Yes, as everyone now knows, Microsoft is buying Softricity. I guess everything anyone could say about this is already at Doug’s Brown website so just stop there to read what that means for Citrix and the whole Terminal Services industry!

My personal thoughts are this is great and Softricity in a way will be the next big thing at the corporate world and one day, with extra high speed anywhere, anytime and at very reasonable cost, it may kill Terminal Services as we know today.

Just noticed this morning that 2X updated its ThinClientServer to support seamless windows applications running of Windows terminal services with their ApplicationServer software.

I know they have a terrible name for a product that makes you think they have some sort of server for providing Linux desktops/applications. That is not the case. The ThinClientServer actually deploys/manages a small footprint Linux OS that is customized to work as a Thin Client OS. This means you can get rid of Windows and any other OS that is not really suitable for a Thin Client solution and replace it with a centralized, fully managed solution.

The neat things I think are the Citrix integration (yes, you can remote boot your PCs with it and after your users logon they will see the apps they have access to on their desktop and/or start menu, a la PNAgent. And now they did the same for RDP so if  you have no Citrix you can still have the same but with applications coming from the 2X ApplicationServer. And keep in mind this is all FREE for 5 users or less so the small shops out there can actually have a very decent thin client desktop management solution with published applications in seamless windows mode for FREE.

If they had a better name…

Two great freewares that most people do not know and/or do not pay attention how cool/useful they are, should be used everyday not only for Terminal Services access/control but on any other machine you are accessing using RDP.

These are SecureRDP and the 2X Client. Let me explain what they do and where I think people should use them.

SecureRDP: this tool works as a filter for incoming RDP connections. It blocks the connection before you can even see the logon screen asking for your username/password. You can filter by IP, Computer Name, MAC address and even client version number. This tool should be used not only on TSs but on Exchange Servers, DCs etc! Today if a user, looking over the admin shoulder, gets his password, he will be able to logon to a DC and do whatever he wants. With SecureRDP the admin would be able to filter the connection to allow only the admin PC MAC address so even with the admin username/password that user would NOT be able to get to the DC. How cool is that?

2X Client: This is what the Microsoft RDP Client should have been since day one. The main difference is a tab - Network. And what a difference this little tab makes! You can use this client to connect to any TS machine EVEN if there is a proxy server somewhere on your network! It supports SOCKS/HTTP proxies and works great. I remember the hassle I had to go through years ago when such thing did not exist and I had to connect to my TS at home from a customer site, where they had a proxy server! I was able to do it but this little gem would have saved me hours. Highly recommended.

And the best part? These are completely FREE. It cannot get better than that.

Cheers!

Ok I always told many people in the industry this could be a good idea. We even worked on something like that but for some secret reasons decided to drop the idea completely. Apparently the guys at ThinStuff had the same idea and more than that, moved ahead and finally released an RDP Server for Linux. Ok, what does this mean? Well it means you can use all your Windows based thin clients (Windows CE, XP embedded, etc) and all your Windows PCs to connect using the RDP Client to run Linux based applications. Yes, I know (and I will get flamed for that) there are not many relevant, major corporate applications for Linux. But things like OpenOffice for example are getting better every single day and I am sure at one point some killer corporate application will find its way on Linux. If this happens you would be able to deploy such applications easily on any Windows desktop and/or Windows based terminal.

The only thing I think would be better than this would be a Citrix Presentation Server for Linux. Oh, not that they do not have it. They just do not want to sell it at this point.

I will make sure I try this product here on one of my test machines for sure. I have no idea if application publishing, seamless windows and things like that are available at this stage but considering you use the standard Microsoft RDP client I am sure these features are not there yet. But now it is just a matter of time I guess.

Cheers!

I am here sitting at the National Press Club in DC attending this session at BriForum: “Perspectives on the Future - Summary: Brian, Rick, and Bernhard will have a frank and open discussion about the future of our industry–in terms of products, companies, and strategies”.

Well I was expecting a discussion on SBC/TS/Citrix related stuff (products, companies, strategies, etc). So far (not sure if this happened because Brian had that crazy drink before the session or if it is because Bernie is having a beer) they have not said a single word about the proposed topic at all. Just talking about technicians, architects, CTOs etc. I know all these companies in the SBC arena have these but what this has to do with this presentation I have no freaking idea.

If the session direction shifts dramatically and gets on track for the proposed topic, I will let you all know.

But so far, just crazy talk for sure.

