How to determine whether the virtual desktops in a XenDesktop 5.5 and 5.6 desktop catalog is using an old image or out of date image

If you’re ever wondering whether the virtual desktops in your Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 or 5.6 desktop catalog is using the most current snapshot from the master image or an older snapshot, you can use the Get-BrokerDesktop cmdlet in PowerShell to find out via the ImageOutOfDate variable.  The following is an example:

Get-BrokerDesktop -DesktopGroupName "XenDesktop XP Pilot" | format-list MachineName,ImageOutOfDate

Depending on the size of your environment, the cmdlet can potentially return hundreds or thousands of desktops so if you would just like to retrieve the desktops that are using an old image, you can use the following cmdlet to return only desktops with the ImageOutOfDate variable as true:

Get-BrokerDesktop –DesktopGroupName <DesktopGroupName> | where-object {$_.ImageOutOfDate -match "True"} | format-list MachineName,ImageOutOfDate

Make sure you’re using the Desktop Group name and not the Desktop Catalog name as the identifier.