A usable server cannot be found.. Citrix XenApp 6.5

 

A usable server cannot be found on which to launch the application. APP-DETAILS. Check your worker group definitions and load balancing policies to verify appropriate servers are assigned for APP-DETAILS.

This shows as an Error occurred while making the connection in the Web interface.

The details show up in the event log. Of course triple checking the worker groups and load balancers were not the problem… so…

Using QFarm shows server load 20000

The licence server is setup in the GPO

Ping works, but it was IPv6…

And try a telnet to the licence server port fails. But does work on the local host…

IP v6 was disabled so deleted the entries in DNS

Ensured telnet then worked remotely

Checked that the licence was active on the licence and it was good to go.

Then GPupdate /force to ensure applied.

Qfarm was now healthy and looking good.

So the error was a licence missing, of course.

Windows Page File Size – VDI (or Server)

 

On you computer, desktop, server, VDI Session do the following:

1. Start all the applications you need to run at the same time, Outlook, Word, Excel, AV console, Paint, options etc etc
2. Then via task manager look at the “commit charge peak” highlighted below
3. Now you can set your paging file minimum to be that VALUE minus the amount of RAM in you have
4. If this value is a negative number, set a minimum size to the configured crash dump option you have set (if you have one).

So in the example below, on this VDI session I have disabled crash dump and so don't need a page file at all and this saves me IOPS.

BUT setting no page file leaves no head room for an app requiring memory and it that app can be as simple as a large JPG in MSPaint, so disabling is good for performance, but can have limits.

 

Reference

Rintalan Nick blog on this topic.
HTTP://blogs.citrix.com/2011/12/23/the-pagefile-done-right/ 

Mark Russinovich blog on this topic.
HTTP://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx 

High Availability for Citrix and Terminal Server, RDS Licencing

 

I have been tasked to build a highly available Terminal Server / Remote Desktop Service (TS/RDS) / Citrix XenApp solution and a part of this I need a highly available TS/RDS and Citrix licence servers. As a part of solution money comes into the design so I have decided not to bother and here is why:

1. Once the new TS/RDS licence server is active for some time it will have a valid licence for everyone who commonly uses the system (home computer, work computers, laptops etc)
2. To build HA into the RDS/TS licence server I will need two with shared licences to load balance which is ok, but a bit brain dead
3. To build HA into the Citrix licence host is a cluster (over a WAN which I dont have access to build here just yet)
4. If there is an outage in the Citrix licence server service only needs to be restored within 30 days

One TS/RDS licence server, shared with a Citrix licence server will do me fine. I will just make sure a full image backup is run weekly and stored off site for restoration in the event the primary data centre burns down.

 

Support material below (edited and updated for clarity) but original links provided.

Failed Microsoft RDS/TS License server ramifications

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-ZA/winserverTS/thread/ebf3a271-4554-41b0-9345-38d74133eacc

If your TS/RDSH cannot contact the license server - the clients that are have valid license will start and continue to work without error. New clients that either have no license or have expired licenses, will not be able to connect.

There is no grace period provided for your client if your TS/RDS license server failed. For each permanent Per Device CAL that is issued, an expiration period is applied. This expiration period is a random number between 52 to 89 days after the license was issued. The terminal server always attempts to renew these CALs seven days before they expire.

 

Microsoft TS/RDS Licence server High Availability

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/en-us/terminal/terminal_faq.mspx

The recommended method to configure Terminal Services Licensing servers for high availability is to install at least two Terminal Services Licensing servers with available Terminal Services CALs. Each server will then advertise in Active Directory as enterprise license servers with regard to the following Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP):

Each Terminal Services Licensing server should contain 50% of your CALs for load balancing within your environment. If a Terminal Services Licensing server does not have valid CALs, then that Terminal Services Licensing server will attempt to refer to other Terminal Services Licensing servers with valid CALs for license issuance.

Each client will begin a license request and upgrade 7 days before the license expiration date.

