Weblog.BassQ.nl » Citrix

Citrix Connector for System Center Configuration Manager 2007

BassQ — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:48:58 +0000

Source; http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2010/07/01/citrix-connector-for-system-center-configuration-manager-2007.aspx

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

Three Steps to a PXE-Free XenDesktop on Hyper-V

BassQ — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:33:21 +0000

http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2010/04/13/Three+Steps+to+a+PXE-Free+XenDesktop+on+Hyper-V

I ran into an interesting situation last week while working with Tony Sanchez from our Global Microsoft Team. He was setting up XenDesktop 4 on Hyper-V 2008 R2. However, the lab he was at used a Windows Deployment Server (WDS) for image management and it relies extensively on PXE. Rather than modify the WDS to support the Provisioning Services PXE boot file, we decided the best solution was to make a boot ISO that will load the OS directly from the Provisioning Services host and then boot the guests from that ISO.

Background

Since not all my readers are familiar with using the Boot Device Manager, I will set the stage. When configuring a virtual machine to boot off of a CD-ROM image for PVS, you need to do three things:

Add a Legacy network card on the host since the Synthetic network adapter is not created until the Operating System loads.
Configure the BIOS boot order so that CD-ROM is first in the list.
Assign a bootable ISO image to the CD-ROM/DVD drive.

Take Note
The PXE boot option is required in order for the NIC Option ROM to stay resident in memory during the pre-boot process. This way, UNDI will be available to the boot device to properly initialize the NIC. Otherwise, the “API not found” message would be displayed by the boot device.

In deployments of XenDesktop where you have more than about 15 machines, the XenDesktop Setup Wizard (XDSW) is normally used to create and link the XenDesktops with Hyper-V. Unfortunately, the XDSW does not support all the possible VM configuration options when duplicating the source virtual machine. One of the properties that is not transferred to the new virtual machine is the ISO in the DVD drive. Normally, this behavior is the preferred because Hyper-V needs a special configuration to support sharing an ISO across multiple guests simultaneously (See this Technet article), which if not configured correctly can cause startup issues.

If you do not want to configure ISO sharing, you can use the VMM server and VMM library to copy the boot ISO to each virtual machine’s folder. If the ISO was large, I would say spend time setting up the sharing configuration; however, in this case the file itself is only 300K and copying it will eliminate the possibility of file sharing/locking issues.

Now you understand some of the challenges, I can tell you the three steps to a PXE-free Hyper-V deployment.:

Create a PVS Boot ISO using the Boot Device Manager
Import that PVS Boot ISO into the VMM Library
Execute a PowerShell script

Step 1: Create a PVS Boot ISO

The Provisioning Services Boot Device Manager is a three-dialog wizard that lets you pre-configure the boot environment just like a PXE server would, except you can then write that to a drive or CD-ROM media. The Boot Device Manager is found on the Start menu of any provisioning server at All Programs >> Citrix >> Provisioning Services >> Provisioning Services Boot Device Manager.

I do not want to spend a lot of time discussing the various options or provide a tutorial on this utility; however, I will provide a few pointers. First, be sure to enable the “Citrix PVS Two-Stage Boot Service” and set it to start automatically on any servers you will use as the targets for the ISO image. Second, if you are using Windows 7, be sure to enable the PAE Mode on the second page of the wizard, like this:

Third, be sure to select Citrix ISO Recorder as the boot device (shown below) before burning the ISO image, lest you accidentally wipe out your local hard disk. For a complete guide on using the Boot Disk Manager, see this Citrix Support Article CTX121331.

Step 2: Import the ISO into the SCVMM Library

Take the ISO you created in Step 1 and save it to the folder where the SCVMM library stores are located. I created a new folder called ISOs at the same level as VHDs and placed the ISO in that folder. Next start the SCVMM Administrative Console and go to the Library tab. Select the MSSCVMMLibrary node and click Refresh on the context-menu to add the ISOs to the library as shown here:

Step 3: Execute the PowerShell Script

Next, you can copy the contents of the PowerShell script below and save it to a file called AttachISO.PS1. I realize that I am not yet a PowerShell guru, so I am aware that several optimizations and error checks could be made to this script. Feel free to modify it for your own use. My goal was provide a working example to help with this issue. The PowerShell script below does the following:

Sets the boot order to CD, PXE (Legacy NIC), IDE, Floppy
Copies the ISO image from the library to the VM’s folder
Creates a DVD drive object at the IDE bus 1:0 if no DVD drive is found
Removes any existing ISO and sets the ISO image to the one specified on the command-line
For larger environments, it lets you know how many VMs it has left to process

AttachISO PowerShell Script

# Purpose:      Attach ISO image from VMM Server Library to Guest Virtual Machine
# Date Written: 12 April 2010
# Author:       Paul Wilson (no implied or expressed warranties)
# Usage:        AttachISO [UNC Path to ISO in Library] [VM Name to Match Criteria]

# Check for the two required arguments and offer command-line assistance if not found

if ($args -eq $null -or $args.Count -lt 2)
{
   write-output "Usage: AttachISO.ps1 UNC_fileName_ISO_File VMNameMatches"
   write-output "Example: .\AttachISO.ps1 ""\\SCVMM\MSSCVMMLibrary\ISOs\pvbt.iso"" ""Desktop"" "
   exit 1
}

# Grab the arguments and store them for later use

$ISOPath = $args[0]
$VMNameMatches = $args[1]

# Get the name of the SCVMM server we are running this on.
# The VMM server could be passed as a parameter as well.

$VMMServer = Get-VMMServer -Computername "localhost"

# Get the ISO image reference object using the ISO path provided earlier.
# Using the full path guarantees the right object is found. 