Tad Brockway, the Group Program Manager for the Terminal Services Product Development team, is giving a presentation about the past, present and future of TS. A great presentation for everyone willing to learn how TS evolved within Microsoft. Cool!

He will be showing many of the Longhorn TS features (the ones I mentioned in one of our monthly newsletters were terrible a year ago ). Tad promised me they are much better now and that we would not be disappointed! I hope he is right.

As he is here at BriForum and no one had to sign any NDA stuff I am sure this is not under any NDA.

Right now he is showing the TS Gateway (yes, RDP over HTTPS is a reality) and unfortunately I still think, after 6 months since I saw it last time, it is overkill for many companies. But I must say it is very granular (you can disable for example, drive redirection when users connect from outside through the gateway). I just think lots of the things they did on it will not be used by the small/medium shops. In the other hand I am still thinking like someone trying to bring products to the market for the small/medium size companies.

The thing is once MVPs start writing configuration guides for all this stuff, anyone will be able to implement/configure it so at the end, small/medium companies will benefit from this for sure.

Now he is showing the seamless windows/application publishing features that will be in Longhorn server. I must say their seamless windows shell is very well implemented and the web portal looks great for the users (although its configuration interface was the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life - trust me, I do have some TS experience and I could not understand what the hell they were trying to achieve when I was in Redmond last year). The way you publish apps is pretty cool with a nice wizard. Well done so far.

Now we can see the seamless windows engine in action. System tray integration and all the other bells and whistles are there. That is why I have been saying that companies developing their own seamless windows products to move on enhancing other things on their product (all the stuff that Microsoft will not be addressing) and leave the seamless windows shell alone.

As expected he did not show the web portal configuration so I assume it is still as terrible as it was six months ago. I will have to get the latest Longhorn build and give it a try. If not under NDA I will post my thoughts on it here sometime later.

For all you guys that missed BriForum, too bad for you. This is THE place to be if you want to learn a lot about TS/Citrix and meet the top people in the world for that. Just make sure your liver is in good condition.

Time to go guys!

As PS4.0 is on my plate these days thanks to the Canadian Government, I decided it would be a good idea to check out Stefan Vermeulen’s presentation about PS4.0 printing, third party tools and so on.

It was good because I learned a couple things I did not know about the Citrix implementation and also found out McAfee AV screws it up on a TS environment. Nice! Amazing how McAfee always finds a way to break Citrix/TS environments and people still uses that crap on TS! Amazing.

After the presentation I am confident PS4.0 EMF engine will perform as expected but not perfectly. Well there is nothing perfect in the software industry… The key thing is to figure out which imperfections you can live with.

Writing live from Jeroen’s session here at BriForum (if you do not know him, Jeroen is the guy that wrote the famous FlexProfiles).

Jeroen and Daniel Nikolic have been working on a tool like TLoad, to stress/load test Citrix servers. As always, this will be free (now free for up to 150 virtual users). For experience Citrix people out there, this will be a no brainer to learn. Apparently (I will confirm with them) there is no recording capabilities so the scripts to be used must be created using something like Wintask. In no way a show stopper but for not so experienced people, the lack of recording capabilities may not be seen as a good thing.

The idea is to have a machine (Director) that controls other machines (LoadBots) and these will be the one that will actually launch the sessions. The tool, currently in beta, is expected to be out on Q2, 2006.

Again many kudos to the Login Consultants guys.

Here I am at BriForum 2006 in Washington, DC, posting this entry while Brian and Rick Dehlinger speak. Tad Brockway(Microsoft TS Product Manager) is sitting beside me and of course I will be asking him as many questions as I can about the future of TS.

The idea is to post live, about all the stuff going on here. With more than 60 technical sessions going on for the next three days. I am sure we will have a lot to write about.

Right now Brian is talking about the party that will happen tonight with lots of beer and techie-talk.

Keep tuned!

Hey guys,

I just noticed 2X Software Ltd. is giving away 100,000 licenses of its 2X ApplicationServer. This is basically an application you will install on your TS and then publish applications to your users in seamless windows mode.

I know since I left the company (they were the ones that actually acquired my old Terminal-Services.NET business) they have been improving the product a lot and many enhancements/fixes were added.

This is an offer for the small businesses out there (as it is for its 5-user version). As I know there are many companies in the wild using TS for 5 users or less, this is a great opportunity to get seamless windows for your users at no cost!

Cheers and see you at BriForum!