Citrix continues to innovate in the desktop virtualization space and build on the on the market leading trajectory established with first with XenDesktop 4.0 — the industry’s first VDI offering to provide integrated app and desktop delivery in a single product – and extended with XenDesktop 5.0 —  focused on simplification and scalability for the administrator to deploy and manage virtual desktops.   With the release of XenDesktop 5.5, Citrix  takes it up a notch yet again and sets the new standard for desktop virtualization — including the ability to deliver personal VDI desktops, provide an unparalleled user experience with more than 150 new HDX features and enhancements, deliver “headquarters-like” experience across the  WAN to  remote workers and branch offices and new Citrix Receivers for Windows and MacOS.  Whew!  That was a long sentence

You can read about all of the news here.

Personal VDI desktops and reducing cost

The Citrix focus on end user experience and reducing costs of virtual desktop deployments was the driving force behind the RingCube acquisition and today’s announcement of the availability of the personal vDisk technology as a feature of XenDesktop 5.5.

If you haven’t heard about it, the new personal vDisk technology enables IT to realize the cost saving and management of pooled virtual desktops, while providing  personalization capabilities for profiles, data and applications that is typically found in a dedicated VDI deployment model.   Since we announced the acquisition of RingCube two weeks ago, my inbox has exploded with requests for more information regarding pricing,  packaging and availability.  I am pleased to confirm today that the personal vDisk technology will be included in all editions of XenDesktop at no additional charge.  The personal vDisk technology is available today as an “Early Access” feature for customers with Software Assurance to use in their labs and proof of concepts to get familiar with the technology.  In less then two weeks since the closing of this acquisition, we have delivered on the first release that is integrated with XenDesktop.  Using XenDesktop Studio, administrators can quickly create and deploy virtual desktops that take advantage of the personal vDisk technology.  The combination of the user acceptance of the personal VDI desktop and the IT cost savings allow organizations to deploy virtual desktops to a wider based of end users – truly creating a win-win situation.

You get additional technical information on the personal vDisk here.

Consumer end-users can find general information about Windows 7 SP1 at the following Microsoft website:

http://windows.microsoft.com/windows7sp1

Public downloads will be here

Windows 7 Service Pack 1

To obtain Windows 7 SP1, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://windows.microsoft.com/installwindows7sp1 (http://windows.microsoft.com/installwindows7sp1)

Windows 2008 R2 Service Pack 1

To obtain Windows 2008 R2 SP1, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=199583

The following documentation for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 is provided here.

Deployment Guide for Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 and Windows 7 with SP1.doc 213KB Download

Hotfixes and Security Updates included in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.xls 465KB Download

Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1.doc 94KB Download

Release Notes for Windows 7 with Service Pack 1.doc 87KB Download

Release Notes for Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1.doc 87KB Download

MS KB Information about Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2

The purpose of these settings is to set up a specific NIC for IMA use when You have multi homed XenApp Servers.
Registry Values to Set;

Purpose(s) is specify if the server has several NICs or not;
Registry Hive : HKLM\Software\Citrix\IMA
Value : MultipleNICMySelf
Type : REG_DWORD
Data : 1 (1 = This Server has several NICs)

Purpose(s) is to specify the NIC to dedicate;
Registry Hive : HKLM\Software\Citrix\IMA
Value : NICToUse
Type : REG_SZ
Data : Mac adress of the desired NIC (example : 00-C0-4F-74-68-E5 )

If one of the previously specified reg values is set on any server you’llo have to set the following reg value to ALL SERVERS within the Farm.

Purpose(s) is to specify that IMA will try to communicate with all remote server NICs
Registry Hive : HKLM\Software\Citrix\IMA
Value : MultipleNICOtherServer
Type : REG_DWORD
Data : 1

Here is a quick overview of what’s new to this release:

New in this Release

• Microsoft Volume Licensing Automation
• Both KMS and MAK models for Operating Systems are supported, as well as Office 2010 KMS licensing.

Deprecated in this Release

• MarkDown command for Server parameter as well as the “Mark Server Down…” selection in the Provisioning Services Console.
• Support for Windows 2000 Domain.

Removed in this Release
XenConvert is no longer shipping as part of the PVS Target Device installer. It is available as a separate download

Issues Fixed in this Release:

Active Directory

1. In the “Add System Groups” dialog, users can now specify a full path, with wildcard support, to specify which user groups to display. For example, “test.local/users/u*” might return the “test.local/users/users” group. Likewise, using “test.local/*/u*” or “test*/u*” or “u*” might also be used as a search string for groups.
2. GetGroups fails if parent domain DC is blocked by a firewall.
3. Display AD return code if error during AD operation.
4. We can now resolve Group names across domains and forests.

Installer
During installation of the TFTP server on a separate server the installation process returns failure.

Console/MAPI

1. Ensure that all PVS servers in a farm have the same Advanced Settings. Added “Set Max Transmission Unit” menu choice to the Site node. This menu item is only available to Site and Farm Administrators. It opens a dialog that has a control like the one in the Server Advanced Properties dialog. The control is initialized with the value found for the first Server. The user can set a new value, and all of the Servers will be updated with the value selected. Since some Servers may fail the setting, a Partial error will be displayed if any fail being set. The ioBurstSize is adjusted if needed for the new value of the maxTransmissionUnits.
2. Allow longer server names in PVS Console login dialog. The new limit is 255 bytes.
3. Need to disable “Back” and “Done” during operations in StoreManagement Wizard.
4. PVS Console display fields are too small to accommodate long AD names.