 

Initial a New Microsoft License server setup

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725933.aspx

To allow ample time for you to deploy a license server, RDS/TS provides a licensing grace period. During this grace period, a server will accept connections from unlicensed clients without contacting a license server. The grace period begins the first time the TS/RD Session Host server accepts a client connection. The grace period ends after whichever of the following occurs first:

1. A permanent RDS CAL is issued by a license server to a client connecting to the RD Session Host server.

2. The number of days in the grace period is exceeded.

3. The length of the grace period is based on the operating system running on the RD Session Host server.

The grace periods are:

Operating system running on the RD Session Host server	Grace period
Windows Server 2008 R2	120 days
Windows Server 2008	120 days
Windows Server 2003 R2	120 days
Windows Server 2003	120 days

 

Microsoft’s Per User and Per Device CALs

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725890.aspx

You can install both Per User and Per Device CALs onto the same license server.

You can install RDS CALs for different product versions onto the same license server. EG, you can install both Windows Server 2003 TS per Device CALs and Windows Server 2008 TS Per User CALs onto a license server that is running Windows Server 2008 R2. This provides you the ability to have one license server provide RDS CALs to Remote Desktop Session Host (RD Session Host) servers running various versions of Windows Server.

 

Microsoft License Server Backup and Restore

http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/terminal-services/licensing/terminal-services-license-server-high-availability-recovery-part2.html

Regardless of the backup processes you use to back up a license server, the following components must be included in the backup process:

1. System State, which will capture the activation status and identity of the license server.

2. LServer directory (%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\LServer by default), to capture the actual licensing database.

3. Repair directory (optional - %SYSTEMROOT%\Repair)

Preferably, the entire server should be backed up, including the system drive and any pertinent data drives, but items one and two above represent the minimum.

Recovering a License Server: If the servers operating system is still intact, then the recovery process may simply be to recover the last known working backup of the System State and LServer backup, and restore that information to the license server.

If the operating system is corrupt or the failure requires a complete server rebuild, you may have more work ahead.

 

Overall Citrix Services Outage Tolerance

http://www.brianmadden.com/forums/t/12996.aspx

1. License server can be down for 30 days before the farm stops accepting connections.

2. Data-store can be down indefinitely without affecting users. Although administrators will not be able to use the management consoles.

3. Zone Data Collectors automatically fails over to another server.

Redundant Citrix Licence Server

http://www.virtualization.vanbragt.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=563:the-need-ands-how-to-create-a-redundant-citrix-license-server&catid=53:how-to-articles&Itemid=468

There are three possibilities:

1. Clustering using Windows Clustering

2. Cold Standby solution;

3. Transferring the license to another IIS server.

Citrix Licence Server Clustering

To accomplish is this configuration you need at least planned nodes

1. IIS must be installed and not manually configured as a cluster resource.

2. To build this on a cluster you also need a shared disk, two NICS (one for the heartbeat and one for the Public network), virtual server name, Cluster IP Address;

3. Install Java Runtime in the normal way on both physical nodes

4. Then the installation of the license server can be started on the virtual, cluster, server. This must be done using the command line parameters. The full command line is:

5. msiexec /i <INSTALLSOURCE>:\Licensing\ctx_licensing.msi CTX_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_DLL_PATH="C:\ctxlic" REGISTER_CTX_LS_CLUSTERING="No" /l*v "<SHAREDDISKDRIVE>:\install_firstnode.log"

6. Following the wizard the Citrix License server installation program but change the destination folder to <SHAREDDISKDRVE>:\Citrix. Also set the location of the license fill within this folder (default <SHAREDDISKDRIVE:\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles. After the installation move the virtual node to the second physical server.

The command for the second (or the other following nodes, when using more than two physical nodes) is:

7. msiexec /i <INSTALLSOURCE>:\Licensing\ctx_licensing.msi CTX_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_DLL_PATH="C:\ctxlic" REGISTER_CTX_LS_CLUSTERING="Yes" /l*v "e:\install_secondnode.log"

 

Citrix License Server Cold Standby solution

The license file contains the host name of the server which hosts the License server. Therefore the cold standby must have exactly the same name as your default license server.

