One of the new features of the 7.13 release of XenApp and XenDesktop is the ability to configure applications to always launch in a new session.
The default behavior in XenApp and XenDesktop, when launching applications, is to attempt to reuse existing sessions when possible. Application session sharing saves the costs of launching new sessions helping applications start faster and use fewer resources. It also offers other features that involve the clipboard such as copy-paste operations.
However, in some circumstances it might be desirable to have each application instance start in a separate session. For example, this might be particularly useful when starting multiple application sessions in full screen mode on separate monitors.
With the 7.13 release of XenApp and XenDesktop the Broker Service exposes a new setting at the ApplicationGroup level named SingleAppPerSession to allow that.
This setting is currently available via the Broker Powershell SDK only, there is no console UI for this feature at this stage.
Enabling SingleAppPerSession on the ApplicationGroup changes the Broker launch and reconnection behavior, such that:
- If no pre-disconnected suitable sessions exist matching a user launch request, a new application session is created to satisfy the request.
- If one or more pre-disconnected suitable sessions exist matching a user launch request, one of the disconnected sessions is chosen to re-connect to. That choice is random but deterministic.
Wasn’t there already an option to disable session sharing on Application Groups?
Previous releases of XenApp and XenDesktop did offer an ability to disable session sharing, but only between Application Groups. Applications within the same Application Group were always session sharing by default. As the name implies, the two properties SessionSharingEnabled and SingleAppPerSession serve opposite purposes, therefore are incompatible and cannot be enabled at the same time.
Other Tips
It is important to note that all applications associated with a Delivery Group will session share by default. Although not recommended, applications can be configured to be associated simultaneously with Application Groups and Delivery Groups. In that case the session sharing settings on the Delivery Group will take precedence overriding the options configured at the Application Group level. Therefore it is important to ensure the required application is not also associated with a Delivery Group when making use of the new feature.
