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I have recently been implementing Skype for Business on XenApp with the HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.1. It was not as simple as I originally thought it would be so I decided to document my findings in this blog post.
My setup was as follows:
XenApp 7.9
Windows 2012 R2
Skype for Business (32-bit)
The first thing to note is the HDX RealTime Optimization Pack 2.1 does not work with Skype for Business 2016. So if you are installing Skype for Business 2016 as part of your Office 2016 install you will need to remove it from the package and install Lync 2013 separately. Krishnan Raghupathi of Microsoft said in this forum post that support for Skype for Business 2016 it should be coming this September (2016).
Once you have Lync 2013 in your build, install the following hotfixes. This will make Lync 2013 into Skype for Business 2015.
KB2863908
KB2817430
KB3054791
KB3114351
KB3115033
KB3039779
Note: The Citrix documentation says you need to have a minimum version of Skype for Business 15.0.4833.1001. After installing KB3115033 your version may only show as 15.0.4833.1000 as below
After doing some Googeling it seems that other people have had this issue. Don’t worry as the optimization still works.
Next download and install HDX RealTime Connector 2.1. Choose the correct one according to the bitness of your OS, not the bitness of the Skype for Business client.
Now you have all the server components installed, install the HDX RealTime Media Engine 2.1 on your client. You can either use the standalone installer if you already have Receiver installed or you can use the bundle which includes Receiver 4.4.1000 and the HDX RealTime Media Engine in one executable.
When you log into the Published Desktop and launch Skype for Business you should see the HDX Realtime Connector icon in the system tray showing as connected as per the Citrix troubleshooting article
If you would like to find out more about how we can help you implement Skype for Business on your XenApp environment please call or email us via our Contact page.