But no server with the same name can be created in the Active Directory. But because the License server is based on Internet Information Server this machine does not need to a member of a domain. The best way is to run the cold standby in workgroup mode and the installation is done on standalone base or a complete separated network. Install the server completely configured including the license file imported. When your default server fails just turn the cold standby on (connected to the production LAN). Because the hostname is the same no additional configuration is needed. If you are using a CNAME check if the DNS A records are changed to the right IP address of the cold standby servername. When the default license server is available again, just power down the cold standby again and put the default server back in production.

Transferring Citrix licenses to another IIS server

The license file cannot be used because of the included hostname. But within MyCitrix.com it is possible to return license for re-allocation. In this solution return your license first and after that you reallocate them using the hostname of the other IIS server. Citrix limit the times you can return and reallocate the licenses, so this option should only be carried out when no other solutions is available. Use a CNAME name for you license server, so the only change should be made with the DNS tool.

 

Citrix Licence Server FAQ

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/licensing-1110/lic-faq.html

Can I rename the license server? No, License files run only on the license server for which they were made via the hostname.

If I upgrade my license server will it affect my license files? No. The license server and all product licenses are fully backward compatible and will not introduce any issues into your environment.

Can a single license server supply licenses to users connecting from different servers using different product editions? Yes. One license server can contain licenses for multiple editions of a Citrix product. The type of license checked out corresponds to the edition that is configured on the product server. A product server is configured to consume an edition of a license and therefore will check out that edition of a license.

 

Say hello or complain to me here:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-colvin/5/403/641

https://www.facebook.com/dave.colvin 

https://twitter.com/DaveColvin

Windows 2008 TS CALs and 2008 R2 RDS CALs

The following information is abridged from the noted sites:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2009/09/04/what-s-the-difference-between-a-rds-cal-and-a-ts-cal.aspx

The equivalence of Windows Server 2008 TS CAL & Windows Server 2008 RDS CAL

Microsoft changed the name of Terminal Services (TS) to Remote Desktop Services (RDS) in Windows Server 2008 R2. And as such, they renamed the CAL.

The new CAL is called a Windows Server 2008 RDS CAL (rather than 2008 R2 CAL). This is because R2 is a refresh release and while you need to buy new Windows Server licenses you do not need to buy new RDS CALs if you already own 2008 TS CALs.

This means you can use the Windows Server 2008 TS CALs with your Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services. If you have Windows Server 2003 TS CALs you will need to buy new RDS 2008 CALs.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2009/07/27/windows-server-2008-r2-rds-and-windows-server-2008-ts-cal-compatibility.aspx

Because they are compatible, you can install Windows Server 2008 TS CALs on Windows Server 2008 R2 license server and Windows Server 2008 RDS CALs on Windows Server 2008 license server. You need to request your Technical Account Manager (TAM) or Escalation Engineer (EE) for KB 968074 and install it on the license server.

How to Change your W2K8 R2 server from Standard to Enterprise

 

Go to a Command prompt
Dism /online /get-currentedition
Dism /online /get-targeteditions
Dism /online /Set-Edition:ServerEnterprise /ProductKey:xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If the process fails you will most likely receive an error such as "The specified product key is not valid for the target edition. “ Verify the information is typed correctly. Use this Windows temporary key to get around this error “489J6-VHDMP-X63PK-3K798-CPX3Y”.

Several reboots are required for the upgrade process.

Enter your actual W2K8 R2 key and reboot again to make sure it took and all is well. You server should now be at the Enterprise level.

PS: I have not done this myself so your mileage may vary, I have just reposted this from Percy MvNab’s Blog as I did not know it was possible… Cheer Percy !

Windows 7 Delayed Logon Screen

 

After booting a Windows it stops at a black screen with the cursor just before the logon screen.

Download process monitor from Microsoft.

Enabled Boot Logging in Process Monitor by going to Options > Enable Boot Logging and selected to generate profiling events every second.

Reset the filter to the Process Tree to see the start and end times of various processes upon system startup. Scrolling through the tree looking at lifetime column for one that had sat for the longest amount of time.

Once found look at the offending tool/service and see if it can be removed or updated and then you will be back to a speedy boot.

 

This information came from Greig Mitchell's Blog

W2K8R2–>Windows Server 2012

 

There are been some massive improvements in scale in Windows Server 2012, here are the key new features in virtualisation…

Subsystem, services	R2	2012	Improvement factor
Hardware CPU	64	3200	5x
Hardware RAM	1TB	4TB	4x
Virtual CPU	512	1024	2x
CPU per VM	4	64	16x
RAM per VM	64GB	1TB	16x
Running VMs	384	1024	2.7x
Virtual disk size	2TB	64TB	32x
Cluster nodes	16	64	4x
VMs	1000	4000	4x

For VDI there are some nice new features, and one of the best in the new VDI wizard… More to come here.

Note: from TechEd 2012

Windows 7/2008r2 Group Policy diagnostic event log

 

Windows 7 / 2008R2 Group Policies are located in the Event Viewer. Under
\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\Group Policy\Operational.

While Windows 7 logs many events to event log you sometimes need the operational additional information.

GPO is processed by the Windows  service called "Group Policy Client". You can enable a detailed diagnostic report for this services via the reg key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Diagnostics]
"GPSvcDebugLevel"=dword:00030002

The log files are: %WINDIR%\debug\usermode\gpsvc.log

(need to reboot or restart the service).

BYOD, are you a part of the problem?

 

A common user pet peeve is that organisations take too long to deploy new hardware, operating systems, and applications. BYOD enables users to embrace cutting edge technologies on their own, which reduces frustration and leads to happier employees.

A fringe benefit of happy, satisfied workers is increased productivity. Users who have the freedom to choose the platforms and devices that seem most intuitive to them are able to accomplish basic tasks faster. Users armed with newer technology can work more efficiently than users forced to work with systems they find frustrating or confusing.

We found that:

1. 67 % of people are using personal devices in the workplace whether its officially sanctioned or not.

2. More organisations prohibit BYOD than subsidise BYOD.

The above is a snippet taken from the article: BYOD–is it Good, Bad or Ugly from the User Viewpoint? All credit to Jeff Jones, for me it just struck a sore point…

Boot time Windows XP and Windows 7

 

I know that ‘people’ game the statistics on boot time, they don't join a domain, disable lots of services, use SSD drives, disable POST etc… Well that looks good on stage but in the real world, computers are upgraded, have PXE turned on, BIOS is out of the box, run anti-virus and are domain members.

I needed a real working set , so in extensive testing (2 identical and mid-spec computers – hey I did it twice). Here is the comparison.

So on the same hardware (Dell OptiPlex 790)

Windows XP:	Windows 7:
BIOS: 20 seconds OS Boot time: 40 To the logon screen: 1:27 To the desktop (logged on): 2:11 To power off: 2:47	BIOS: 20 seconds OS Boot time: 54 To the logon screen: 1:22 To the desktop (logged on): 1:42 To power off: 1:58

So the Windows 7 computer is not faster to boot however it is however faster to the users desktop and ready to use about in 1/5th of the time of the Windows XP machine.

Faster still is to stop using power off, shutdown and power on, sleep takes 9 seconds and to wake up take 4 seconds. The power consumption in sleep mode is 5% of the running power when compared to being fully powered..

Notes about this:

1. Same hardware, RAM, disk, network etc
2. WXP and W7 current and fully patched (both new builds)
3. Similar apps (office 2003 v office 2010 etc)
4. Both with SAV AV
5. Same logon to domain (folder redirection)

Create Windows 7 64bit USB flash install media on Linux PC

(this was so easy before I never bothered to blog it, but this time, maybe because it was 64bit, maybe because of the colour of the moon, it took about 4 different attempts, so here it is…)

Use either df or other command to find your USB device

$ df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda1       691G  488G  169G  75% /
udev            3.8G   12K  3.8G   1% /dev
tmpfs           1.6G  940K  1.6G   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            3.9G  436K  3.8G   1% /run/shm
/dev/loop0      5.3G  5.3G     0 100% /mnt/iso
/dev/mmcblk0p1  3.8G   32K  3.8G   1% /media/72AD-2013_
/dev/sdb 8G 0G 8G 0% /media/usbdrive

 

Check what device your USB media is assigned above it is /dev/sdb.

