Citrix: Presentation Server with Ardence OS Streaming

Wilco van Bragt (sbc.vanbragt.net) has written a nice how-to article on preparing a Citrix Presentation Server (version 4.0 or 4.5) with Ardence streaming.

Some Advantages of OS streaming in combination with terminal servers:

• Flexible provisioning
• Rapid software (OS/Apps) deployment
• Servers are always 100% identical
• Easy implementation of updates and hotfixes to the operating system and applications
• Easy rollback scenarios
• After a restart the system is back in clean state

Citrix MPS/Xensource/Ardence combo anyone ;)

Read the complete article here

VMware: WTS/Citrix on VMware ESX 3

Are you interested in virtualizing your Citrix or Terminal Services environment? If so, check out Rene Vester 's article "A short guide to virtualizing Presentation and Terminal servers on VMware ESX 3" on the Brian Madden website. He goes into great detail on the steps required to successfully install WTS or Citrix in a virtualized environment.

This is a great addition to my previous blogpost "Best practices for deploying Citrix on ESX"

Read the entire article here

WTS: How To Configure Folder Redirection

Patrick Rouse has written a nice little article on the use of folder redirection in a SBC environment.

Folder redirection can limit the amount of data that is copied between the Roaming Profile Share and the Terminal Server at each logon and logoff. This is accomplished by redirecting folders like Desktop, My Documents, and Application Data to a Network Share outside of the Roaming Profile Share, so it is not copied at each logon and logoff.

You can read the complete article on the msterminalservices.org website

Microsoft: Terminal Services Session Broker

Michel Roth over at thincomputing.net has written a nice (p)review on the new load balancing options for terminal servers in Server 2008. Read his article here

WTS: Using ThreadMaster to Tame Rogue Applications

Duane Bradley has written an excellent tutorial on how to deploy & configure the free tool Threadmaster to "tame" CPU usage for specific applications on a Terminal Server or Citrix box. Read the article here

Microsoft: Technet Magazine A guide to deploying WTS

James D. Silliman has written a short but insightful article in Technet Magazine on deploying Windows Terminal Services on a Windows 2003 platform. In the article, he discusses GPO’s, security filtering, Folder redirection, installing Office using templates and admin installl, some licensing info, etc.

Definitly a good read for people new to Terminal Services. Read the article here

Microsoft: Its all about Virtualization now...

Yesterday, I attended the TechNet Webcast: Windows Server 2008: Server Virtualization Solution Scenario. It was quite interesting (although not as technical as I had hoped).

To summarize, Microsoft’s virtualization strategy is divided in 4 types of “virtualization”:

1. Desktop virtualization: desktops/servers can be virtualized on your local desktop using Virtual PC technology. Nothing new here.
2. Application virtualization: Microsoft bought Softricity a few months ago, one of the leading companies for applications virtualization. They are now selling Softgrid as their application virtualization solution (and a good one I might add). Softgrid 4.1 is now the current version, and version 4.2 will be released soon. Zerotouch (a web portal front end) was dropped.
3. Presentation virtualization: this one is quite funny (and the most surprising). As you might know, Server 2008 will have a bunch of new “Citrix-like” features for Terminal Services like load balancing, TS Web Access, TS gateway (SSL tunnel), remote (published) apps and UPD (called “easy print”). So now, Terminal Services is looked upon as being “presentation virtualization”. BTW, Citrix already uses the term “application virtualization” for its Metaframe Presentation Server solution.
4. Server virtualization: Oh yes, the combination of Virtual Server 2005 R2 (SP1) and/or Windows Server 2008 virtualization (“Viridian”) and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (now in Beta 2). SC VMM version 1.0 will be released in 2007, mainly to manage VS 2005 R2. A new release of SCVMM 2.0 will be released as soon as Viridian is ready (stripped of some features or not ;)) in 2008. So stay tuned!

During the presentation, a comparison was made between VMware ESX server and Windows Server 2008 with Windows Server Virtualization. The thing to note here is that VMware uses drivers in its hypervisor model, while WSV uses no drivers in their hypervisor. Instead, they deploy drivers directly in Virtual Machine instances. I can’t wait to compare it (even with hot-add & live-migration features stripped) to ESX!

Microsoft: WTS Step-By-Step guides in upcoming Win2K8

Microsoft has released some very interesting step-by-step guides related to (amongst others) Terminal Services:

• Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 Release TS Gateway Server Step-By-Step Setup Guide.doc
• Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 Release TS Licensing Step-By-Step Setup Guide.doc
• Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 Terminal Services RemoteApp Step-By-Step Guide.doc
• What's New in Terminal Services for Microsoft Windows Server Code Name Longhorn.doc

Download them here

Microsoft: Requesting TSCALs for Win2K8

To be able to test the new features in WTS Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has made available test TSCALs (Terminal Services Client Access Licenses). You can request batcehs of 20 Per-user or Per-device licenses. Go to this website to request & have fun!

Microsoft: Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008

Patrick Rouse has written an excellent article on new TS features that will be available in Windows Server 2008.

