When a Provisioning Services Target Device for Windows is booted from Provisioning Services (across the network), it is not possible to perform any software updates that affect the network stack, since the network stack changes will drop the connection to the vDisk.
The following provides a list of known network affecting software that periodically requires updating, this is not necessarily a complete list:
To update network stack-affecting software, you must first convert (clone) the Provisioning Services vDisk to a traditional virtual machine local disk. The process to convert from vDisk to local disk is sometimes called Reverse Imaging. Once booted from local disk (without going through the network), you can do whatever you want with the NIC. In this state, it’s just a regular virtual machine and no longer connected to the Provisioning Services server.
After Provisioning Services target device software is uninstalled and the system is rebooted to local disk, proceed to upgrade hypervisor tools, NIC driver, Provisioning services target device software, Windows 10, or update antivirus definitions.
With reverse imaging, the end goal is to boot from local disk instead of from the Provisioning Services vDisk across the network. There are several methods of reverse imaging, including the following:
Reverse imaging method | Xentools | VM tools | Hyper-v compatibility | Network stack | Win 10 upgrade | Anti-virus updates | Firewall\ Network Sec. software |
Reverse imaging using P2PVS | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
VHD boot from hypervisor | x | x | x | x | x | ||
Direct VHD boot | x | x | x | x | x | x |
This table describes the above 3 reverse imaging-type methods and their uses in updating hypervisor-tools\NIC software. Provisioning Services target device software must be uninstalled before updating NIC/hypervisor tools, Windows 10 upgrade, antivirus definition updates, and firewall\network security software. All hypervisor tools and NIC installation software have a guard for detecting their respective NIC\VM type before allowing install to proceed.
For the purpose of reverse imaging, the terms private image mode and maintenance version are used interchangeably.
Before manually performing reverse imaging using P2PVS, consider the following:
Boot the PVS target device into the vDisk using private\maintenance mode.
If the Provisioning Services target device installed in the system is 7.15 skip the new two steps and use the P2PVS.exe in the Provisioning Services target device installed directory (C:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Services by default) to do reverse imaging.
Install PVS_UpgradeWizard.exe or PVS_UpgradeWizard_x64.exe from the Upgrade folder of the ISO image of the latest Provisioning Services release to get the latest P2PVS.exe. The upgrade wizard can also be installed with the Provisioning Services meta-installer using the Target Device Installation > Install Upgrade Wizard option. This is done because the upgrade wizard has the latest version of P2PVS.exe.
Run P2PVS.exe from the Provisioning Services Upgrade Wizard directory (by default, this directory is C:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Services UpgradeWizard).
Click the From drop down menu and choose Provisioning Services vDisk and click Next.
In the partition screen, select the partitions that will be reverse imaged. All system partitions, regardless of whether they have a drive letter or not, will be used in reverse imaging. Click Next.
Click Convert on the last page to begin reverse imaging.
Both BIOS and UEFI systems follow the same reverse imaging sequence with P2PVS.
Un-install Provisioning Services target device software.
Set the system to boot from local disk instead of network.
Citrix Documentation - Upgrading vDisks by reverse imaging
Note : Applicable for all PVS versions
https://www.carlstalhood.com/pvs-update-vdisk/#reverseimagebcdedit