Presentation Server 4.5 is due out sometime in the first half of this year (Possibly the end of March). The official technology preview can be downloaded from mycitrix.com. Here I compare the look and feel of this version compared to previous ones and list some of the expected features it will include.  I also bung in a few screenshots just for fun!

The list of features is not final, there may be more added or some of these may be removed before final release.

The list Citrix have provided is here:

Health Monitoring & Recovery – Monitors the health of many Presentation Server components and reports any failures instantly. If a component fails, it can be configured to trigger an action to the server.
Configuration logging – Logs any changes made to the farm to a database and provides reporting capabilities.
Non-administrator client installation – Allows end users without administrative rights to install a client.
SpeedScreen Progressive Display – Provides an aggressive compression algorithm for graphic-intensive applications, through a connection policy, to improve the performance and responsiveness of these applications.
Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) support – Extends the value of Microsoft’s Active Directory and Identity Federation technology by allowing Presentation Server-hosted applications to participate in federation trusts. Without Citrix, ADFS can only be used with Web Applications.
Application streaming – Provides applications to be packaged and delivered to Presentation Server without having to install them in every server.

By far the “biggie” of the above is the application streaming. I will be describing this in greater detail in a post in the next few days. Today I will just tell you what my first impressions are.

When you first start the install off you get the impression it’s going to be all new:

However soon after the install begins it reverts back to the old screens in previous versions:

One noticeable difference during the install is the Citrix Access Management Console

Of course it doesn’t make any difference how it looks during the install, it just makes me feel better if it’s all new and exciting:)

Now that it’s installed the CMC (Citrix Management Console) looks familiar, although now called the Presentation Server Management Console (see below). Some of the things such as applications applet are now managed from the Access Management Console.

It has to be said that the install went very smoothly from my point of view. I was running an upgrade from Presentation Server 4 and all applications and the web interface upgraded without any problems, however I didn’t notice any difference in speed even while running a graphic intensive application with all the new speedscreen  options. Looking at the list of features the application streaming and health  monitoring seem to be the biggest incentives for upgrading, there are some other “nice to haves”  but there’s nothing that  made me jump up and down with excitement.

I haven’t had a chance to go into more detail as its getting late now but I thought it might be interesting for some of you to see some screenshots if you haven’t been able to try the install yourselves. I will certainly be writing more on this version as I investigate it further.