Configuration Wizard
Configuration Wizard does not automatically set server’s properties to AD if the system is already in an AD.

Imaging Wizard
Support copying NTFS hardlinks properly. This substantially reduces imaging time and also improves imaging progress estimation.

Volume Licensing
Office 2010 activation-KMS license.

Wake-on-LAN (WOL)
A PVS server with 2 NICs in seperate subnets is not sending out WOL packets to both subnets.

Database Offline
DB Offline is putting too much stress on the SQL server and causing the PVS Console to crash.

Target Device – Windows

1. Status tray ICON still appearing after “Hide Status Tray” is checked.
2. Bootstrap not sending Traffic to correct gateway.
3. Pagefile warnings and failure to place page file on client‟s local HD when multiple partition structure exists with largest partition non NTFS. For all target devices to support DedicatedDumpFile feature properly, all local hard disk storage controllers must be set to the same operating mode, i.e., all are ATA or AHCI mode.
4. BNIStack event log reports errors during protocol processing, events 99 to 138 should not report into the event log.

Target Device – Linux

1. Imaging stalls on RHEL 5.2 and 5.3 x86_64 when imaging progress at 95%.
2. Long delay in bringing up device’s properties if the device is active and running a Linux vdisk.
3. System freezes while imaging Centos 5.3 x86 with default kernel.

To download click here ( may require a valid mycitrix.com account )

Citrix announced XenDesktop 5 , at Citrix Synergy in Berlin, which is scheduled for availability in December, 2010. Naturally, we went looking for the “what’s new” list. You can find that list on the Citrix Web site, but, just to save you a few clicks, here’s our take on it.

Most of the user-facing features are evolutionary, as opposed to revolutionary. There have been incremental improvements in devices supported by the Citrix Receiver, the performance of Citrix HDX, user self-service provisioning, and single sign-on. There is also support for XenClient and XenVault, which were recently made available for download as part of XenDesktop 4, Feature Pack 2. But the truly revolutionary, knock-your-socks-off features are on the management side.

Installation and deployment of a large XenDesktop environment is now a snap using the new Desktop Studio tool. Since a video is worth a thousand words, check out the following video demo of Desktop Studio:

But wait! That’s not all! There’s something here for the help desk staff as well, and this may be the coolest part of all. Take a look at a demo of the new Desktop Director tool:

One of Citrix’s stated goals with XenDesktop 5 is to take VDI from “wow” to “how” – to show you how to easily install, scale, and manage a desktop virtualization deployment. Desktop Studio and Desktop Director are huge steps in that direction.

• New website. Have a look at the new RESsoftware.com, which is live now.
• New logo. Gone is the old blue-white-black. You can view the new shaded logo in all it’s glory by clicking on the miniature in the upper left corner of this article.
• New product suite: As of today, all the current products are considered part of ONE  suite, called the RES Dynamic Desktop Studio. See the illustration on the right.
• The product now formerly known as RES PowerFuse will from today be known as the RES Workspace Manager, part of the Dynamic Desktop Stuido.
• RES Wisdom will from today be known as the RES Automation Manager. also part of the suite
• Orchestra aka Orchestraton Pack for Wisdom is now known as the Service Orchestration Module in the Automation Manager.
• The Workspace Extender aka Subscriber will from today be known as the Virtual Desktop Extender, or VDX.
• VDX will be available as a stand-alone product from January 2011.

All this information and more is available in the New RES FAQ, available here.

As mentioned there will be made more, important announcements during this week, so keep an eye out for them here at the ‘Guru. In the meantime, you can see what the  new names and logo’s for the components of the Dynamic Desktop Studio will look like. Click on the individual components to jump to the corresponding product page.

Source ; http://resguru.com/

There are a variety of ways to experience the power of RES Software solutions – check out the evaluation and free product downloads below.

RES Workspace Manager 2010 SR2 – Free 60 day trial version (formerly RES PowerFuse 2010 SR2)
Download a 60-day trial version of RES Workspace Manager 2010 and see how user workspace management software will work for your business. The trial version allows you to evaluate the Enterprise-, Standard- or MyWorkspace Edition of RES Workspace Manager 2010.

RES Workspace Manager 2010 SR2 Express Edition – Free Download (formerly RES PowerFuse 2010 SR2 Express Edition )
Download a copy of the free, production-ready Express Edition for delivering a personalized, secure and reliable user workspace to your end users. Supports up to 100 concurrent users.

RES Automation Manager 2011 RC – Free 60 day trial version (formerly RES Wisdom)
Download a free 60-day trial version of RES Automation Manager 2011 Release Candidate and see how run book automation for Windows will work for your business.

Under MSDN Microsoft has launched a new site called http://gps.cloudapp.net this site is awesome! The site will allow you to search for group policy settings, filter by Internet Explorer version, office version and others and browse by registry or by policy.

But this tool makes it much easier to find the right settings and apply them either with registry hacks or policy objects.

