One of the hot new features in XenApp 6.5 is Session Pre-launch, which aims to drastically reduce application load time in the eyes of the user (and I say it this way because it doesn't "technically" load them faster... well, read on).

In order to configure session pre-launch, you first publish an application like any other, with certain users, servers, etc. From here, you right click that application and choose "Pre-Launch Application", which automatically creates and enables pre-launch capabilities for that specific app. In the console, it creates a new application object with the prefix "Pre-Launch", and inherits the same settings you've configured on the original application.

When a user logs in to the Citrix Receiver, the configured application is automatically loaded up in the background, which successfully completes the process of logging in, running scripts, redirecting or roaming profiles, etc. This is all transparent to the user-- they don't even see the application. But if they click on the application that was originally created, it opens in the pre-launch session and in what appears to the user to be record time.

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Additionally, if the user launches a different application, but one that is available on the same server that the pre-luanch session started, that application will also appear to be loaded in record time, as the session sharing functionality will use the existing pre-launch session and simply fire up a different application (but the scripts, profiles, etc. have already been loaded up).

The only real downside to this is that it immediately claims a license until the pre-luanch sessions is closed out, which is configured via Citrix User Policies.

One policy, the Pre-Launch Disconnect Timer Interval, will disconnect the pre-launch session after the specified amount of time in minutes. The other policy, the Pre-Launch Terminate Timer Interval, will terminate the session after the specified time.

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