XenDesktop User/Device manually release a license

Many companies are switching to XenDesktop User/Device licenses vs. the traditional concurrent model.  The main reason… well they are are just about half the cost.  So it make sense from a budget perspective.

This does create a bit of additional administrative IT overhead. In theory the license server “takes care of” managing licensing”, etc… however,  Every now and then you’ll find that you might need to delete/release a few licenses on your XenDesktop installation, generally due to over usage, this will prevent a user getting “not enough licenses available” error.

Environment:

• Windows 7
• Citrix XenDesktop 5.6
• PVS 6.1.16
• Citrix Receiver 13.4

Differences between the two: (Detailed info @ CTX135501) 

Concurrent:

A concurrent XenDesktop license is tied to a XenDesktop session, not to a specific user or device. When a user launches a session, a license is checked out to that session

User / Device:

XenDesktop User/Device licenses provide customers with the maximum flexibility of assigning a single license to either a user or a device and supports both license types in the same environment.

Solution:

Head over to your license server

Run the following command from C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\Licensing\LS (default license location)

udadmin -list

This command displays who is currently using a license and when it is due to expire.

Find the user who you want to delete and then type the following command.

udadmin -f XDT_ENT_UD -user druiz -delete

Some other command examples

udadmin -list
Displays all the users and devices.

udadmin -list -a
Lists all features, versions, counts of licenses, and the users and devices for each feature.

udadmin -f XDT_ENT_UD -user druiz -delete
Releases one user from one feature.

udadmin -f XDT_ENT_UD -device druiz_xdwin7_64 -delete

XenDesktop licensing – Features and Editions

It seems almost everyone that I talk to (including Citrix Reps) are a little confused as what the different  XenDesktop license model covers.

For further details, click on this article from Citrix.

Now, to clear things up, XenDesktop is offered in four editions: