Combining Microsoft Application Virtualization (a.k.a. SoftGrid) with Microsoft Presentation Virtualization (a.k.a. Terminal Services) is becoming more commonplace in today’s environments. However, this combination brings its own unique set of troubleshooting methodologies since applications are not installed - rather, applications run in a virtual “bubble”. The Microsoft SoftGrid team recently published an article detailing troubleshooting high pool memory usages on Terminal Services based clients. The issue involves tuning PTEs and Microsoft Office packages. Since most people try to package Office as one of their first applications in SoftGrid, I thought this article would be helpful.
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Technorati : Application Virtualization, Memory Tuning, SoftGrid, Terminal Services
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I have blogged in the past about Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services TS Web Access. One of the little know facts about TS Web Access is that published applications are not filtered - meaning all users see all applications. This is not usually the desired result. Usually, an administrator will want to limit certain applications to Active Directory groups. Fortunately, TSFactory has created an add-on for TS Web Access that accomplishes thus that - it filters applications based on AD user or group. “The administrator maintains a special XML-based configuration file with a number of entries corresponding to published applications. Each entry specifies which users or groups should NOT be shown these particular applications. When a user opens the TS Web Access starting page in a browser, the list of applications are filtered according to the specified rules in the XML configuration file. All applications that have explicit denial entries for the users or groups they belong to are made are hidden on the starting page.” Oh yeah - this add-on is totally FREE!
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Technorati : Freeware, Microsoft, TS Remote App, Terminal Services, Windows Server 2008
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Before we get in depth with the particulars of what this blog post is about, it might be a good idea to review what a TS Shadow Registry Key is. In a nutshell, the shadow key keeps up with any keys added to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software during an application install. Since Terminal Services is multi user and HKCU refers only to the current user, a mechanism needs to be in place to distribute these keys to other users when they log on. That is the job of the shadow registry key. The shadow registry key is located at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Window NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install and holds copies of all the necessary keys to distribute. That is what the shadow registry key does in a nutshell - for a more detailed explanation, check out Brian Madden’s article on this topic.
With the introduction of Windows 64 bit and Windows-on-Windows 64 (WoW64), there are some changes to the shadow registry key. For instance, the shadow registry key location for 32 bit applications is located at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install (64 bit applications are stored in the key mentioned above). There is also a merge mechanism in place when settings conflict. Nicholas Dille has explained the changes in an article titled “Shadow Keys on Windows x64″.
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Technorati : 64 bit, Install Mode, Shadow Key, Shadow Registry, Terminal Services, Windows
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Dr. Bernhard Tritsch (a.k.a. Benny), author of Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services (among other books), has started a venture to write a new book titled Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services. The book is described as a “…comprehensive online book [that] provides expert guidance to plan for, install and configure Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services. This in-depth reference presents all the details you need to deliver Microsoft Windows-based applications and the Windows desktop itself to remote devices or desktops.”
The cool think about this book is that it is online - and free. The chapters are just now starting to take shape, so there is still a lot of content to be written. But, the table of contents is published as well as some introductory content, so you can get a feel for what the rest of the book will be like. I particularly like the “History and Features” section where things like WinFrame, MultiWin, and Hydra are discussed in relation to the product we know today. Be sure to keep an eye on this site as more quality content is added.
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Technorati : Presentation Virtualizatin, RDP, Terminal Services, Windows 2008, eBook
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One of the necessary evils of a Terminal Services environment is testing applications to see if they will work in a TS environment. Usually, this involves installing the application on a test Terminal Server and coordinating user acceptance testing. Microsoft recently released a tool to help with this test process. The tool is called TS Application Analyzer (or tsappcompat for short).
“TS Application Analyzer is a runtime program analysis tool to enable administrators/users to determine if they can deploy an application on TS with confidence. It provides a summary of an application’s TS-incompatible behavior. The classes of application compatibility issues targeted for detection are:
- Shared resources - files/registries
- Access/privilege issues
- Windows API calls with special cases for TS
The tool does the following:
- Enables administrators to analyze test runs on a given binary.
- Determines whether the binary will face any problems when deployed on TS. If so, the tool determines the type of problem and its severity.
- Summarizes the findings along with a recommendation.
- The findings can be exported and analyzed at another computer (e.g. for analysis by a test team).
- The tool can be deployed on a set of user computers or test computers (running the client OS or the TS server OS) seamlessly. The findings can be collected at the administrator’s computer. The administrator can then analyze the findings from all computers and decide whether the application should be deployed on TS or not.
Using this tool doesn’t mean you can skip user acceptance testing, but it sure does reveal a lot of potential problems up front.