This is a quick example of a search on hide drives which is pretty commonly used but still..

source : http://www.renevester.com/2010/09/online-group-policy-search-tool-from-microsoft/

Microsoft have recently jointly released the Citrix connector for ConfigMgr 2007.  Through this release, the ConfigMgr SDK has been used to extend and support the management of application services through XenApp.  Very cool indeed.

Here is the announcement. Links are below.

Citrix® XenApp™ 6 introduces integration with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 giving organizations a single, integrated view and management of all applications across the enterprise including on-demand apps by XenApp. The Citrix XenApp Connector leverages the Configuration Manager console to deploy and publish applications and updates to XenApp servers with zero disruption to users and extends the reach of Configuration Manager applications to a broader set of users, devices and access scenarios

Some resources for you:

• Jointly authored whitepaper is available here
• A Video Demo can be viewed here

Download here; http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=1854441
(You will need a Citrix login)

New features :

More users, faster logons – Get up to 20% more users per server with XenApp on the R2 platform and faster logons with new Profile management streaming technology that improves user profile load times by up to 80%.

Seamless management integration – Role-based installation wizards, a new unified application management console, management through Active Directory group policies and support for PowerShell 2.0 help you deploy, configure and automate XenApp faster and easier than ever before.

More apps in HDX – HDX RealTime now delivers high quality audio using up to 90% less bandwidth and enables video conferencing using Microsoft Office Communicator or teleconferencing using VoIP softphones. New HDX Plug-n-Play support for Windows portable USB devices lets users connect more of the devices they need to the applications they use including point-of-sale, webcams, scanners, digital cameras and more.

Self-service application delivery – Citrix Dazzle, the first self-service “storefront” for the enterprise, gives corporate employees 24×7 access to the applications they need to work. Citrix Streaming technology with Windows service isolation and Microsoft App-V integration provide new options for delivering more applications to your users.

Complete mobility – New plug-ins as well as updated Receivers for Windows, iPhone, Android, and Windows Mobile keep business moving by enabling complete mobility and freedom to access enterprise applications from anywhere.

Download Workflow Studio 2.0 (MyCitrix login required)

This release has a number of great new features and is a seamless upgrade from version 1.x. Here are some of the key new features:

• Native XenApp activity libraries (and many other additional activities)
• Remote runtimes
• Simplified management interface
• Enhanced security features
• Simplified installation and configuration
• Improved SDK
• Simplified workflow Designer
• Globalization support

I will post some more blogs over the next few days with more details on the above features and will also be updating the CDN site with many new articles, so subscribe to the Workflow Studio blog and head over to the Workflow Studio CDN site and subscribe for updates on CDN as well.

Feel free to leave feedback in comments or email me directly.

Workflow Studio will be included with XenApp Feature Pack 2

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

• Official Press Release – http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site – http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video – http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar – http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release – http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews – http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page – http://citrix.com/xenapp/

Last week, Citrix’s Chris Fleck started a conversation over at the Citrix blog site where he asked whether there’s value in Citrix enabling ICA connections (with full HDX capabilities) to desktop OSes directly instead of forcing users to connect through the XenDesktop connection broker. Specifically, Chris wrote:

We have been discussing ways to make HDX more pervasive and useful to IT pros and users. HDX has significant benefits and we want the broader industry to try it out and get a taste of XenDesktop.

This is potentially a huge deal, so I’d like to bring this conversation to the BrianMadden.com audience since not everyone is probably aware of Chris’s post.

So let’s dig into it. First of all:

What is a standalone connection?

Simply put, a standalone connection means that Citrix would provide a standalone MSI package that could be installed onto Windows XP / Vista / Win7 desktops that would let ICA clients establish connections directly to the host desktop directly via the computer name or IP address. From a technical standpoint this would have nothing to do with XenDesktop. It’s just an ICA/HDX connection to a desktop instead of a terminal server.

If you haven’t used Citrix’s XenDesktop product, you might be surprised to learn that this capability actually isn’t possible today! Current versions of XenDesktop require that users first connect to a Citrix Web Interface / desktop broker to be routed to the desktop (physical/virtual/blade) where their ICA/HDX connection is established. So even if you downloaded the Citrix Virtual Desktop Agent (VDA) software and installed it onto a regular desktop, the agent only starts listening for incoming ICA connections after it’s been contacted by the central connection broker, so attempting a connection to 1494 or 2598 to a desktop with the VDA installed but without XenDesktop will just run you into a closed port.

Interestingly, Citrix XenApp has always allowed standalone connections (although in recent versions they’re disabled by default). So this capability would not be new to Citrix, just new to desktops.

Why would anyone want a standalone connection?

There are a lot of reasons that people might want to connect via ICA/HDX to a desktop outside of a proper XenDesktop environment. (And by the way, Citrix is interested in knowing your reasons, so feel free to leave a comment here or vote in the poll embedded in Chris’s original post on Citrix.com. Possible use cases include:

• Creating simple proofs-of-concept. (Show users the concept and experience of connecting to their own images via ICA/HDX without having to go through all the trouble of setting up XenDesktop.)
• Smaller or simpler VDI deployments where all users would be using private (a.k.a. “one-to-one” or “persistent”) images.
• Using VDI where you don’t trust the HA capabilities of the connection broker, or where you don’t want to add the complexity of a broker.
• Using VDI where you want to use another VDI framework (VMware View, Microsoft VDI Suite, etc.) but you still want ICA/HDX
• As a method for users to connect to their own corporate desktops. (Kind of like a private in-house GoToMyPC.)
• Cloud-based desktops where you want ICA/HDX.
• Dev / testing of remote desktop VMs where you just want full ICA/HDX instead of just RDP.
• Troubleshooting XenDesktop. e.g. if a user can’t connect to his or her desktop, you could try connecting directly via ICA/HDX to verify that the core components are online, working, and not being blocked by a firewall or policy or something. (Thanks to Shawn Bass for that suggestion.)
• An easy way to configure multiple “tiers” of users. e.g. Let high value users get their own dedicated machines while the riff-raff share overloaded VMs. (Thanks to App Detective for that suggestion.)