$ISOImage = Get-ISO -VMMServer $VMMServer | where { $_.SharePath -eq "$ISOPath" }

if ($ISOImage -eq $null)
{
   write-output "Unable to find ISO: $ISOPath"
   exit 1
}

# Get the collection of VMs that match the name parameters supplied and output that information

$VMs = Get-VM | where { $_.Name -match "$VMNameMatches" }
if ($VMs -eq $null)
{
   write-output "No VMs match the pattern: $VMNameMatches"
   exit 1
}
else
{
   $LeftToGo = $VMs.Count
   if ($LeftToGo -eq $null)
   {
      $matchString = "Only one VM matched the pattern: {0}" -f $VMNameMatches
      $LeftToGo = 1
    }
    else
    {
      $matchString = "{0} VMs match the pattern: {1}" -f $VMs.Count, $VMNameMatches
    }
    write-output $matchString
}

# This loop goes through each VM found and does the following:
#   1. Sets the boot order to CD, PXE Nic, IDE, Floppy.
#   2. Gets the DVD/CD drive object.
#   3. The script will copy the ISO image from the library to the VM's folder.
#      The copy is part of the Set-VirtualDVDDrive and New-VirtualDVDDrive cmdlets.
#   4. Creates the DVD drive object if none found and sets it to the ISO.
#   5. Removes any existing ISO and sets the ISO image to the one specified.
#   6. Outputs the number of VMs remaining to process. Added for large deployments. 

foreach ($VM in $VMS)
{
   $LeftToGo = $LeftToGo - 1
   Set-VM -VM $VM -BootOrder CD,PXEBoot,IDEHardDrive,Floppy
   $current_dvd = get-VirtualDVDDrive -VM $VM

   if ($current_dvd -eq $null -or $current_dvd.count -eq 0)
   {
      $newDVD = New-VirtualDVDDrive -VM $VM -Bus 1 -LUN 0 -ISO $ISOImage
      $DVDResultMessage = "Created DVD Drive on {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo
   }
   else
   {
      if ($current_dvd.Connection -ne "None")
      {
         set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -noMedia
         set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -ISO $ISOImage
         $DVDResultMessage = "Replaced existing media in DVD Drive on {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo
       }
       else
       {
         set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -ISO $ISOImage
         $DVDResultMessage = "Successfully attached ISO to the DVD Drive of {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo
       }
    }
    write-output $DVDResultMessage
}

Technical Preview Citrix XenApp 6 for Windows Server 2008 R2

BassQ — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:02:27 +0000

The Technology Preview of Citrix XenApp for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 is now available for

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.

The Delivery Services Console provides a streamlined interface for performing a number of management functions. As with the Access Management Console in previous versions of XenApp, you can manage components administered through other Citrix products, such as Citrix Secure Access and Citrix Single Sign-On. For Citrix XenApp, you can set up and monitor servers, server farms, published resources, and sessions.

Streamlined design

The Delivery Services Console conforms to the console design standards in Windows Server 2008 R2. As with other Windows consoles, the Delivery Services Console includes:

a tree pane that provides an overview of the components in your XenApp farm.
a results pane that displays views of the items selected in the tree pane. For example, when you select Policies from the tree pane, the results pane displays tabs that show the computer and user policies and settings configured for the farm.
an Actions pane that contains all applicable tasks that can be performed on a particular item in the tree and results panes. For example, when you select the Servers folder, the Actions pane displays the tasks you can perform on the folder. When you select a server from the results pane, the Action pane displays the tasks you can perform on the server as well as the folder-level tasks.

Consolidated administration

In previous versions of Citrix XenApp, administering a farm meant using two consoles: the Access Management Console and the Advanced Configuration tool. Administrators had to know which console to use for certain tasks. In this Technical Preview, functions that were previously managed through the Advanced Configuration tool are now managed through the Delivery Services Console. Whether you need to publish applications or configure XenApp policies, you can perform farm administration tasks with one console.

Improved startup and discovery

In previous versions of XenApp, the management console started up slowly and required re-running discovery to display any changes made to the farm. In this Technical Preview, you can improve the console’s startup time by disabling Authenticode signature validation.

As you use the console to administer your XenApp farm, the display refreshes whenever you make a change to the farm or when you press F5. You do not need to re-run discovery to ensure the console display is up-to-date.

Farm Settings and Policies Management

In this Technical Preview, farm properties and XenApp policies are managed through Active Directory Group Policy. Active Directory simplifies XenApp farm management tasks because you can use the same tools you use already to manage your Windows environment. You can:

Use the Delivery Services Console to create and configure XenApp policies and run simulations of policy deployment scenarios. Alternatively, you can use the Group Policy Editor to create and configure policies and the Group Policy Management Console to run policy deployment simulations. You can also use the Group Policy Management Console to calculate the resulting set of policies for a specific user or farm server.
Use the Advanced Group Policy Manager, if available, to manage XenApp farm and policy settings, delegate administration, and manage changes to group policy objects.
Publish applications to server groups or organization units.
Provide access to published applications to anonymous users.
Delegate farm permissions to other Citrix administrators.
Enable zone preference and failover functionality for server groups and organization units, without creating zones.
Assign load evaluators to server groups or organization units.

Even though XenApp provides integration with Active Directory, organizations that use another directory service, such as Novell eDirectory, can take advantage of XenApp’s independent policy system and Active Directory SDK to integrate XenApp into their environment and support authenticated users.

Simplified installation

In previous versions of XenApp, the installation process often required pre-installation and post-installation tasks that took more time than the actual installation itself. In this Technical Preview, installing XenApp is much simpler. The XenApp Server Role Manager steps you through the deployment process by:

analyzing your computer and installing needed pre-requisites automatically
providing additional information about the roles in which XenApp components are grouped and their requirements
installing components according to the roles you select
providing a task list to help you keep track of your progress in configuring the roles you installed

HDX Enhancements

The XenApp Technical Preview includes several HDX technology enhancements:

Support for video conferencing with Office Communications Server 2007
New audio codecs and echo cancellation to enhance audio quality in XenApp sessions while reducing bandwidth
True multi-monitor support
Support for Microsoft Plug-n-Play device redirection so portable devices like MP3 players, digital cameras, and devices with Microsoft POS for .NET can be used in XenApp sessions

Application Streaming Enhancements

Service isolation enables you to install services in application profiles so that they run in isolation on user devices. Fully tested applications include Office 2010, Adobe applications, and the Firefox browser.
Profiled applications (especially those in Office 2010 and 2007) are no longer packaged in .CAB files. Instead, you can locate the application files in directory subfolders for the application.

