Citrix PVS – Use VMware Workstation to Upgrade VMTools
If you are running Citrix PVS in a VMware vSphere environment you know what a headache it is to update VMtools on your image. Citrix uses the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format for its vDisk and sadly VMware doesn’t like VHD’s. Instead of using Citrix XenConvert or StarWind V2V Converter, VMware Workstation should make this process much easier for you! VMware Workstation started supporting the VHD format with version 10 and makes upgrading VMtools a pretty simple task. I will be using VMware Workstation 11 and will show you how to open your PVS VHD image and update tools without the need to reverse image it. Citrix VHD Preparation: First you need to merge your vDisk versions to a single base. In the Provisioning Service Console under vDisk Pool, right click the name of your vDisk and click Versions. Click the newest version of your vDisk and click Merge. You want to create a new Merged Base and make this Maintenance so not to interfere with your current environment. Click Ok. This can take quite a while if you haven’t made a merged base in a while. Once complete you will have a new merged base version. Click Done. Now browse to your Citrix vDisk directory and copy the VHD file created above to your desktop, this will be the file we work with in VMware Workstation. VMware Workstation: It is time …