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Technorati : Application Analyzer, Application Compatibility, Microsoft, TS, Terminal Services
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Michel Roth is reporting on the creation of the official Provision Networks (a division of Quest Software) blog. In case you don’t already know, Provision Networks is “…a global provider of presentation and desktop virtualization solutions [whose] solutions embrace and extend the Microsoft Terminal Services platform and Virtualization Infrastructure platforms from VMware, Virtual Iron, XenSource, Parallels, and Microsoft, delivering resilient, scalable and dynamic on-demand desktop deployment and application delivery for enterprises worldwide…”
I personally think this will give greater visibility to Provision’s lineup. Be sure to keep an eye out for content from some of the industry’s well known names from this blog including Rick Mack, Michel Roth, Patrick Rouse, and Jeff Pitsch.
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Resources for Provision on BrianMadden.com…
Technorati : Provision Networks, Quest, blog
Alex Yushchenko (a.k.a. Dr. Conti) released a massive amount of content from recent and past PubForums. “What is PubForum” you may ask? PubForum is a non commercial Microsoft Terminal Services / Citrix / Virtualization and Server Base Computing Event. The idea of PubForum is to bring the best people of Server Based Community together, have Know-How exchange, good time in discussions and socializing. PubForum started 2003 with just 4 people and since then grew to a well recognized Event with sometimes over 100 attendees. PubForum took places in cities like London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Paris, Munich and Nice, Lisbon.
Here are just a few topics you can find at this resource (PowerPoints and videos):
- Terminal Server Internals
- RES Products and Technology
- Patch Management
- Memory Dump Analysis
- User Workspace Management
- Session Initialization
- Windows Server 2008 Hyper V
- and much more…
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Technorati : Forum, Learning, PowerPoint, PubForum, Video
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A few years back, a rock star by the name of Rick Dehlinger created a reference design document that serves as a blueprint to document/implement Citrix farms. Starting in 2005, Roddy Rodstein maintained the document. Here is a brief explanation from the document itself:
“The XenApp Platinum Reference Design is a best-practice based comprehensive standard. The XenApp Platinum Reference Design was designed with simplicity, reproducibility, usability, scalability, supportability, security, privacy and accessibility in mind. The XenApp Platinum Reference Design represents a complete XenApp Platinum standard that can be leveraged as a vanilla solution or modified to more accurately reflect organizational-specific needs.”
I have personally used this reference document in the past to implement farms, and I have to tell you - if you use this framework to produce deliverable documentation, you will not regret it. The reference document helps you step through the design/configuration of all major components of a XenApp farm giving justifications for each design decision and setting.
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Technorati : Architecture, Best Practices, Citrix, Design, Methodology, XenApp
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Vishal Ganeriwala recently reported that Citrix’s Dr. SDK has written a new white paper titled “The Ultimate Guide to MFCOM” (MFCOM is the API for Citrix Presentation Server/XenApp). The white paper covers everything up to SDK version 4.5 including advanced MFCOM topics such as multi farm management, publishing different types of applications, policies, load evaluators and more. This guide goes very deep into the internals of MFCOM, but it is written in such a way that beginners can pick it up. Most of the examples are presented in VBScript format, but you can apply these principles other languages (such as C#, VB.NET, C++, etc.). There is an interesting blurb at the end of the white paper about a PowerShell-based interface:
“PowerShell is a Microsoft command and scripting interface that is gaining wide support and user acceptance. Citrix is considering to develop a PowerShell-based interface to replace MFCOM entirely. Part of the reason for such a consideration is that most of the farm and server properties will be moved Active Directory. That will result in a large portion of MFCOM properties being invalid.
The PowerShell-based interface offers the following advantages over MFCOM:
- It is task-oriented interface. Commands are defined for performing specific tasks.
- It does not require registration on the client side.
- Commands are directly exposed to an end user. There is no need for writing scripts to access the commands.
- Commands will be simpler. Most of the scripts written in this document can be re-written just as the command line specs.
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Technorati : API, Citrix, Development, MFCOM, PowerShell, Programming
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One of the challenges that Citrix administrators face is keeping up with hotfixes, hotfix rollup packs, and patches. One of the cool things Citrix did with the new support site is set up RSS feeds for each product’s updates. Just subscribe to the feeds you need in your favorite RSS reader. I have already subscribed to several of these feed using IE 7 RSS support. As an added feature, I use Feeds Plus to alert me on new feed items.
Here is the list of available feeds:
Thanks to Gus Pinto for pointing this out.
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Technorati : Citrix, RSS, hotfix, patch