Single Sign-On Enhancements

This Technical Preview includes several enhancements to Single sign-on, including:

Enhanced Web application definition creation and management functionality
Sendkeys functionality for Web, matching existing availability for Windows

For a complete list of enhancements, see http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp6-w2k8-tp/pm-welcome-features-new-v48.html.

Profile Management Enhancements

The XenApp Technical Preview includes the following enhancements to profile management:

Citrix streamed user profiles enable files and folders on the local computer to be synchronized only when they are needed, which speeds up logon and logoff. (Registry entries are cached immediately.)
Profiles are synchronized locally after logon as a background system task, without any feedback to users.
With active profile write back, files and folders (but not Registry entries) that are modified can be synchronized to the user store in the middle of a session, before logoff.
Administrators can now set the computers and groups to be monitored using the Diagnostic Facility in the Daily Management Console. They no longer have to configure logging in the ADM template and force a group policy update (that they may not have permissions for). In addition, new event log messages display the full path to the user store for each user logon.
Profile management checks for more errors during installation and, if they are encountered, writes messages to the event log. A new command-line switch installs Profile management without the .ini files that were previously used for configuration.

Citrix Workflow Studio 2.0

BassQ — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:33:02 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that Workflow Studio 2.0 is now available:

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

Should Citrix allow standalone ICA connections to desktops without a broker?

BassQ — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:57:47 +0000

by Brian Madden

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.

XenApp 4.5 / 5 Hotfix Rollup pack 4

BassQ — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:50:05 +0000

Citrix has released Hotfix Rollup pack 4 for XenApp 4.5 and XenApp 5.0.

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 â 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.

Start with a clean server.
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.
Install Hotfix Rollup Pack 4 and then restart the server.
Access the XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack download page, but select the link for the Platinum Edition.
Download and install the Access Management Console hotfix. Links are provided on the XenApp 5.0 Feature Pack Platinum Edition download page.
Access the XenApp 5 Feature Pack download page for the Advanced Edition. Download the latest application streaming plug-in and profiler.
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;

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Paged and Nonpaged Pool

BassQ — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:01:44 +0000

In previous Pushing the Limits posts, I described the two most basic system resources, physical memory and virtual memory . This time I’m going to describe two fundamental kernel resources, paged pool and nonpaged pool, that are based on those, and that are directly responsible for many other system resource limits including the maximum number of processes, synchronization objects, and handles.

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:

	32-bit	64-bit
XP, Server 2003	up to 1.2GB RAM: 32-256 MB > 1.2GB RAM: 256MB	min( ~400K/MB of RAM, 128GB)
Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7, Server 2008 R2	min( ~75% of RAM, 2GB)	min(~75% of RAM, 128GB)

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:

	32-bit	64-bit
XP, Server 2003	XP: up to 491MB Server 2003: up to 650MB	min( 4 * nonpaged pool limit, 128GB)
Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7, Server 2008 R2	min( system commit limit, 2GB)	min( system commit limit, 128GB)

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 ”. 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.

Best practices for deploying Citrix on vmware ESX

BassQ — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:27:22 +0000

First and foremost: this tuning list is my own experience and the experience of several users on the VMware forum . Your mileage may vary.

The goods:

Virtual Infrastructure 3
Windows 2003 Std (or Enterprise) Edition R2 (x86, not x64)
Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 (yes, I know, the old one )

The tips:

First this: it all depends on the applications used! Context switches is the key here…
Use Windows 2003 , not Windows 2000
Don’t P2V your servers, but use clean templates
Make sure the correct HAL (single or multi) is installed in the virtual machine. Otherwise, your vCPU will spike.
Always assign 1vCPU . If necessary, add a 2^nd vCPU. Do not use 4 vCPUs!
Use 2 GB to start. Scale up to +-4 GB of vRAM if necessary
Use 1 .vmdk for your system partition (C:\ or other remapped drive letter) and 1 separate .vmdk for your program files.
Put the page file on the 2^nd .vmdk
Important: disconnect any .iso file in your virtual CD-Rom
Use roaming profiles and cleanup your profiles at logoff
Disable sound for your published apps
Install the UPH service (download it here )
User sessions: for me, 30 users on a VM is the sweet spot. Do not expect to get as many users on it as on a physical box!
Scale out, not up. A major advantage of VM is to clone/NewSID/sysprep existing servers and put them into your existing Citrix farm. Just stop & disable your IMA service , clean up your RMLocalDB (if you use enterprise) and NewSid the thing. Refer to this support article for more info.
Use dual core or quad core systems. This because ESX will have more CPU to schedule its vCPUs on.
Don’t ever use a 2 vCPU Citrix virtual machine in a 2 pCPU physical machine!
Do not install the memory ballooning driver while installing the VMware Tools
Do not use a complete installation Vmware tools : there is an issue with roaming profiles and the shared folders component. See my previous article for more info.
Disable COM ports, hyperthreading, visual effects & use speedscreen technology where possible.
Use snapshots when installing applications or patching your servers (yes! With VMware you can do this!). In case of disaster, you can still revert to the original working server without using backups. Make sure all snapshots are removed ASAP when finished!
Always check that there are no snapshot leftovers (f.e. the infamous _VCB-BACKUP_ when using VCB)
Don’t forget you can use DRS rules to run your citrix servers on separate physical hosts.
Check out this vmworld 2006 presentation
And last but not least: do not forget to read ESX’s (excellent) performance tuning white paper .

Source: http://virtrix.blogspot.com/2007/03/vmware-best-practices-for-deploying.html

XenServer Is Now Free

BassQ — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:05:46 +0000

Days ago, this announcement was made by Citrix:

XenServer, our enterprise virtual infrastructure platform is now free (including resource pooling and live relo), and we have announced Citrix Essentials for XenServer, and Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V as our virtualization management portfolio that offers a rich set of automated functions that drive the compatible virtualization layers beneath – the free Hyper-V hypervisor from Microsoft, and the free XenServer Enterprise virtual infrastructure platform from Citrix. Finally, and most importanly, we announced a powerful go-to-market roadmap with Microsoft.

Response to our announcements has been extremely positive, from our partner Microsoft to our channel partners and resellers, and many many customers and users. There are the expected nay-sayers too, but someone had to drink the only thing that you get free from our competitor – VMware koolaid.

