Citrix Merchandising Server 2.0… Still Room for Improvement

Citrix Merchandising Server and Receiver 2.0 were recently released.  Some nice new features have been added and.  Merchandising Server and Receiver 2.0 are nice but still have room for improvement on the administration functions and the user experience.

New features in Merchandising Server and Receiver 2.0 :

• Anonymous Deliveries – This fixed one issue I had with users getting the Citrix Receiver logon prompt after pushing the Receiver via script, SCCM, etc.  There was a workaround for it, but you had to revert back to an older Citrix Receiver client.  This new feature allows you to deploy the Citrix Receiver without having a user logon.  Instead a system token is used.  Nice feature for deploying the Citrix Receiver to managed machines without prompting for credentials after the install, machines outside of your domain, or unmanaged devices like BYOC.
• Enhanced Roaming – Improves the roaming for Citrix Receiver by using beacon websites to avoid users getting authentication messages.
• Improved Usability – Improved error reporting and improved reporting for Active Directory syncing.  This is another nice new feature.  I have had issues with the Merchandising Server for VMware losing sync with Active Directory.  Hopefully this improved logging gives more insight into what’s going on.
• Receiver for Windows 2.0 Packager – Allows use of an external download page to download and install the Citrix Receiver with the secure access plug-in.  Windows and Mac Receivers are included in the download.
• Receiver for Admins – Receiver package that can be installed separate of the Merchandising Server but only works with the Merchandising Server 2.0. 

To learn more and to read the entire article at its source, please refer to the following page, Merchandising Server 2.0…Still Room for Improvement- Jarian Gibson