How would Citrix release this standalone ICA connections?

Assuming that Citrix believes this is a good capability to have, how do you think they’ll release it?

• Will it be built into the XenDesktop product? So when you buy XenDesktop, you also get the capability to connect via ICA/HDX directly to desktops?
• Will it be released as a standalone product, like for $50 per user you can buy an ICA/HDX standalone license.

My gut reaction would be that Citrix would make this a option for XenDesktop customers. Then again, Chris’s blog post talks about wanting to expose people to the benefits of ICA/HDX, so maybe that’s a hint that they’re thinking about this as a standalone release? On the one hand, that might hurt their XenDesktop sales. But on the other, they’ve always been saying that XenDesktop is more than ICA, so why not make this a standalone capability?

That said, the cheapest XenDesktop is only $75 per concurrent user. (Not counting the free 10-user Express Edition.) Heck, if Citrix added standalone ICA to the $75 edition of XenDesktop, I’ll bet people who are using other VDI products would buy that edition just for ICA and not even use the rest! (Which I think would be fine, right? I mean there’s no reason for Citrix to limit this standalone ICA thing to Platinum or Enterprise editions, is there?

How likely is this to happen?

So now that we’ve looked into all the details of this ICA/HDX standalone capability, how likely is this to happen? (Because Chris’s blog post makes it clear that they’re just thinking about this—they’re not committed to anything.)

My personal feeling is that this is fairly likely. In addition to all the reasons listed above, Citrix already has a marketing-friendly name picked out: HDX Connect. If this was just some project they were toying around with, it’d have a codename like “Project Flecktacular.”

And from a complexity standpoint, I can’t imagine that there’s too many code changes that need to happen to convert the existing VDA software agent into a standalone non-XenDesktop-requiring mode. Really it just depends on how they decide to license it. (And on that note, how cool would it be if Citrix just made this available for free, or super cheap, like $10 a user. Then everyone would use it. Microsoft would love it. And VMware would be caught in their own “we’re protocol agnostic” shtick and be forced to support it, which would make their blood boil since every View project on the planet would be enabled by Citrix. And Citrix would just sit back and look cool, knowing they were the reason that VDI was so popular.

You can download your version here:

32 Bit version: CTX119069
64 Bit version: CTX119075

License Server 11.6.1:  https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=1681211&productId=186

The version information of the License Server can be found in the version information of  "C:\Program Files\Citrix\Licensing\LS\CITRIX.exe"

Read the CTX documents mentioned above,  so you’re ready to install this hotfix rollup pack. If you’re doing an unattended installation of the rollup pack, please be sure you use the /qb- switch. When you use the /qb switch, setup fails to complete.

This document describes the issue(s) solved by this hotfix rollup pack and includes installation instructions. All product documentation is available from the Citrix Web site at http://www.citrix.com/support .

New Names for Citrix Presentation Server Components

• Citrix XenApp is the new name for the Citrix Presentation Server product line. The Presentation Server name remains on all existing product, documentation, user interface, and support materials for Version 4.5 and earlier of the product. The following clients and components have been updated to reflect the new product name.
• Citrix XenApp Advanced Configuration is the new name for the Presentation Server Console
• Citrix XenApp Plugin for Hosted Apps is the new name for the plugin for server-side virtualization (formerly named Citrix Presentation Server Client), which contains the following plugins:
  • Citrix XenApp, formerly named Program Neighborhood Agent
  • Citrix XenApp Web Plugin, formerly named the Web Client
  • Program Neighborhood
• Citrix XenApp Plugin for Streamed Apps is the new name for the plugin for client-side virtualization, formerly named the Citrix Streaming Client
• Citrix XenApp Provider is the new name for the WMI Provider
• Citrix XenApp Management Pack is the new name for the System Center Operations Manager and MOM Management Packs

Before You Install This Release (Prerequisites)

• Your Citrix License Server must be at Version 11.6.1 to install this hotfix rollup pack. Using your MyCitrix credentials, download this update from the Citrix Web site . [#206510]
• Before installing this hotfix rollup pack on servers licensed for Standard Edition, you must migrate those servers to Advanced Edition. Standard Edition was discontinued on Citrix Presentation Server 4.5; installing this hotfix rollup pack on servers licensed for Standard Edition might cause the following error message to appear:

  Citrix Presentation Server is unable to retrieve the product edition. Check to see if the Citrix Independent Management Architecture service is running without errors. Citrix Presentation Server cannot request licenses until it can obtain the product edition – no client devices can connect. If necessary, set the product edition in the Access Management Console. The product must be set to the same edition as your licenses.