That’s a pretty serious offering for free. Here’s a comparison chart they offer at their site:

Companies who are just now seriously looking into virtualization are going to be hard-pressed to pony up the cash VMWare is asking for their VI product when you can pretty much get the same functionality for free from Citrix. VMWare is going to have to do something in response to stay competitive, especially with the economy in the shape it’s in right now. I can’t wait to see what that will be.

A list of very commonly used tools to support Terminal Services / Citrix

BassQ — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:50:18 +0000

· 4GE Resource Kit – 4GEReskit – Thomas Kötzing’s favorite tools to use while working with Terminal Server & Citrix MetaFrame

· Acro Software Cute PDF Printer – CutePDF Printer is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. CutePDF Printer installs itself as a "printer subsystem". This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create perfect PDF documents – with just a push of a button! Easy-to-Install, Easy-to-Use, Professional Quality, Supports Win 98/Me/2000/XP. Absolutely Free! No watermarks! No Annoying Popup Advertisement.

· ADM Template Editor – makes editing of ADM templates a breeze

· AdModify.Net – is a tool primarily utilized by Exchange and Active Directory administrators to facilitate bulk user attribute modifications.

· AnalogX TSDropCopy is a simple to use application that when run on both client and server allows files to be transferred between both machines quickly and easily

· BrainSys BrsSuite – an amazing freeware tool to completely lockdown and customize the end-user environment – Designed by Security Expert "Fabrice Cornet".

· Citrix Connection Test Tool provides various connection methods for scalability test and other tests which require a number of sessions to be established

· Citrix ICA Client Downloads from Citrix.com

· CitrixTools.com - Tools to change home directories, profiles and delete ini files.

· Clusteresis RDP Load Balancer - RDPLB is a Load Balancing Application for Windows 2003, 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition

· DABCC Methodology-in-a-Box is the must read project management document for deploying Citrix Access Suite written by Microsoft Terminal Server MVP – Douglas A. Brown

· DPAKBD is a TSR that attempts to put errant DOS applications that poll the keyboard incessantly to sleep, thus enabling the CPU to service the rest of its process queue. The TSR must be executed in the same NTVDM as the application but before the application is executed.

· Filemon monitors and displays file system activity on a system in real-time. Its advanced capabilities make it a powerful tool for exploring the way Windows works, seeing how applications use the files and DLLs, or tracking down problems in system or application file configurations. Filemon is one of the most common utilities used to determine why a program runs correctly as an administrator, but does not function when run by an un-privileged user.

· Frameworkx – Creative and Smart Solutions

· Limit Login Attempts With LimitLogin

· LogonConsultants.nl Flex Profile Kit

· Policy Template Editor – Tools4ever’s Policy Template Editor eliminates the difficulty of creating and editing templates. With the use of graphical aids the Policy Template Editor will generate the complex policy template files for you automatically and without error.

· PortQry Command Line Port Scanner Version 2.0 – PortQryV2.exe is a command-line utility that you can use to help troubleshoot TCP/IP connectivity issues. Portqry.exe runs on Windows 2000-based computers.The utility reports the port status of TCP and UDP ports on a computer you choose. For details, see Knowledge Base Article Knowledge Base Article 310099.

· Printingsupport.com’s printsubs.exe is a utility to map RDP Printers, instead of manually having to edit the Windows Registry and create a user defined inf file.

· properJavaRDP – is an open source Java RDP client for Windows Terminal Services. It is based on rdesktop, a SourceForge project. properJavaRDP runs on Java 1.1 up (optimized for 1.4), and works great on Linux, Windows and Mac.

· PXES Universal Thin Client – is a micro Linux distribution allowing you to build thin clients or diskless workstations.

· RDesktop Ports – rdesktop is a free client for the RDP protocol. It works as a "thin client" which you use to connect to Windows NT4TS/2000/2003/XP. It runs on many operating systems: several flavours of Unix/Linux, Acorn, Amiga, Mac OS X, OS/2 etc. It has even been ported to Win32 and Java.

· Regmon is a Registry monitoring utility that will show you which applications are accessing your Registry, which keys they are accessing, and the Registry data that they are reading and writing – all in real-time. This advanced utility takes you one step beyond what static Registry tools can do, to let you see and understand exactly how programs use the Registry. With static tools you might be able to see what Registry values and keys changed. With Regmon you’ll see how the values and keys changed.. Regmon works on Windows NT/2000/XP, .NET Server 2003 (RC2 and higher), Windows 95/98/Me and Windows 64-bit/Itanium. Regmon is one of the most common utilities used to determine why a program runs correctly as an administrator, but does not function when run by an un-privileged user.

· RegShot – is a small,free and open-sourced registry compare utility that allows you to quickly take a snapshot of your registry and then compare it with a second one – done after doing system changes or installing a new software product. The changes report can be produced in text or HTML format and contains a list of all modifications that have taken place between snapshot1 and snapshot2. In addition, you can also specify folders (with sub folders) to be scanned for changes as well.

· RegToAdm – Convert a REG file (exported from Regedit), to a simple custom ADM template, that can be used in Poledit for distribution of registry settings on the network.

· Remote Application Center 2.0 This is a simple program that permits controlling access to applications installed on Terminal Server. Applications are published on the server and when an user logins to Terminal Server it presents to user a Panel that contains only published applications that user can run.

· Remote Desktop Client version 6.0 for Windows XP

· Remote Desktop Client version 6.0 for Windows XP X64 Edition

· Remote Desktop Client version 6.0 for Windows Server 2003

· Remote Desktop Client version 6.0 for Windows Server 2003 X64 Edition

· Remote Desktop Client version 5.1.2600.2180 for Windows – This software package will install the client portion of Remote Desktop on a computer running any of the following operating systems: Windows 95, Windows 98 and 98 Second Edition, Windows Me, Windows NT® 4.0, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. This software, when run, allows other Windows platforms to remotely connect to a computer running Windows XP Professional or Windows Server 2003. The version of this software is 5.1.2600.2180, and is the same version that is installed as part of Windows XP Service Pack 2.

