Implementing SCEP 2012 on Citrix PVS VDI

In this post, I'm going to explain how System Center Endpoint Protection 2012 was implemented on our Citrix PVS VDI machines at a client project I recently worked at. I hadn't found much about this online so I thought I'd share how it was done for us and hopefully it will help someone out!

They key issue with the PVS random pooled VDI was the lack of persistence for the virus definitions, so in this solution we move the virus definitions to a separate disk attached to our VDI. The first step to implementing this is to ensure you allocate enough space on your write cache drive or a separate drive to accommodate virus definitions, in my scenario I found 1GB seems to be sufficient for the SCEP files/definitions.


Once you have determined a suitable size for your separate SCEP drive or if you choose to combine it on your write cache drive (this is route I took) boot up your master image with the drive attached.

First, on the master image(s) ensure the SCCM client push account is added to the machine's local administrators. Once this is complete go ahead and create a device collection and add the master image(s) as resources in SCCM. Additionally, we created a separate device collection for our Citrix VDI images via OU. This is done to add our custom endpoint policies to later on.

Next, here is the steps I took on our XP VDI master image(s):

1. Install Windows Resource Toolkit: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17657 - This includes a tool called linkd, which we use to create a symbolic link.

2. Create D:\SCEP folder (or wherever your persistent drive is)

3. CD c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\microsoft\

4. “c:\program files\windows resource toolkit\tools\linkd.exe” “Microsoft Antimalware” “d:\scep”

5. Push/Install SCEP And SCCM client

6. Validate after installation that d:\scep folder is getting all the latest updates (check folder size properties is going up)

If you were using Windows 7 VDI do all the following above except:

Ignore step 1, and for step 3 change the directory to C:\Users\All Users\Microsoft and then step 4 use  mklink /D "Microsoft Antimalware" "d:\scep"

After you have completed that and notice that SCEP is running properly, you will need to do the following prior to shutting down your image before publishing in order to have the SCCM client generate appropriate MIFs for each machine

1. Open Powershell as administrator: net stop ccmexec

2. Followed by: del %WINDIR%\smscfg.ini

3. Followed by: Remove-Item -Path HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\SMS\Certificates\* -Force or from DOS using powershell -command “Remove-Item -Path HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\SMS\Certificates\* -Force”

4.Finally: wmic /namespace:\\root\ccm\invagt path inventoryActionStatus where InventoryActionID=”{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001}” DELETE /NOINTERACTIVE

Once this is complete your image is almost ready to published out, however I found we needed a small logon script to get the images properly setup on their first boot so I created the following small batch file and attached it as a logon script for GPO:

mkdir d:\scep
net start msmpsvc

There is probably a more elegant solution to this such as a scheduled task that run once prior to shutting down your master image, let me know if you find a better solution! Once this is done you are ready to publish out your VDI. On boot you should see the SCEP client showing red in the tray and will pickup/start updating virus defs as defined by your policy. Again, you can validate your D:\SCEP has all the files/folders and is increasing in size once the updates begin. Also, don't forget to apply your antimalware policy with Citrix recommended file/folder exclusions. We also opted to turn scans off given this being a VDI environment.