  To migrate your servers to Advanced Edition, you must obtain an Advanced Edition license and then change the server edition in the Access Management Console from Standard to Advanced. For information about obtaining an Advanced Edition license, visit your My Citrix account or contact your reseller.

• The Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) must be installed on all servers before installing this hotfix rollup pack. This can be obtained from the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package download page, or visit the Microsoft Web site and search for Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86).

  Note : Even on 64-bit systems, you must install the x86 package. The x86 package is required and supported on 64-bit systems even if the x64 package is installed as well.

Special Installation Instructions for Application Streaming with Advanced Edition

If you already have XenApp Advanced Edition installed and want to use the Application Streaming feature, you must follow the installation procedure in this section. This procedure applies to Advanced Edition customers with XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2003, Presentation Server 4.5, and Presentation Server 4.5 with Feature Pack 1.

1. Start with a clean server.
2. Install Presentation Server 4.5 with Feature Pack 1 Platinum Edition. If you have the installation media, use it to install the XenApp Platinum Edition. If you do not have the installation media:
   1. Log on to My Citrix.
   2. From the Support menu, select Downloads.
   3. In the Search Downloads by Product box, click Citrix XenApp.
   4. In the Presentation Server 4.5 with Feature Pack 1 section of the Product Software category, select the Platinum Edition for your system.
   5. On the CD Image for Windows Server 2003 – Platinum Edition page, follow the appropriate download link for your system. Links are also provided to documentation; follow the installation procedures.
   6. When the XenApp installation is complete, restart the server.
3. Install Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 and then restart the server.
4. Access the XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack download page, but select the link for the Platinum Edition.
5. Download and install the Access Management Console hotfix. Links are provided on the XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack Platinum Edition download page.
6. Access the XenApp 5 Feature Pack download page for the Advanced Edition. Download the latest application streaming plug-in and profiler.
7. From the Access Management Console, set the XenApp product edition to Advanced.
   1. In the left pane of the Access Management Console, select the server.
   2. From the Action menu, select All Tasks > Set server edition.
   3. Select Advanced.
   4. Restart the server.

Note : If you already have a feature installed, you must download the latest version. If you later decide to uninstall the XenApp 5 Feature Pack, before you start, set the edition back to Platinum, described in Step 7 above, to uninstall all the files from the Feature Pack.

Known Installation Issues with This Release

• Hotfixes and hotfix rollup packs for Presentation Server 4.5 do not update Presentation Server Console files unless you select the console as a component of MPS.msi during the installation. See CTX110826 for more information.
• After installing Hotfix Rollup Pack 4, the Independent Management Architecture (IMA) Service might not start. This happens if you install Presentation Server Enterprise Edition and then downgrade to the Advanced or Standard Editions. See CTX113836 for more information.
• If you use the Presentation Server 4.5 Feature Pack 1 Platinum Edition media to install Presentation Server 4.5 and change the server edition to Enterprise afterward, the server edition reverts to Platinum when you install Hotfix Rollup Pack 4. See CTX117362 for more information.
• If you uninstall Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 from a server with the Access Management Console or the Citrix Streaming Client and/or Profiler installed, you are prompted for the Presentation Server 4.5 source media. After locating the media and proceeding with the uninstallation, the server will contain a few files that are not at the correct version levels. To restore the correct versions of these files, run the Access Management Console, Citrix Streaming Client and/or Profiler .msi packages and select the Repair option.
• Unattended installation of this hotfix rollup pack from a batch file using the /qb switch fails to complete. Instead, the installer stalls at a dialog box prompting to close CMD.exe. As a workaround, use the /qb- or the /qn switch. [#186447]
• After installing this hotfix rollup pack, several previously installed hotfixes might continue to display in the Add or Remove Programs section of the Control Panel. All of the hotfixes listed in the Control Panel and below are properly replaced by this hotfix rollup pack:
  

  PSE450W2K3027

  PSE450R01W2K3044

  PSE450R01W2K3047

  PSE450R01W2K3048

  PSE450R01W2K3049

  PSE450R01W2K3050

  PSE450R01W2K3051

  PSE450R01W2K3052

  PSE450R02W2K3041

  PSE450R02W2K3042

  PSE450R02W2K3043

  PSE450R02W2K3044

  PSE450R02W2K3045

  PSE450R02W2K3047

  PSE450R02W2K3048

  PSE450R02W2K3050

  PSE450R02W2K3052

  PSE450R02W2K3053

  PSE450R02W2K3054

  PSE450R02W2K3055

  PSE450R02W2K3056

  PSE450R03W2K3049

  PSE450R03W2K3051

  PSE450R03W2K3054

• To upgrade to the latest Citrix Presentation Server pass-through clients from Presentation Server 4.0, upgrade in the following order [#156201]:
  1. Presentation Server 4.0 mps.msi
  2. Presentation Server 4.5 mps.msi
  3. Hotfix Rollup Pack PSE450W2K3R04
  4. XenApp Plugin 11.0
• The Suite Monitoring and Alerting (SMA) Service used by the Access Management Console might not start after installing Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 and restarting the system. To fix this problem, you must upgrade the .NET version on the system to .NET 2.0 SP1.
• If a failure occurs when attempting to uninstall this hotfix rollup pack because the IMA Service or the data store are not available, the installation rolls back to the previous hotfix rollup pack installed state. However, after the rollback is completed, some registry keys might be modified and the file twexport.sys is removed.