· Remote Desktop Client for Mac OSX – Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac allows you to connect to a Windows-based computer and work with programs and files on that computer from your Macintosh computer. To connect to a Windows-based computer, you need network access and permissions to connect to the computer, and the computer must be running Terminal Services or Remote Desktop Services.

· Remote Desktop Web Connection version 5.2.3790 – The Remote Desktop Web Connection ActiveX control allows you to access your computer through Remote Desktop, via the Internet, from another computer using Internet Explorer. You must be using Internet Information Services (IIS) to host a Web site to use this feature. Remote Desktop Web Connection provides most of the same functionality as the Remote Desktop Connection software. Note: Users of Windows Server 2003 do not need to download this package. They can manually add this package from Add/Remove in the Control Panel. This package is offered as a convenience to Microsoft customers.

· Remote Executer for Terminal Server – This is a simple program that permits run a ShellExecute function on the local machine from a remote session on Terminal Server

· Resource Hacker a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables and resource files (*.res). It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and decompiler and works on Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2000 and WinXP operating systems.

· Resource Kit Utilities You can download the Windows 2000 Resource Kit software tools listed on this page for free and install them on your computer. These utilities can help you streamline administrative tasks such as managing Active Directory™, administering security features, working with Group Policy and Terminal Services, automating application deployment, and other important jobs.

· Resource Kit Tools The Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools are a set of tools to help administrators streamline management tasks such as troubleshooting operating system issues, managing Active Directory®, configuring networking and security features, and automating application deployment.

· Royal TS – an alternative for the standard Terminal Services Snap-In that adds additional features, including connection specific display settings, stored login credentials and more.

· Terminal Server Printer Driver Redirection Wizard This tool can reduce terminal server printer redirection failures, and steps an administrator through the process of finding the drivers that failed to redirect on a terminal server, and automates the creation of a custom printer driver mapping file.

· Terminal Services Client for Pocket PC 2002

· Terminal Services Scaling Scripts & Utilities – This page provides a download of scalability scripts for the "smclient" scaling script utility for Windows® 2000 Terminal Services. It also includes an Excel spreadsheet to determine the correct registry value for achieving optimal scaling when a server is kernel address space limited.

· Threadmaster Monitors Threads and handle high CPU utilization on a per application basis. This function is primarily indented for Terminal servers hosting multiple users. ThreadMaster can also be used when running multiple virtual machines on the same server, to limit each virtual machines CPU usage.

· Thinstall The Thinstall Virtualized Citrix Presentation Server Client enables instant, portable Citrix access from any PC without installation or Administrator Rights

· Thinstation is a Linux distribution that enables you to convert standard PCs into full-featured diskless thin clients supporting all major connectivity protocols like Citrix ICA, MS Windows terminal services (RDP), X, Telnet, SSH… It can be booted from the network using Etherboot/PXE or from standard media like floppy/CD/hd/flash-disk etc. The configuration can be centralized to simplify terminal management.

· Tools for Remote Computing by Alex K. Angelopoulos

· True Control Template – A compilation of Group Policy Administrative Templates pertaining to Terminal Server and Citrix.

· Trust-No-Exe is a executable file filter. It attaches to the operating system and filters all executable files, be it .exe .com .dll .drv .sys .dpl etc from all drives and all network shares against a list of files or paths, you, the administrator provide as trusted applications. If a prohibited executable (one not in the allow list or one explicitly defined in the deny list) is loaded, a popup box informs the user with an intelligent message that can be customised to your site.

· TSCmd from Systemtools.com – A command-line utility to set terminal server user settings. All eighteen (18) terminal server settings can be set. Includes documentation in readme.txt file.

· User Profile Hive Cleanup Service On Windows 2000 the service deals with application event log event 1000 from source Userenv where the message indicates that the profile is not unloading and the error is "Access is denied". On Windows XP and Windows 2003 the equivalent events are 1517 and 1524 from source Userenv.To accomplish this the service monitors for logged off users that still have hives loaded. When that happens the service determines which applications have handles opened to the hives and releases them. It logs the application name and what registry keys where left open. After this the system finishes unloading the profile.

· Visionapp Remote Desktop – a tool which allows the management of RDP connections to servers. vRD is ideal for administrators who need to maintain simultaneous connections to multiple servers (organizing connection-specific settings and login credentials in folders/subfolders).

· WBIsoft.com XPtsFree – a "FREE" single sign on (A.K.A. passthru authentication) Remote Desktop Client.

· Windows Application Compatibility Toolkit

· Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server Capacity and Scaling – This white paper contains testing methodologies, results, analysis, and sizing guidelines for Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server.

· XN Resource Editor - free, powerful, fully featured resource editor and PE module explorer for Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

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This Post lists the best practices for securing Terminal Server or Windows XP (for use with VDI)

BassQ — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:59:46 +0000

How can I protect my terminal servers from Spyware, Malware, Trojans, Worms, Viruses and un-authorized software?

Start with a secure installation of the Operating System. Windows Server 2003 installs by default with the users being able to create files and folders in the root of the system drive and Windows 2000 Server installs by default with the Everyone group having Full Control NTFS Permissions to the entire System Drive. To lock down the System Drive on Windows 2000 Server, start with the following settings:

Root of System Drive – Authenticated Users = "Read and Execute"
Root of System Drive – Administrators = "Full Control"
Root of System Drive – System = "Full Control"
Program Files Directory – Authenticated Users = "Read and Execute"
Program Files Directory – Administrators = "Full Control"
Program Files Directory – System = "Full Control"

NEVER allow anyone to logon as an administrator or power user, unless they are a member of the IT Staff / IT Consulting Firm that is responsible for the server, and they are logging on to perform administrative functions, i.e. installing software, performing a backup…

Force "Empty Temporary Internet Files when browser closed" via Group Policy. This will delete most bad files from the Temp IE location of the user’s profile, and leave only the cookie files.

Implement Roaming Terminal Server Profiles, Mandatory Terminal Server Profiles or Flex Terminal Server Profiles.

Enable DeleteRoamingCache in the registry, or via "Delete Cached Copies of Roaming Profiles " in Group Policy. Since the Roaming Profile does not propagate the user’s Temp Directory, enabling this policy will usually delete that anything the user downloaded unintentionally. This policy deletes the user’s local profile at logoff once it’s been successfully unloaded and copied to the roaming location.

