How to decide if an application should be managed by AppSense Personalization

 Applications, AppSense  2 Responses »
Mar 072013
 

Have you ever wondered if it really necessary to personalize an application using AppSense Personalization? Or do you blindly personalize all your applications?

You should only personalize applications that users need personalized settings for.
If you put all your applications in AppSense Personalization, you will end up with a personalization configuration that is hard to manage, crashes applications that were stable (and don’t need any kind of personalization) and a personalization database that is way too large.

My co-worker Ben Pelzer (@benpelzer22) created a very handy flowchart (see link below) that can help you decide whether to personalize an application or not.After deciding your applications needs personalization, just follow the steps shown in the flowchart. Continue reading »

NoMoreFour: An App-V 5.0 converter GUI application

 App-V, Applications, Powershell  1 Response »
Feb 112013
 

If you want to migrate to Microsoft App-V 5.0 you’ll soon discover that you can’t import your old App-V 4.5 and App-V 4.6 applications because they are in a different format.

The new Microsoft App-V 5.0 sequencer comes with two PowerShell cmdlets which help you test and convert your existing applications to the new App-V 5.0 “.appv” format.

NoMoreFour wraps these two cmdlets in an easy to use GUI application, allowing you to convert all of your applications to App-V 5.0 with zero PowerShell knowledge required.
Additionally, NoMoreFour can batch convert all your applications at once, saving you lots of time (and money) without having to resort to PowerShell scripting.
Continue reading »

Task Nanny: A locked down task manager alternative

 Applications, Citrix, Microsoft, VMware, XenApp, XenDesktop  5 Responses »
Jul 092012
 

Task Nanny is a locked down task manager for Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenDesktop, VMware View, RDS, Terminal Services or any other locked down desktop environments in which you do not want to expose the Microsoft Windows task manager to the end user.

Unlike other free alternative task managers, Task Nanny does not show the user a (for an end user hard to understand) list of his running processes. Instead, Task Nanny shows the user the actual tasks which the Microsoft Windows task manager application tab shows, which is a lot easier and more understandable for the user.
Continue reading »

Farm Nanny 2.1: Citrix XenApp farm and server reporting / documentation added!

 Applications, Citrix, XenApp  28 Responses »
Jun 262012
 

Farm Nanny 2.1 is available and now features a Citrix XenApp farm & server reporting / documentation module.

The Farm Nanny Reporter exports all data (and more!) that you see in the Farm Nanny Resource Monitor to an Excel sheet, without the need to have Microsoft Excel installed on your server.

With the Farm Nanny Reporter you don’t have to run PowerShell scripts (which require you to install the XenApp SDK on your server) on your servers to document your Citrix XenApp farm: Just click the button and you’re done!
Continue reading »

Farm Nanny 2.0 available: A new look and many new features added!

 Applications, Citrix, Printing, XenApp  2 Responses »
Jun 202012
 

Farm Nanny 2.0 is available now and has many new features added!

The XenApp resource manager / farm monitor now shows the status of the print spooler and citrix print manager service, installed printer drivers and installed hotfixes.

Farm Nanny’s new features include:
- Printer Driver Replicator, a GUI for XenApp printer driver replication.
- Health Checker, an easy interface for checking your farm and XenApp server health and availability.
- Hotfix Browser, shows all available hotfixes and information from Citrix.com.
- Technote Browsers, showing you all the latest technotes directly from within Farm Nanny.

On top of all the new features, Farm Nanny also has a brand new clean and easy interface, based on WPF technology.
Continue reading »

Farm Nanny, a Citrix XenApp farm monitor application

 Applications, Citrix, XenApp  37 Responses »
May 012012
 

Although Citrix EdgeSight is completely packed with features, it is a little top-heavy and personally I still miss the good old Citrix resource manager because it was a quick and easy way to get an overview of what’s going on with your farm and servers.
Sure there are a lot of PowerShell scripts to be found which give you an overview of your farm, but those scripts are just snap-shots of your environment.
What you really need is something that monitors your Citrix XenApp farm in real-time

After some digging around in the Citrix XenApp SDK, I decided to make my own Citrix XenApp farm monitor: Farm Nanny!

Farm Nanny is a Citrix XenApp farm monitoring application for XenApp 6 and XenApp 6.5 which will help you with troubleshooting, health checks and resource monitoring.
Continue reading »

Installing Symantec Endpoint Protection in a Citrix Provisioning Services vDisk using PowerShell

 Applications, Citrix, Powershell, Provisioning, XenApp, XenDesktop  7 Responses »
Apr 052012
 

If you install Symantec Enterprise Protection in a Citrix Provisioning Services vDisk in standard mode, you will notice that your clients will create duplicate entries in the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager at every reboot.
Just like most other centrally managed anti-virus products (see my other post on Trend Micro OfficeScan), Symantec uses hardware id’s to uniquely identify clients and this causes issues with read-only vDisks. Continue reading »

Change the text size in a remote desktop session

 Applications, Citrix, Microsoft, XenApp  57 Responses »
Dec 212011
 

When connected to a Windows 2008 R2 remote desktop session, you cannot change the size of the text on your screen (font size / DPI settings).
If you go to “Control Panel” – “Display” you see the message: “the display settings can’t be changed from a remote session.”.

Especially for users with large screens and large resolutions, this can be a real problem. Continue reading »

Installing Trend Micro OfficeScan in a vDisk

 Applications, Citrix, Provisioning, XenApp, XenDesktop  15 Responses »
Jun 252011
 

A default installation of the Trend Micro OfficeScan client in a vDisk of a provisioned device is going to get you in trouble…
The Trend Micro management server expects each client to register with a unique GUID.
When you install the Trend Micro OfficeScan client in a vDisk, all provisioned devices using that vDisk will register with the same GUID and the management server becomes clueless. Continue reading »