Important Note(s) about This Release

• Caution : Do not install this hotfix rollup pack on 64-bit operating systems. Although Citrix uses the same code base in the development of both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the software, the binaries and files differ. Installing this hotfix rollup pack on 64-bit operating systems is not supported and can yield unpredictable results.
• Caution: Several items in this hotfix rollup pack require you to edit the registry. Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Citrix cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
• This hotfix rollup pack also provides the funcitonality included in Hotfix PSE450R03W2K3042, except for Fix #195800.
• For information about Commandline Parameter Validation for XenApp, see Knowledge Center articles CTX117316 and CTX115245 .
• After installing this hotfix rollup pack, Presentation Server 4.5 licensing will be enforced for the Application Streaming feature available in the Enterprise and Platinum editions. As a result, this feature will start to consume Presentation Server licenses and any individual Streaming (CSS) licenses received and activated in the past will no longer be utilized.
• After installing this hotfix rollup pack, settings for the Presentation Server Console are no longer read from the %USERPROFILE% folder but from the %APPLICATION DATA% folder. Therefore, if you are upgrading a server to this hotfix rollup pack and want to retain the existing console settings, you must move the Citrix/Management Console folder from %USERPROFILE% to %APPLICATION DATA%. [#194127]
• After installing this hotfix rollup pack, applications for which parameter passing is enabled might fail to launch. This is a result of the implementation of Fix #182305, which enforces tighter command line validation by default. Among potentially affected applications is the Citrix Conferencing Manager, any application that attempts to open a file over a UNC path [#186923], and Microsoft Office applications on WISP (Web Interface for SharePoint). As a workaround, you may choose to disable the fix:

  For Citrix Conferencing Manager:

  1. Go to the server properties of Citrix Conference Room.
  2. Select the published application and click Edit.
  3. In the Custom Application Location dialog box, select "Specify custom command line and working directory."
  4. Append %** to the command line (for example, "C:\Program Files\Citrix\CMCM\CRoom.exe" %**).
  5. Specify a working directory.
  6. Apply the changes.

  For individual applications:

  1. Go to the Location property of the published application, for example, Microsoft Word.
  2. Append %** to the command line (for example, "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\winword.exe" %**).
  3. Specify a working directory.
  4. Apply the changes.

  Alternatively, it is possible to disable the fix at the server level by setting the following registry key:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\wfshell\TWI
  Name: PublishedAppCommandLineFlag
  Type: DWORD
  Data: 0

• Uninstalling Version 1.3 of the Streaming Client from a system where Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 is installed might lead to system instabilities. The issue occurs because uninstalling the client removes the AIEcom.exe common component file. As a workaround, after uninstalling the client, run Repair on the Presentation Server Version 4.5 base installation. Running Repair restores the AIEcom.exe file. [#193688]
• When adding the ValidSites registry key to redirect specific URLs from server to client, specify the URLs without http:// . For example, add www.citrix.com, not http://www.citrix.com. [#161177]
• To enable Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 compatibility, you must install Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 before installing any Access Management Console extensions. [#162886]
• After using the Shadow Taskbar with Version 11.0 of the XenApp Plugin for Hosted Apps to launch session shadowing, the shadowed session might appear in the Windows Taskbar instead of the Shadow Taskbar. [#196063]
• Certain users cannot access the Event Log. This may cause some expected event messages to be missing. For more information, see Knowledge Center article CTX118466 . [#197462]
• If you remove the Hotfix Rollup Pack after publishing an application with Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 and the Hotfix Rollup Pack 4-level Access Management Console, the console might throw an exception when you attempt to edit the properties of that published application. This problem does not occur when you edit the properties of a published application that was created before Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 was installed. [#166266]

More @ the download site;

Paged and nonpaged pools serve as the memory resources that the operating system and device drivers use to store their data structures. The pool manager operates in kernel mode, using regions of the system’s virtual address space (described in the Pushing the Limits post on virtual memory) for the memory it sub-allocates. The kernel’s pool manager operates similarly to the C-runtime and Windows heap managers that execute within user-mode processes.  Because the minimum virtual memory allocation size is a multiple of the system page size (4KB on x86 and x64), these subsidiary memory managers carve up larger allocations into smaller ones so that memory isn’t wasted.

For example, if an application wants a 512-byte buffer to store some data, a heap manager takes one of the regions it has allocated and notes that the first 512-bytes are in use, returning a pointer to that memory and putting the remaining memory on a list it uses to track free heap regions. The heap manager satisfies subsequent allocations using memory from the free region, which begins just past the 512-byte region that is allocated.

Nonpaged Pool

The kernel and device drivers use nonpaged pool to store data that might be accessed when the system can’t handle page faults. The kernel enters such a state when it executes interrupt service routines (ISRs) and deferred procedure calls (DPCs), which are functions related to hardware interrupts. Page faults are also illegal when the kernel or a device driver acquires a spin lock, which, because they are the only type of lock that can be used within ISRs and DPCs, must be used to protect data structures that are accessed from within ISRs or DPCs and either other ISRs or DPCs or code executing on kernel threads. Failure by a driver to honor these rules results in the most common crash code, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL .

