the Multiuser and Singleuser VDAs as separate downloads

i found it, thanks guys!

@Josh Bilsky - did you find the download?

@newbie1998 yeah i did find it, thanks

@Eric nice write up

When I first touched it - I thought it would be easy. Ended with 20 steps Task sequence (Well, 9 of them are reboots) Most of the things run twice as most of the times neither VDA cleanup nor VDA installer are unable to run and finish all the steps successfully on first attempt and require additional reboot.

interesting.....why do you run the cleanup utility 2 runs? i also didnt know you could run the 2nd pass of it w/out a reboot in the earlier steps. thatd be nice to try

Normally, you would run the cleanup utility in GUI mode. It performs uninstall activities and adds a “run once” registry key to continue after the reboot. After the reboot, it finishes the cleanup, which is the ideal scenario. However, in real life, some PCs may be in a pending reboot state, which can be fixed by adding “restart computer” as the first step. Another issue that may arise is that the cleanup utility sometimes runs but cannot uninstall everything it needs and throws an error. In this case, your only choice is to reboot and repeat the process. So TS steps for VDA cleanup utility in my case are like this: 1. Reboot 2. cmd /c VDACleanupUtility.exe /silent /noreboot 3. cmd.exe /c REG DELETE HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce /v CitrixVdaCleanup /f 4. Reboot 5. cmd /c VDACleanupUtility.exe /silent /noreboot 6. Reboot 7. cmd /c VDACleanupUtility.exe /silent /noreboot 8. cmd.exe /c REG DELETE HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce /v CitrixVdaCleanup /f 9. Reboot 10. cmd /c VDACleanupUtility.exe /silent /noreboot 11. Reboot Then there is the VDA install part Using /noresume so it wouldn’t run after reboot and we will call it from TS instead 12.VDAWorkstationSetup_1912.exe /quiet /noreboot /noresume /enable_hdx_ports /enable_framehawk_port /enable_hdx_udp_ports /Enable_REAL_TIME_TRANSPORT /optimize /remotepc /enable_remote_assistance /components VDA /virtualmachine /controllers “sy4ctxdcp01.corp.ad sy4ctxdcp02.corp.ad nrdctxdcp01.corp.ad nrdctxdcp02.corp.ad” /Exclude “Citrix Telemetry Service” 13. Reboot 14. Repeating step 12 as sometimes it unpacks the content of .exe file and then dies or tries to install and dies half way. Run this step only if both of the conditions are false Check if folder C:\ProgramData\Citrix\XenDesktopSetup exists Check if file C:\Program Files\Citrix\Virtual Desktop Agent\BrokerAgent.exe exists with file version 7.24.3000.9 (that was for 1912 CU3) 15. Reboot 16. Continue install using the unpacked installer cmd /c continue.bat Run this step only if this condition is false Check if file C:\Program Files\Citrix\Virtual Desktop Agent\BrokerAgent.exe exists with file version 7.24.3000.9 (that was for 1912 CU3) ==conttinue.bat== “C:\ProgramData\Citrix\XenDesktopSetup\XenDesktopVdaSetup.exe” /quiet /noreboot /enable_hdx_ports /enable_framehawk_port /enable_hdx_udp_ports /Enable_REAL_TIME_TRANSPORT /optimize /remotepc /enable_remote_assistance /components VDA /virtualmachine /controllers “sy4ctxdcp01.corp.ad sy4ctxdcp02.corp.ad nrdctxdcp01.corp.ad nrdctxdcp02.corp.ad” /Exclude “Citrix Telemetry Service” ============= 17. Reboot 18. Repeat step 16 cmd /c continue.bat Run this step only if this condition is false Check if file C:\Program Files\Citrix\Virtual Desktop Agent\BrokerAgent.exe exists with file version 7.24.3000.9 (that was for 1912 CU3) ==conttinue.bat== “C:\ProgramData\Citrix\XenDesktopSetup\XenDesktopVdaSetup.exe” /quiet /noreboot /enable_hdx_ports /enable_framehawk_port /enable_hdx_udp_ports /Enable_REAL_TIME_TRANSPORT /optimize /remotepc /enable_remote_assistance /components VDA /virtualmachine /controllers “sy4ctxdcp01.corp.ad sy4ctxdcp02.corp.ad nrdctxdcp01.corp.ad nrdctxdcp02.corp.ad” /Exclude “Citrix Telemetry Service” ============= 19. Install Workspace app Workspace app installer returns some crazy error codes so I just set it “continue on error” “CitrixWorkspaceApp.exe” /AllowAddStore=N /AutoUpdateCheck=disabled /noreboot /silent /includeSSON /EnableCEIP=false 20. cmd /c “gpupdate /force&shutdown /r”

Our CM guy is having a hell of a time getting a TS going for 2212 VDA upgrades going on our persistent images... Unfortunately I'm lost when it comes to SCCM TS's. His working TS from previous versions doesn't work... I assume it's because of switches that are changed

@Vadim Gonzalez That is super solid man.

you should go via manual install first to see where it breaks and automate later. We have no issues installing VDA while building our Windows 10 Virtual machines. But updating is a pain. One of the previous versions had additional issue - black screening after the install. The only way to deal with that was to login each machine after the update and if blacksreens - uninstall/reinstall VDA again.

Last I spoke with him, I was installing manually and suspected it was disparate VC++ versions in his TS vs what is packaged in the VDAWorkststion.exe This was Friday