Install the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service , which helps to ensure user sessions are completely terminated when a user logs off. Without this service, user profiles are often not unloaded successfully which causes the copy to the roaming profile location and DeleteRoamingCache setting to fail.

Install a Terminal Server compatible anti-virus scanner on each terminal server, a VSAPI anti-virus scanner on each SMTP Server, and an anti-virus scanner at the Internet Gateway.

Set the Terminal Services Configuration Permission Compatibility to "Full Security" (Windows Server 2003) , or to "Windows 2000 Users" (Windows 2000 Server) . If you use the "Permissions compatible with Terminal Server 4.0 Users" (Windows 2000 Server) or "Relaxed Security" (Windows Server 2003), each user logging on is added to the TSUser Security Group, which has permissions and rights of the Power Users Group.

Enable Software Restriction Policies in Group Policy, to define which files can be executed by users.

If users need only one application, specify this program to start when they logon. This can be done for everyone via Group Policy or Terminal Services Configuration , or for specific users via Active Directory or Local User Account.

Consider locking down the user environment with a FREE program like BrsSuite , designed by Terminal Server Security Expert "Fabrice Cornet", of FC Consult, Belgium .

Restrict access to applications normal users shouldn’t ever use, or that do not follow the policy restrictions in place, i.e. winfile and command.com

How can provide the most secure access to terminal servers from the Public Internet? The RDP Protocol is secure and uses RSA Security’s RC4 cipher, at either 56 or 128 bits, however the following should be considered when providing access to terminal servers over the Public Internet:

Set the RDP-Tcp Encryption Level to "High" (Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003)

Define and enforce a strong password policy .

If you require password authentication to access a Remote Desktop Web Connection (RDWC, aka TSAC or TSWeb), do so over an SSL Connection. Since you have to logon to the Terminal Server, there really is no advantage to requiring authentication to access a RDWC.

Do NOT use traditional client-to-server VPN to provide secure access to Terminal Servers. This may sound strange, but traditional client-to-server VPNs require connectivity over non-standard ports client software on the remote computer. These often prevent remote users from being able to connect. In addition to the connectivity problems traditional VPN can cause, traditional client-to-server VPNs can open the corporate network to viruses, trojans or worms, because they extend the corporate network to the remote client.

Do consider providing secure access to terminal servers via SSL VPN or a Terminal Server Secure Gateway , as these can provide access over standard ports like 443 or 80, which makes connectivity easy for remote users. These devices or software applications also provide access to a specific computer, or set of computers, instead of opening a secure tunnel to the entire corporate network.

ICA File Syntax explained

BassQ — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:44:34 +0000

ICA File Syntax

ICA files are usually generated by an application such as the ICA File Editor or Application Configuration. An ICA file can also be used to create custom WinFrame client.

The Contents of an ICA File

Use a simple text editor (such as Notepad) to create and modify ICA files. A sample ICA file is shown below:

; CUSTOMER.ICA – ICA file to access a Customer Database using Microsoft Access

;

; The [ApplicationServers ] section contains the name of the

; connection or published application defined by the ICA file.

; The name below (Access) appears in the title bar of the client window.

;

[ApplicationServers ]Access=

; The [] section describes the attributes of the connection or

; published application defined in the [ApplicationServers ] section above.

; The name in the square brackets must exactly match the name defined in the

; [Application Servers] section above; in this example, Access.

;

[Access]

TransportDriver =TCP/IP

Address=206.103.132.12

WinStationDriver =ICA 3.0

Username=JBLOGGS

Domain=ABC

Password=000100

InitialProgram =d:\access\msaccess.exe d:\shareacc\access\nwind.mdb /X customer

WorkDirectory =d:\access

UseAlternateAddress =0

;

KeyboardTimer =100

MouseTimer =50

;

; Use either ScreenPercent or DesiredHRES and DesiredVRES to specify

; the size of the client window.

; If both ScreenPercent and DesiredHRES and DesiredVRES are specified,

; only ScreenPercent is used. ScreenPercent is available only with

; the Citrix Web Client.

ScreenPercent =75

DesiredHRES =640

DesiredVRES =480

DesiredColor =2

; The [WFClient ] section describes the WinFrame Client.

;

[WFClient ]

Version=2

The [ApplicationServers ] section defines the remote application entry referred to by the ICA file. The [ApplicationServers ] section contains the following fields:

[Application Server]

This is the section header. This field is required and must be entered exactly as shown.

EntryName =

Defines the name of the remote application entry. The name must be followed by an equal sign. This name is used in the title bar of the client window.

The [EntryName ] Section

The [EntryName ] section begins with the EntryName defined in the [ApplicationServers ] section enclosed in square brackets, or [Access] in the above example. The [EntryName ] section contains the following fields:

TransportDriver =

The data transport type. Usually TCP/IP, but can also be IPX, SPX, or NetBIOS. This is a required field.

Address=

The address of the remote Citrix server. For TCP/IP connections, it can be the DNS name of a Citrix server, the IP address of a Citrix server, or the name of a published application, for example Database. For IPX, SPX, and NetBIOS connections, it can be the name of a Citrix server or the name of a published application. This is a required field.

WinStationDriver =ICA 3.0

Defines the presentation protocol as ICA 3.0. This is a required field.

Username=

Specifies the name of a user account to log on as. This is an optional field.

Domain=

Specifies the domain to log on to. This is an optional field.

Password=

Specifies the password for the user account. This is an optional field. The password, if used, must be encrypted. To enter an encrypted password into the ICA file, use the Citrix ICA Client Remote Application Manager New Entry Wizard to create a remote application entry. When you are prompted for the username and password, enter the password that you want to use in the ICA file. Finish the New Entry wizard. Open the file APPSRV.INI in the Windows directory and locate the entry you just created. Copy the password value and paste it into your ICA file.

ClearPassword =

Specifies the clear text (unencrypted) password for the user account. This is an optional field. To use a clear text password, the Password field must be set to a null value (for example: Password=).