Nonpaged pool is therefore always kept present in physical memory and nonpaged pool virtual memory is assigned physical memory. Common system data structures stored in nonpaged pool include the kernel and objects that represent processes and threads, synchronization objects like mutexes, semaphores and events, references to files, which are represented as file objects, and I/O request packets (IRPs), which represent I/O operations.

Paged Pool

Paged pool, on the other hand, gets its name from the fact that Windows can write the data it stores to the paging file, allowing the physical memory it occupies to be repurposed. Just as for user-mode virtual memory, when a driver or the system references paged pool memory that’s in the paging file, an operation called a page fault occurs, and the memory manager reads the data back into physical memory. The largest consumer of paged pool, at least on Windows Vista and later, is typically the Registry, since references to registry keys and other registry data structures are stored in paged pool. The data structures that represent memory mapped files, called sections internally, are also stored in paged pool.

Device drivers use the ExAllocatePoolWithTag API to allocate nonpaged and paged pool, specifying the type of pool desired as one of the parameters. Another parameter is a 4-byte Tag , which drivers are supposed to use to uniquely identify the memory they allocate, and that can be a useful key for tracking down drivers that leak pool, as I’ll show later.

Viewing Paged and Nonpaged Pool Usage

There are three performance counters that indicate pool usage:

• Pool nonpaged bytes
• Pool paged bytes (virtual size of paged pool – some may be paged out)
• Pool paged resident bytes (physical size of paged pool)

However, there are no performance counters for the maximum size of these pools. They can be viewed with the kernel debugger !vm command, but with Windows Vista and later to use the kernel debugger in local kernel debugging mode you must boot the system in debugging mode, which disables MPEG2 playback.

So instead, use Process Explorer to view both the currently allocated pool sizes, as well as the maximum. To see the maximum, you’ll need to configure Process Explorer to use symbol files for the operating system. First, install the latest Debugging Tools for Windows package. Then run process Explorer and open the Symbol Configuration dialog in the Options menu and point it at the dbghelp.dll in the Debugging Tools for Windows installation directory and set the symbol path to point at Microsoft’s symbol server:

After you’ve configured symbols, open the System Information dialog (click System Information in the View menu or press Ctrl+I) to see the pool information in the Kernel Memory section. Here’s what that looks like on a 2GB Windows XP system:

2GB 32-bit Windows XP

Nonpaged Pool Limits

As I mentioned in a previous post, on 32-bit Windows, the system address space is 2GB by default. That inherently caps the upper bound for nonpaged pool (or any type of system virtual memory) at 2GB, but it has to share that space with other types of resources such as the kernel itself, device drivers, system Page Table Entries (PTEs), and cached file views.

Prior to Vista, the memory manager on 32-bit Windows calculates how much address space to assign each type at boot time. Its formulas takes into account various factors, the main one being the amount of physical memory on the system.  The amount it assigns to nonpaged pool starts at 128MB on a system with 512MB and goes up to 256MB for a system with a little over 1GB or more. On a system booted with the /3GB option, which expands the user-mode address space to 3GB at the expense of the kernel address space, the maximum nonpaged pool is 128MB. The Process Explorer screenshot shown earlier reports the 256MB maximum on a 2GB Windows XP system booted without the /3GB switch.

The memory manager in 32-bit Windows Vista and later, including Server 2008 and Windows 7 (there is no 32-bit version of Windows Server 2008 R2) doesn’t carve up the system address statically; instead, it dynamically assigns ranges to different types of memory according to changing demands. However, it still sets a maximum for nonpaged pool that’s based on the amount of physical memory, either slightly more than 75% of physical memory or 2GB, whichever is smaller. Here’s the maximum on a 2GB Windows Server 2008 system:

2GB 32-bit Windows Server 2008

64-bit Windows systems have a much larger address space, so the memory manager can carve it up statically without worrying that different types might not have enough space. 64-bit Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 set the maximum nonpaged pool to a little over 400K per MB of RAM or 128GB, whichever is smaller. Here’s a screenshot from a 2GB 64-bit Windows XP system:

2GB 64-bit Windows XP

64-bit Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 memory managers match their 32-bit counterparts (where applicable – as mentioned earlier, there is no 32-bit version of Windows Server 2008 R2) by setting the maximum to approximately 75% of RAM, but they cap the maximum at 128GB instead of 2GB. Here’s the screenshot from a 2GB 64-bit Windows Vista system, which has a nonpaged pool limit similar to that of the 32-bit Windows Server 2008 system shown earlier.

2GB 32-bit Windows Server 2008

Finally, here’s the limit on an 8GB 64-bit Windows 7 system:

8GB 64-bit Windows 7

Here’s a table summarizing the nonpaged pool limits across different version of Windows:

Paged Pool Limits

The kernel and device drivers use paged pool to store any data structures that won’t ever be accessed from inside a DPC or ISR or when a spinlock is held. That’s because the contents of paged pool can either be present in physical memory or, if the memory manager’s working set algorithms decide to repurpose the physical memory, be sent to the paging file and demand-faulted back into physical memory when referenced again. Paged pool limits are therefore primarily dictated by the amount of system address space the memory manager assigns to paged pool, as well as the system commit limit.