 

Use gparted to dismount and format the drive to NTFS (creates /dev/sdb1 on /dev/sdb)

 

Mount ISO and USB media:

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/iso

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/usb

$ sudo mount -o loop Windows7-64bit.iso /mnt/iso

$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

 

Copy over all files (GUI or command line):

$ cp -r /mnt/iso/* /mnt/usb/

 

Download, untar, and install (make, sudo make install) ms-sys from here.

Use ms-sys to install a Windows 7 Master Boot Record on the USB stick:

$ ms-sys -7 /dev/sdb

 

And away you go…

Well you got your MDACs and .NETs but what versions?

 

How you can see if and what version of the .NET Framework has been installed?

You can look in the registry or look at the files on the boot drive;

via the reegistry check the keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\*

Or check for a local directory like %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\<version>

where <version> is

v1.1.4322 - for .NET Framework v1.1
v1.0.3705 - for .NET Framework v1.0
v2…. Etc etc

 

How you can see if and what version of the MDAC has been installed?

Download and install: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=1953

Run the too CC.EXE in the folder C:\CompChecker\

Windows 8 Full Screen in VirtualBox on Linux

 

Windows 8 does not support the VirtualBox display driver and the most current release of VirtualBox has a generic driver that supports some canned 1600x9 and 4x3 drivers but they were wrong for my laptop and not having full screen on Windows 8 make life hard for the charms and start menu etc. So to fix this follow these steps

Power off the the Windows 8 virtual machine.

Goto the VirtualBox console and right click ‘show in File Manager’. Note the name W8RP in my case, you need quotes if you had a space in the name.

Open a shell and go to the folder shown.

 

Find the resolution you want VirtualBox via the Linux settings menu, in my case 1600x900:

In the shell open from above enter the command:

vboxmanage setextradata W8RP CustomVideoMode1 1600x900x32

 

Start the VM, and you can select the custom resolution shown below.

Lovely.

 

Hat tip for the Windows version: http://www.mstechpages.com/2011/09/17/set-custom-resolution-in-virtualbox-for-windows-8/

 

Registry changes for the NetWare GINA in Windows XP…

 

Taking it old school…..

 

Enable the MSGINE

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"GinaDLL"="MSGINA.DLL"

 

Enable the NWGINA

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"GinaDLL"="NWGINA.DLL"

 

Enable the NWGINA

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"GinaDLL"="NWGINA.DLL"

 

Enable the NWGINA Auto login

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\Network Provider\Initial Login]

"Login When NWGina Not Loaded"="no"

 

Disable the NWGINA Auto Login

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\Network Provider\Initial Login]

"Login When NWGina Not Loaded"="Yes"

 

Disable the NWGINA splash screen

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetwareWorkstation]

"NoLogoDisplay"=dword:00000001

 

Enable the NWGINA splash screen

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetwareWorkstation]

"NoLogoDisplay"=dword:00000000

 

Disable Novell Broadcast messages

Receive Broadcast Messages

Registry Key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Novell\Broadcast

Registry Value: [dword] Mode

Default Value: 0

Range: 0, 1, 2 (0=All, 1=Server Only, 2=None)

Client Version: Implemented in NT Client versions 4.3 and later

Description: Tells the client which broadcast messages, if any, to receive. You can choose one of the following settings:

All (receive all broadcast messages), Server Only (receives broadcast messages sent by the server only), and None (do not receive any broadcast messages).