InitialProgram =

Specifies the path of the application on the Citrix server to be automatically launched when the connection is made. Include any command line options. This is an optional field. If no initial program is specified, Program Manager is launched. If the name of a published application is specified in the Address field, the name of the published application must appear here prefixed with a pound sign (#), for example #Database. The published application name must be entered exactly as it is in the Address field.

WorkDirectory =

Specifies the working directory used for the application.

ScreenPercent =

Specifies the horizontal and vertical pixel resolution as a percentage of the client desktop size. If the ScreenPercent field is present, the DesiredHRES and DesiredVRES fields are ignored.

DesiredHRES =

Specifies the horizontal window size in pixels. If the ScreenPercent field is present, the DesiredHRES and DesiredVRES fields are ignored.

DesiredVRES =

Specifies the vertical window size in pixels. If the ScreenPercent field is present, the DesiredHRES and DesiredVRES fields are ignored.

DesiredColor =1 | 2 | 4 | 8

DesiredColor sets the color palette depth. Use 1 for 16-color and 2 for 256-color. The default is 2 (256-color). Use 4 for High Color. For True Color, use 8.

UseAlternateAddress =0 | 1

This is an optional field, only used to support accessing a Citrix server across a firewall. Firewalls use IP address translation to convert public (Internet) IP addresses into private (Intranet) IP addresses. Public IP addresses are called "external" addresses because they are external to the firewall, while private IP addresses are called "internal" addresses.

When an ICA client is configured for TCP/IP server location, it sends a directed UDP datagram to the server location IP address using TCP/IP port 1604. For communication to be successful between an ICA client and a Citrix server with an intervening firewall, the firewall must be configured so it will pass UDP port 1604 packets. Server location is configured in Remote Application Manager by selecting Settings from the Options menu.

If a fixed server location address is specified, the ICA client contacts that server to determine the address of the ICA master browser. When the ICA client connects by server or published application name, the ICA master browser returns the address of the desired server or published application.

If UseAlternateAddress =1 is specified, the client will request the IP address of the Citrix server’s alternate address. UseAlternateAddress can only be used for TCP/IP connections. You must specify the IP address of the Citrix server that is configured for server location by including the statement TcpBrowserAddress =ipaddress in the [WFClient ] section of the ICA file, where ipaddress is the IP address of the Citrix server; for example, 123.321.234.23. You must also use the ALTADDR command on the Citrix server with IP address ipaddress that is accessed by the ICA file.

See the "Load Balancing and Application Publishing Across a Firewall" topic in the WinFrame Readme for more information about alternate addresses and the ALTADDR command.

KeyboardTimer =value

Specifies a time interval, in milliseconds, during which keyboard input is collected before being sent to the Citrix server. The default value of 100 milliseconds is optimized for WANs; in a Dial-In or LAN environment; reducing this value may give better responsiveness. Using too low a value in a LAN environment may cause a large number of small packets to be generated, which may affect network performance.

MouseTimer =value

Specifies a time interval, in milliseconds, during which mouse input will be collected before being sent to the Citrix server. The default value of 100 milliseconds is optimized for WANs; in a Dial-In or LAN environment, reducing this value may give better responsiveness. Using too low a value in a LAN environment may cause a large number of small packets to be generated, which may affect network performance.

The [WFClient ] Section

Version=2

Specifies the version of the client software. Do not change this value. This is a required field.

TcpBrowserAddress =ipaddress

Specifies the IP address of a Citrix server used for server location. This field is required if UseAlternateAddress =1 is specified in the [EntryName ] section.

***FOR BITMAP CACHING TO WORK WITH THE WEB CLIENT:

In the section WFClient add the following lines:

PersistentCacheEnabled =On

PersistentCacheSize =42935633

PersistentCacheMinBitmap =8192

PersistentCachePath =C:\WINNT\Profiles\amitb\Application Data\ICAClient \Cache

In the section for the application add the following line:

PersistentCacheEnabled =On

Now bitmap caching will work. For switching off, you can switch off PersistentCacheEnabled in the application setting. Please note that if setting under application name and WFClient differ then setting under application name will take precedence. PersistentCachePath should be suitably changed to correspond with the actual user and the directory where he wants to put the cache files. PersistentCacheSize and PersistentCacheMinBitmap may also be changed according to the requirement.

Office 2003 Citrix and Terminal Services problems

BassQ — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:59:00 +0000

Configuring Office settings for all users of a Terminal Server is best done with Group Policies. Download the Office 2003 Resource Kit and the latest Office 2003 SP2 Administrative templates. Be sure to read the installation instructions.

Deploying Office 2003 in a Windows Terminal Services Environment

828955 – How to install Office 2003 or Office XP on a computer that is running Windows Terminal Server

308263 – How to create a Custom Maintenance Wizard file for updating installation options after you deploy a custom installation of Office

827708 – During a Windows 2000 Terminal Services session, the Office 2003 Setup program stops responding

911682 – Windows Installer-related event IDs are logged in the Application log when you start an Office program

823586 – How to turn off the speech recognition and the handwriting recognition features in Office 2003

899117 – User settings issues are not resolved when you reinstall or repair Office programs on a computer that is running Terminal Services – Office 2003, XP and 2000

885380 – Every other time that you open a document in Word, the document opens in recovery mode or you receive an error message

891298 – When you try to open or to save a file in an Office XP program that is running in a Terminal Server session, the Office XP program may unexpectedly quit

821257 – “Not Enough Memory” Error Message When You Search for Clips in an Office Document During a Terminal Services Session – Office 2003 and XP, pre-SP5 hotfix

282599 – Frequently asked questions about Ctfmon.exe

287039 – Cannot Start a Trial Version of Office XP or Office 2003 on Terminal Server

828956 – Running Multiple Versions of Microsoft Office with Office 2003

931946 – The “From Camera or Scanner” menu option is unavailable in Office XP and Office 2003 programs during a terminal server session

Registration information Office incorrect

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\UserInfo Change the 11.0 to whatever version your office is 9.0 or 10.0 I forget. Delete that from the current user profile. Then go to HKLM\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion\terminal server\install\software\microsoft\office\11.0\common\userinfo and see if the setting is there as well and delete that. that portion is the shadow key and is why it’s being distributed to everyone.

