In May this year, during Citrix Synergy Citrix announced a technical preview of the next version of its client hypervisor XenClient version 2.0. Today Citrix released version 2.0 making it generally available.
Besides releasing XenClient 2.0 Citrix also released XenApp version 6.5, XenDesktop 5.5 and new versions of the Connector for Windows and Mac.
XenClient provides the following new functionality:
- Expanded hardware support, allowing the XenClient to run on 3x as many systems as the first release.
- New version of Synchronizer making it more suitable for larger and more complex environments.
- Support for Windows 7 SP1 32 and 64 bit
- Support for Ubuntu 11.04
- Integrated Audio Drivers for Windows 7
- Support for up to 8GB of memory for local virtual desktops.
- User Profile Virtualization
- Smart disk block filtering, which automatically removes unused disk blocks, Windows pagefiles and other unnecessary data.
- Connection throttling
- Support for Active Directory environments with complex trust relationships
- Precacheck VM downloads for rapid deployment and recovery of VMs
- iSCSI deployment for Lenovo desktop systems
- XenClient power opertions can be linked to the power state of a Windows VM.
- Revamped Citrix Receiver for XenClient providing a simpler, more responsive, and more inituitive UI.
- Seamless application sharing between running VMs while maintaining strict isolationof data
- Upgrades of the XenClient software from a Synchronizer of other web server
- Possibility to provide an extra layer of protection by requiring a pin authentication besides username and password when connecting for the first time to a Synchronizer for XenClient backend.
- Wireless autoconnect to hidden wireless networks
- Added policy controls, for autobooting virtual desktops, 3D graphics and seamless application sharing
- Displayport and DVI video support
- High speed Linux drivers for running Ubuntu 11 Linux
Besides that XenClient 2.0 provides some feature previews, which are experimental:
- Safe Graphics mode, allowing use of basic display capabilities
- Allowing connections using a broader set of integrated and USB based 3G data modems
- Touchscreen support for selected USB and serial touchscreen systems