On 32-bit Windows XP, the limit is calculated based on how much address space is assigned other resources, most notably system PTEs, with an upper limit of 491MB. The 2GB Windows XP System shown earlier has a limit of 360MB, for example:

2GB 32-bit Windows XP

32-bit Windows Server 2003 reserves more space for paged pool, so its upper limit is 650MB.

Since 32-bit Windows Vista and later have dynamic kernel address space, they simply set the limit to 2GB. Paged pool will therefore run out either when the system address space is full or the system commit limit is reached.

64-bit Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 set their maximums to four times the nonpaged pool limit or 128GB, whichever is smaller. Here again is the screenshot from the 64-bit Windows XP system, which shows that the paged pool limit is exactly four times that of nonpaged pool:

2GB 64-bit Windows XP

Finally, 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 simply set the maximum to 128GB, allowing paged pool’s limit to track the system commit limit. Here’s the screenshot of the 64-bit Windows 7 system again:

8GB 64-bit Windows 7

Here’s a summary of paged pool limits across operating systems:

Testing Pool Limits

Because the kernel pools are used by almost every kernel operation, exhausting them can lead to unpredictable results. If you want to witness first hand how a system behaves when pool runs low, use the Notmyfault tool. It has options that cause it to leak either nonpaged or paged pool in the increment that you specify. You can change the leak size while it’s leaking if you want to change the rate of the leak and Notmyfault frees all the leaked memory when you exit it:

Don’t run this on a system unless you’re prepared for possible data loss, as applications and I/O operations will start failing when pool runs out. You might even get a blue screen if the driver doesn’t handle the out-of-memory condition correctly (which is considered a bug in the driver). The Windows Hardware Quality Laboratory (WHQL) stresses drivers using the Driver Verifier, a tool built into Windows, to make sure that they can tolerate out-of-pool conditions without crashing, but you might have third-party drivers that haven’t gone through such testing or that have bugs that weren’t caught during WHQL testing.

I ran Notmyfault on a variety of test systems in virtual machines to see how they behaved and didn’t encounter any system crashes, but did see erratic behavior. After nonpaged pool ran out on a 64-bit Windows XP system, for example, trying to launch a command prompt resulted in this dialog:

On a 32-bit Windows Server 2008 system where I already had a command prompt running, even simple operations like changing the current directory and directory listings started to fail after nonpaged pool was exhausted:

On one test system, I eventually saw this error message indicating that data had potentially been lost. I hope you never see this dialog on a real system!

Running out of paged pool causes similar errors. Here’s the result of trying to launch Notepad from a command prompt on a 32-bit Windows XP system after paged pool had run out. Note how Windows failed to redraw the window’s title bar and the different errors encountered for each attempt:

And here’s the start menu’s Accessories folder failing to populate on a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 system that’s out of paged pool:

Here you can see the system commit level, also displayed on Process Explorer’s System Information dialog, quickly rise as Notmyfault leaks large chunks of paged pool and hits the 2GB maximum on a 2GB 32-bit Windows Server 2008 system:

The reason that Windows doesn’t simply crash when pool is exhausted, even though the system is unusable, is that pool exhaustion can be a temporary condition caused by an extreme workload peak, after which pool is freed and the system returns to normal operation. When a driver (or the kernel) leaks pool, however, the condition is permanent and identifying the cause of the leak becomes important. That’s where the pool tags described at the beginning of the post come into play.

Tracking Pool Leaks

When you suspect a pool leak and the system is still able to launch additional applications, Poolmon, a tool in the Windows Driver Kit , shows you the number of allocations and outstanding bytes of allocation by type of pool and the tag passed into calls of ExAllocatePoolWithTag. Various hotkeys cause Poolmon to sort by different columns; to find the leaking allocation type, use either ‘b’ to sort by bytes or ‘d’ to sort by the difference between the number of allocations and frees. Here’s Poolmon running on a system where Notmyfault has leaked 14 allocations of about 100MB each:

After identifying the guilty tag in the left column, in this case ‘Leak’, the next step is finding the driver that’s using it. Since the tags are stored in the driver image, you can do that by scanning driver images for the tag in question. The Strings utility from Sysinternals dumps printable strings in the files you specify (that are by default a minimum of three characters in length), and since most device driver images are in the %Systemroot%\System32\Drivers directory, you can open a command prompt, change to that directory and execute “strings * | findstr <tag>”. After you’ve found a match, you can dump the driver’s version information with the Sysinternals Sigcheck utility. Here’s what that process looks like when looking for the driver using “Leak”:

If a system has crashed and you suspect that it’s due to pool exhaustion, load the crash dump file into the Windbg debugger, which is included in the Debugging Tools for Windows package, and use the !vm command to confirm it. Here’s the output of !vm on a system where Notmyfault has exhausted nonpaged pool:

Once you’ve confirmed a leak, use the !poolused command to get a view of pool usage by tag that’s similar to Poolmon’s. !poolused by default shows unsorted summary information, so specify 1 as the the option to sort by paged pool usage and 2 to sort by nonpaged pool usage:

Use Strings on the system where the dump came from to search for the driver using the tag that you find causing the problem.

So far in this blog series I’ve covered the most fundamental limits in Windows, including physical memory, virtual memory, paged and nonpaged pool. Next time I’ll talk about the limits for the number of processes and threads that Windows supports, which are limits that derive from these.