Word specific issues

917056 – Text is slow to appear or to disappear when you type or delete text in a table when you are using Word 2003 on a Terminal Server client – fixed in Word 2003 post-Service Pack 2 Hotfix

Excel specific issues

916592 – Error message when you try to reactivate (switch to) a terminal services session in which Excel is running: “Not enough system resources to display completely”

313683 – XL2002: Can See Other Users’ Printers in Terminal Server Session

Misc. Office 2003 / XP / 2002 issues

922688 – Picture Manager does not start when you double-click a file on a computer that is running Terminal Services

898470 – OneNote 2003 appears pixilated when you run OneNote 2003 in a Terminal Server client

944630 – You cannot move, close, or hide the Live Meeting 2005 sharing toolbar when you connect to a Live Meeting 2005 session in a Citrix MetaFrame-based environment

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Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 Tips and Tweaks – GPO ADM Template

BassQ — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:25:02 +0000

Source : http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=2756

If you are looking for Citrix tips, tweaks, performance tuning, security, and usability ‘tweaks & tips’ for your Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 4.0 servers, then look no further. Methodology in a Box 4.0 ’Tweaks Section’ details tips and tricks associated with Citrix and Terminal Services computing.

In this Citrix MetaFrame Group Policy template (GPO) you will find tips, tricks and tweaks related to:

Applications tweaks
Adobe
Internet Explorer
Java
Office 2003
Outlook Express
Disk subsystem
Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server specific tweaks
Memory tweaks
Network tweaks
Printing tweaks
Security tweaks
Windows tweaks

Thanks for Victor Olsen for contributing a few fixes to this Citrix / Terminal Services GPO and to Paul Drangeid from TeleData Consulting, Inc. for creating and testing this template based off the MIAB 4.0 How to Tweaks and Tune Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 4.0 Section section.

To download the Citrix / Terminal Services Tips, Tips and Tweaks ADM Template please refer to the following page:

MIAB 4.0 for Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 Tips and Tweaks ADM Template

This release also marks the first release of the new Methodology in a Box Service. What is this Service’? Good question, when I first created MIAB, I released it as a draft for two reasons, 1) get the info out and 2) to get feedback. Since then Methodology in a Box has become much bigger than the sum of its parts, it’s received over a half million downloads and has become an integral part of any Citrix deployment. I have received feedback from all over the world and together we made it a must read for anyone deploying Citrix MetaFrame. Because of this success, I had an idea over three years ago that we just now have the resources and time to make happen. Let me try to explain.

I was sitting watching a TV Show about the Internet and on TCP/IP. It talked about how IP has grown through a serious of RFC’s to become to de facto protocol that we all depend upon to move data around the Internet. What is an RFC? Basically it is process for creating a standard on the Internet. New standards are proposed and published on the Internet, as a Request for Comments. The proposal is reviewed by the Internet Engineering Task Force and once approved it is made the standard. I thought to myself, why can’t we do this for the Server based computing world? Why can’t MIAB and DABCC provide this service? Well, Methodology in a Box is designed to be just that. The new Methodology in a Box is this service and the new Tweaks Section is our first attempt to make this happen, but we are not stopping there.

This being said, what we have done is created a basic document, a proposed series of RFCs, and a forum where we can all debate each tweak (RFC) and where you can submit new ones. If the community agrees then it will be certified as an official tweak. This is the new process we will use for all of the content found in Methodology in a Box, from how to install Citrix, to how to lock down your system through GPOs and other resources, to how to customize Citrix Web Interface. As always, I feel that by doing this, we can continue what we started in May of 2002 and that is to build the Citrix Deployment Bible, and we are already off to a great start!!!

Download ‘How to Tweaks and Tune Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 4.0 Section’ Beta 4 White Paper – PDF Format

Download ‘How to Tweaks and Tune Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 4.0 Section’ Beta 4 White Paper - ZIP Format

How to overcome 4,095-MB paging file size limit in Windows

BassQ — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:53:12 +0000

When you set the paging file size in Windows, that the largest paging file that you can select is 4,095 megabytes (MB) per drive or volume. If extra drives or volumes are not available, you can create multiple paging files on a single drive by placing them in separate folders. The problem comes up if you use the small 1U server with only 2 drives that are usualy configured as raid 1.

To create multiple paging files on one volume to overcome the 4,095-MB limit:

On the drive or volume you want to hold the paging files, create folders for the number of paging files you want to create on the volume. For example, C:\Pagefile1, C:\Pagefile2, and C:\Pagefile3.
Using Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe), locate the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\MemoryManagement
Find the Pagingfiles value, and then double-click it to open it.
Remove any existing values, and add the following values:
c:\pagefile1\pagefile.sys 4000 4000
c:\pagefile2\pagefile.sys 4000 4000
c:\pagefile3\Pagefile.sys 4000 4000
Click OK and quit Registry Editor. Restart the computer to cause the changes to take effect.

In this example the page will now have the size of 12GB on one volume.

Checkout http://support.microsoft.com/kb/237740/en-us for more information.

On mirrored drives people usually make a separate partition for the pagefile. In order to make the pagefile faster this is NOT the best thing to do. The pagefile should be near the system files if it is located on the same physical disk (Raid 1 set) as the System files. If you place it on a different partition the heads from the HDD will have to move over a empty part of the disk to access or write to the pagefile. If you use the discribed methode by first setting no pagefile then defrag the C: drive and then placing the pagefile on the C: drive all files will be close together and the heads of the disks will not have to move a lot.

As most companies buy servers with 2 disks for their Terminal Servers and most of he time make a mirror set out of these for fault tollerance. Administrators are forgetting that Terminal Servers (and even more with Citrix on them) are fault tollerant because you have a lot of them. The best thing to do in this case is not to configure the disks as a Raid set but as separate disks. On the first disk you place the system, program and profile files. On the second disk you place the pagefile, the spooler directory and all temp files/directories. This could speed up things a bit to a lot depending on programs installed, use of page and temp files and the amount that is printed.

The best thing to do is of course buy a server with 2 x drives in a RAID1 configuration for Operating System & Applications and 2 x drives in a RAID1 configuration for Page File. This is applicable if the server has more than 2 drive bays.