 

Disable Novell Broadcast messages

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\LDAP\Servers]

"0"="Scidmnw.domainName.net.local"

for /d %i in (*) do @cacls

 

To CACL the home directories to the existing owners

if you just moved the folders from say NetWare to Windows or a NAS that did not support the permissions (and the user names and home folder names match). This can be used on in the home drive folder (remember to use %% in batch files).

for /d %i in (*) do @cacls ".\%i" /t /e /c /g "domainName\%i":f

for /d %i in (*) do @cacls ".\%i" /t /e /c /g "domainName\Desktop Support":f

for /d %i in (*) do @cacls ".\%i" /t /e /c /g "domainName\Domain Admins":f

 

 

Via VBS – if you are adverse to DOS

' THIS must be run from the CURRENT home root DIR

dim DirName, skip

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(".\")

Set colSubfolders = objFolder.Subfolders

For Each objSubfolder in colSubfolders

'Wscript.Echo objSubfolder.Name, objSubfolder.Size

DirName = objSubfolder.Name

'Wscript.Echo objSubfolder.Name

'wscript.echo "cmd /c cacls " & objSubfolder.Name & " /t /e /c /g

domainName\" & objSubfolder.Name &":f"

command = "cmd /c cacls " & objSubfolder.Name & " /t /e /c /g

domainName\" & objSubfolder.Name &":f"

Return = WshShell.Run(command, 1, TRUE)

 

 

I use this all the time !

SCCM Client–No programs are available from a Terminal Services Sessions

 

User occasionally see this error when they try an run advertised programs with SCCM 2007 (on a Windows 7 PC, not a terminal server). This is generally just a timing issue due to rebooting and if needed you can train the users to wait, or go into the control panel and update the machine policy.

Here is the error.

This is a policy refresh.

After the SCCM policy refresh, the applications appear.

Users are back up and running… Joy

alternateBrowserExists: automation server…

There is a web server on site that throws this error on first connection:

An error has occurred in alternateBrowserExists: automation server can’t create object.

To resolve it I need to ENABLE the initialize and script active X for the Trusted Sites Zone (if it is a trusted site).

 

Windows CA Error - The revocation server is offline 0x80092013

 

If you are trying to start a CA and getting the error, The revocation server is offline 0x80092013

There is a CERTUTIL command to fix this, or at least stop it caring !

Run following command on the affected CA server.

certutil –setreg ca\CRLFlags +CRLF_REVCHECK_IGNORE_OFFLINE

And restart the CA.

Thinking of Bitlocker or Bitlocker To Go?

Bitlocker works well… ‘well-ish’ is probably better to say. Let just start with the issues.

1. No TPM, NO C: Encryption period.
2. With TPM, you need to reboot to enable TPM, then turn on Bitlocker for C: and the process will make a new 300mb partition on the drive and reboot again. Then it will encrypt your C: – which takes 1/2 hour or more depending on size of data.
3. BitLocker To Go – (BTG) only supports FAT/FAT32 – not NTFS?
4. Once a drive is unlocked (D: local drive or a BTLG drive) on a user session it stays unlocked unless you script it to lock or you logout/logon again.
5. Unlocking the drive is via a password, but to lock it again requires Administrator access CMD prompt “manage-bde –lock d:”

So that said, it does work, it works well and even lets you share USB drives with WXP and Vista users with provided software that lets you ‘unlock’ the data on those platforms. Which is nice.

Got C: Encrypted then you can pause it for updates/upgrades (you don't need to decrypt it). Which is nice.

So here is my little thought flow chart on how it works.

 

Unlock as user with UAC

Relock running as Administrator !

Microsoft Office 2010 Suite SKU options

(for any large customers you have the choice of Standard or Professional Pro)

SKUs for Volume Licensing (this is the business end of Office):

Office 2010 Standard – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and Publisher. This is the basic Suite for businesses that have bought a volume programme.

Office 2010 Professional Plus – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, Communicator, and SharePoint Workspace.

SKUs for OEM, PKC or FPP:

Office 2010 Home & Student – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Non-commercial use. Licensed only to the PC it was sold with (FPP it can be installed in up to 3 PCs.)

Office 2010 Home & Business – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook. Home-based businesses and dual users. It is the entry-level commercial Office 2010 Suite.

Office 2010 Professional – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access.

FREE SKU that come with new entry level PCs only:

Office 2010 Starter – Word Starter, Excel Starter. Both applications limited-functionality, advertising-based ones. It is licensed only for the PC it came pre-installed in, no installation media.