VDI verses RDS/Terminal Server

 

This is a read and a nice definitive conclusion, I will leave you to read the artical, but here is the punchline:

“As for the myth that VDI scales almost as well as RDS, well I think we can officially call that myth busted!!!  Anyone who says RDS only scales 20% better than VDI is dead wrong!!! RDS is still king and in most real world environments will give you 100 – 200% greater user density than VDI!”

http://blogs.citrix.com/2014/08/15/rds-vs-vdi-making-sense-of-the-numbers-with-loginvsi/

Browser Market Share Changing Over Time

 

Firstly I don't run an analytics company but I found one on the web (www.netmarketshare.com) and as a part of planning which browsers should be tested for a terminal services project I wanted to know the winners, losers and where IE6 still is.

Below are the last twelve months of browser change. Overall I will be testing on IE10. The others will all be tier 2 for business.

The big winners here are IE10 and losing out are IE8 and IE9. IE7 is still in slow decline, but what scares me is IE6 is static at 6% (Siebel use ActiveX controls). The total of IE releases is around 54%

Chrome with auto update is always the current release about 12% and the others falling away to a total 17%

Firefox is much the same around the 14% mark

Safari, Opera, Sleipnir, Maxthon, Comodo are ALL in the other 18% – here, have one www.browserchoice.eu/BrowserChoice/browserchoice_en.htm

Citrix Web Interface, notes about

 

There should be nothing new here, this is just a collection of notes I had kept.

 

First, don't use the Web Interface, use the Storefront v2. But if you are a laggard continue reading.

 

Web Interface (WI), uses Java and .NET to dynamically generates a list of resources available to users. Most settings are configured via the configuration console and under the covers in the file ‘WebInterface.conf’.

The WebInterface.conf file allows you to change many of the Web Interface properties.

• Location Windows: \InetPub\WWWRoot\Citrix\XenApp\Conf\WebInterface.conf
• Location NetScaler: /var/wi/tomcat/webapps/Citrix/XenApp/WEB-INF/WebInterface.conf

Changes made directly to the file can be overwritten by configurations made in the Web Interface Management console.

 

Web Interface Repair

The IIS site and the Web Interface installation can be repaired. It may be necessary to repair or reinstall the site using the Web Interface Repair option.

Always back up any custom scripts and the WebInterface.conf file before repairing.

• If you reinstall Web Interface, any pre-existing scripts and the WebInterface.conf file will not be replaced

Repair the installation if files were mistakenly deleted, renamed, or corrupted.

• Repair a Web Interface installation from the Windows control panel

Repair the site to address any configuration issues specific to the site or corruption.

• If you repair a site, pre-existing scripts and the WebInterface.conf file will be replaced
• After making a backup of scripts and the configuration file, repair a site using the Site Maintenance > Repair Site task in the Web Interface management console.

NTFS Permissions for Pass-Through Authentication

• After windows authentication, IIS impersonates the current user account when accessing files on the web server hard drive. This requires the users’ domain account has at least Read permission on all scripts beneath the web server document root directory
• Restricting NTFS permissions on the files beneath WWWRoot to allow access only by administrators or the IIS_IUSRS account will disable non-administrator users from being able to view Web Interface pages. In these cases, users are forbidden or cannot access Web Interface or the applications. To correct this issue, ensure that in addition to the IIS_IUSRS account, all users who will access the Web Interface have NTFS read permissions on all files beneath WWWRoot\Citrix on the web server.

Receiver Detection Redirection Error

Web Interface can  detect if a Receiver is not installed or the Receiver on a user device is not current. A download wizard allows users to download and install the latest Receiver.

Under certain circumstances, users may find that the wizard redirects them to http://www.citrix.com instead of downloading a Receiver installer.

For example, the installer file for the Citrix Receiver should be copied to the %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Citrix\Web Interface\5.x.x\Clients directory.

Web Interface should detect the presence of the Receiver installer automatically; however, if the site is still redirecting users to http://www.citrix.com, restart the web server.

If Prohibit User Installs is enabled in the Windows Installer option in the console tree of the Group Policy Management Console, users will not be able to install a plug-in on their user devices.