To summarize:

• TS Easy Print: this will be Microsoft’s answer to Universal Printer driver solutions. As you know, there was already a “fallback” mode available in Windows 2003. TS Easy Print will be available with the new RDC 6.1 client
• Per-Session default printer: This feature ensures that different sessions logged on with the same user name retain session specific default printers
• SSO (Single-Sign on) when using Vista/Server 2008 combinations. 
• Dual-monitor support
• Terminal Services RemoteApp: his feature provides Seamless Windows & Session Sharing functionality to users with Remote Desktop Client 6.x. Also, Session sharing will be available (as seen in Citrix MPS releases)
• Terminal Services Load balancing: With the new Terminal Services Session Broker, Win2K8 Terminal Servers can be effectively load balanced based on:
  • Session Count
  • Weight
  • Black hole avoidance (avoid a new TS from being overloaded with new logon requests)
  • Drain mode (aka redirect new logins to other TS servers)
• Terminal Service Web Access: Similar to Citrix Web Interface, this IIS Portal delivers RemoteApp Connection information to a client with the Remote Desktop 6.x Client.
• Terminal Services Gateway: Similar to Citrix Secure Gateway, this feature provides RDP over HHTPS (443) traffic from DMZ to your trusted network.

Definitely check it out here

Microsoft: Terminal Services Load Balancing in LH Beta 3

After announcing TS Easy Print, Microsoft made an even bigger announcement at BriForum Chicago: Longhorn will have Load Balancing! It goes to show, that Microsoft thinks really highly of BriForum A big compliment to Brian as far as I'm concerned! The Load Balancing capabilities will be included in Longhorn Beta 3 for the first time.

Read the article on Thincomputing here

Microsoft: Longhorn Beta 3 and the UPD "Easy Print"

Longhorn (Terminal) Server will have its own "universal printer" functionality. It should be available (I have not checked it) in the Beta 3 Longhorn Server version (released & available for download NOW).

Microsoft calls it: Easy Print. It's based on the Microsoft XPS document standard (which is similar to PDF). The "Easy Print" feature of Longhorn server is quite comprehensive though and is more than just a universal print driver in that it:

• Supports (nearly) every printer 
• Compresses the data stream send to the TS Client 
• Enables you to use the properties (UI) of the native printer driver 
• Allow you to specify which printer gets redirected into your Longhorn TS Session

Tnx to bink.nu for the info

VMware: Best practices for deploying Citrix on ESX

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.

Citrix: free techie Videos

Citrix has released some free technical how-to videos:

• Optimizing Printing in Presentation Server 4 environments
• Configuring Policies in Presentation Server 4
• Understanding and Designing Citrix Presentation Server 4 Farms
• Deep Dive into Citrix Presentation Server SpeedScreen Technologies
• Fundamentals of the Citrix Presentation Server Architecture
• Licensing Essentials
• Migrating your Microsoft Windows Terminal Servers to a Citrix Presentation Server Farm

Check them out here

Citrix: Comparing Longhorn WTS to Citrix PS Application Publishing

Katie Poepke..I mean Koepke has an excellent article on Application Publishing. She compares Longhorn Terminal Services Remote programs to Citrix Presentation Server Published applications. Check it out on the BrianMadden website

Citrix/WTS: debug user logons

If you ever experience slow/erratic logins, you can use the userenvdebuglevel (a dword value in the registry). No reboot is necessary.

This will create a userenv.log file in the Windows/debug/usermode directory. It is really helpful to determine delays in login processes!

See also:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221833/en-us

Citrix/WTS: UPHClean "reminder"

Just to remind everybody about it: ALWAYS install UPHClean on a Citrix/WTS server.

The User Profile Hive Cleanup service helps to ensure user sessions are completely terminated when a user logs off. System processes and applications occasionally maintain connections to registry keys in the user profile after a user logs off. In those cases the user session is prevented from completely ending. This can result in problems when using Roaming User Profiles in a server environment or when using locked profiles as implemented through the Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP.
See the link in my toolbox to download it!

Citrix: Web Interface 4.5 preview

Thomas Koetzing has a short article on the new Web Interface 4.5 features. Check it out on his website

WTS: Longhorn server enhancements for Terminal Services

Windows Server "Longhorn" introduces new functionality in Terminal Services to connect to remote computers and applications. Terminal Services Remote Programs completely integrates applications running on a remote terminal with users’ desktops such that they behave as if they were running on an individual user's local computer; users can run programs from a remote location side-by-side with their local programs.

Terminal Services Web Access permits this same flexibility of remote application access via Web browser, granting an even wider variety of ways user can access and use programs running on remote terminals. And Terminal Services Gateway allows user to access remote terminals and remote terminal programs in a firewall-friendly manner.

Citrix: ICA Client 9.2 Receives "Protocol Driver Error" when Connecting through CSG 3.0

A customer of mine had problems connecting to an external CSG (Citrix Secure Gateway). He received the error message "Protocol Driver Error" for some unknown reason. This is a known issue with the new Citrix 9.2 client version. I solved the issue by installing the previous version, 9.15.

The other solution is to patch your Secure gateway. For more info, see the following tech article on Citrix support