Internet Explorer 9 is known to exhibit issues when used together with some Citrix products. For example, users commonly report that published applications fail to open from Web Interface in Internet Explorer 9. For additional information, including troubleshooting tips and workarounds, see Citrix article CTX129444.

Lost admin password for Citrix Licensing Server?

 

A default administrator account ‘admin’ is created during installation of the Citrix License Administration Console. You can set the password for this account during installation.

Try to logon with the default ‘admin’ password ‘admin’ to configure your domain users. NOTE: ‘admin’ is not ‘Admin’ they are case sensitive.

If you have lost the licensing server admin password then you can reset the admin password in the licence server configuration file.

1. Find the ‘server.xml’ file in Citrix Licensing folder
2. Open and Administrator CMD prompt to edit it.
3. Find the entry that looks something like this:

<user firstName=”System” id=”admin” lastName=”Administrator” password=”--lots-of-characters-encrypting-your-password--” passwordExpired=”false” privileges=”admin”/>;

1. Delete the text in the password section, in the above example change password=”(ERD-32)IUJ676h43wedftQ(lots-of-characters-encrypting-your-password--” to  password=”Password”
2. Change passwordExpired to ‘true’
3. Restart the licensing services, ‘Citrix Licensing Server’
4. Log onto the licensing console using user name ‘admin’ and the ‘Password’
5. Change your password and you are done.

 

Some of this came from:

http://philipflint.com/2011/08/22/reset-the-admin-password-for-citrix-licensing-server/

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/licensing-119/lic-lmadmin-users-b.html

Aero Glass Remote Desktop Connection (RDS/TS)

 

To enable Aero Glass in a Remote Desktop session:

Remote Desktop client, Windows Aero hardware and Aero driver is required.

The following settings should be selected in the Remote Desktop client:

1. Colour depth of the remote session must be set to 32-bit
2. “Desktop composition” must be enabled on the Experience tab

  

If the remote computer is a Windows Server 2008 R2 machine

• Desktop Session Host (RDSH) role is required
• Desktop Experience feature is required
• Themes service is set to auto start
• Video settings are 32bit per pixel

(In Server Manager, go to “RD Session Host Configuration” under “Remote Desktop Services” role, right-click on the connection to bring up “RDP-Tcp Properties” Uncheck “Limit Maximum Colour Depth” from “Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration.”)

• Group Policy is required to enable the settings for RDP

(The policy path is “Computer Configuration\ AdministrativeTemplates\ WindowsComponents\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host\Remote Session Environment”)

  

Would you like to user Aero Flip, good luck with the key combination, if you find it let me know. NOTE: Does not work on a Citrix ICA session, only RDP.

Create a shortcut like so:

This information is generally from here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2009/06/23/aero-glass-remoting-in-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

http://mandeeptech.com/2010/02/how-to-create-aero-flip-3d-shortcut-on-desktop-quick-launch-or-windows-7-taskbar/

Windows 7 Theme for XenApp 6.5 Desktops

 

Windows Server 2008 R2 does not have the Windows 7 theme out of the box so to fix this. Install the Desktop Experience feature allows users to look like a traditional Windows 7 PC.

The steps are:

1. Go to Features and click Add Desktop Experience
2. Enable Powershell remote signed code
3. Run …\Citrix\App Delivery Setup Tools\New-CtxManagedDesktopGPO.ps1
4. This will create 3 GPOs that you can edit and apply if they suite (CtxStartMenuTaskbarUser and CtxPersonalizableUser or CtxRestrictedUser)
5. Check that the ‘themes’ service is running

Edit and update to suite.

 

 

Links for this information:

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp65-admin/ps-csp-win7-desktop-experience.html

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133429

This is a great example of why…

http://blogs.citrix.com/2011/02/22/repurposed-pcs-deliver-windows-7-like-experience-using-xenapp-hosted-shared-desktops/

Some more details on automation

http://community.citrix.com/display/CSP/Enabling+the+Windows+7+experience+on+a+XenApp+server

http://community.citrix.com/display/CSP/Configuring+a+theme+and+wallpaper+for+hosted+desktops