Start by downloading AppSense DesktopNow from myAppSense and extract it on your fileserver to a folder named “DesktopNow”.

Alter the values in the script below, save it as a ps1 file and you should be good to go.

Note: The script has only been tested on Windows 2008 R2 and AppSense DesktopNow 8 FR4/6.

# Unattended/Silent AppSense DesktopNow installation script
# Created by Michel Stevelmans - http://www.michelstevelmans.com

# Change these values
$fileserver = "FILESERVER"
$path = "SHARE_CONTAINING_DESKTOPNOW_FOLDER"

# Install .NET 4.0 full
& "\\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Prerequisites\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe" /q /norestart | Out-Null

# Install all required visual C++ redistributables
& "\\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Prerequisites\vcredist2008_SP1_x64" /qb | Out-Null
& "\\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Prerequisites\vcredist2008_SP1_x86" /qb | Out-Null
& "\\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Prerequisites\vcredist2010_SP1_x64" /q /norestart | Out-Null
& "\\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Prerequisites\vcredist2010_SP1_x86" /q /norestart | Out-Null

# Add required windows roles and features
Import-Module Servermanager
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core, NET-Win-CFAC
Add-WindowsFeature BITS
Add-WindowsFeature Web-WebServer, Web-Asp-Net, Web-Metabase, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-IP-Security

# Install ASP.NET 4
& "$env:systemroot\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis" -i | Out-Null

# Install AppSense DesktopNow and consoles
Start-Process -FilePath "$env:systemroot\system32\msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList "/i \\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Products\ManagementServer64.msi /qn" -Wait
Start-Process -FilePath "$env:systemroot\system32\msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList "/i \\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Products\PersonalizationServer64.msi /qn" -Wait
Start-Process -FilePath "$env:systemroot\system32\msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList "/i \\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Products\ManagementConsole64.msi /qn" -Wait
Start-Process -FilePath "$env:systemroot\system32\msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList "/i \\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Products\EnvironmentManagerConsole64.msi /qn" -Wait
Start-Process -FilePath "$env:systemroot\system32\msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList "/i \\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Products\ApplicationManagerConsole64.msi /qn" -Wait
Start-Process -FilePath "$env:systemroot\system32\msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList "/i \\$fileserver\$path\DesktopNow\Software\Products\PerformanceManagerConsole64.msi /qn" -Wait

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.

Remember, here also the saying “less is more” holds true: Only include the registry keys and/or folders that the application really needs, exclude everything else.
A great tool for finding what an application really requires is the AppSense Configuration Assistant.

Standard exclusions that I put in every application configuration in my Personalization configurations are:

Registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software

Folder:
{CSIDL_PROFILE}
{CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA}

Download the full resolution flowchart here: AppSense Personalization flowchart

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.

Using NoMoreFour is very easy and only involves the following steps:
- Select the directory of a single application or the root folder containing multiple applications.
- Optionally select the destination directory where the converted applications will be saved.
- Select the applications you want to test or convert from the list and go!

NoMoreFour requires the installation of the Microsoft App-V 5.0 sequencer and should be started with “Run as administrator”.

Download NoMoreFour 1.0 here: NoMoreFour

After installing the NIC, VMware booted as normal and the NIC was immediately recognized. Only a few hours later, my whitebox crashed with a kernel panic.
The VMware ESXi 5 host reported a “Spin count exceeded” and “possible deadlock” in the purple diagnostic screen.

Without searching google for the error, I first upgraded my VMware ESXi 5 host to the latest patch level and gave it another shot.
Within a few hours, my whitebox crashed again with the same “Spin count exceeded” purple screen.

After some searching I found this thread, which seems to be very close to my problem.
The reason that the kernel panic occurs (randomly) seems to be related to an unsolved linux IRQ bug on Sandy Bridge mainboards, which is described here.
In short: According to the articles mentioned above my only option is to replace the PCI NIC with a PCI-X NIC, as this seems to be a working workaround.

I already disabled a couple of on-board device on my Asus P8H67-V mainboard (sound,  Atheros AR8151 NIC), but since I’m not using the onboard USB 3.0 controller my idea was to try to free up an additional IRQ, so I disabled the USB 3.0 Controller as well.
Problem solved! pfSense has been running stable now for over a week and still going strong!

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.

Task Nanny allows the end user to end his own hanging or not responding applications or tasks, without having the full functionality of the Microsoft Windows Task Manager and without seeing tasks that belong to other users.

Download or read more about Task Nanny here.

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!

Download or read more about Farm Nanny here.

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.

Download or read more about Farm Nanny here.

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.

Find out more about Farm Nanny here

Symantec provides a knowledge base article in which they go into detail on the problem and propose a workaround that creates unique id’s for every client.
You can find more information here: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH123419

The workaround and batch file that Symantec uses is a “one size fits all” solution, meaning it will work for SEP 11 and 12 and for 32 and 64 bits.
The environment I was implementing this for uses Windows 2008 R2 and SEP 11 only and I like to standardize all my scripts to PowerShell, so I extracted only the actions I needed and translated them to PowerShell.

A summary of the steps needed to be taken first (the Symantec article outlines them in more detail):

- Disable tamper protection (very important!)
- Stop the Symantec Management Client service by navigating to the Symantec Endpoint Protection installation directory and use the command: smc -stop
- Set the Symantec Management Client service to start manually in the registry: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\SmcService\Start=3

After these changes the Symantec Management Client service can’t contact the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager automatically anymore.

The following PowerShell script must be configured to run at boottime to change the hardware id and manually start the Symantec Management Client service.

# Change Symantec Endpoint Protection Hardware ID
# Created by Michel Stevelmans - http://www.michelstevelmans.com

# Delete sephwid.xml
Remove-Item "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Symantec Shared\HWID\sephwid.xml"

# Delete registry entries
reg delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection\SMC\SYLINK\SyLink" /v HardwareID /f /reg:64
reg delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection\SMC\SYLINK\SyLink" /v HostGUID /f /reg:64

# Get the MAC address of the first NIC
$Nics = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration -Filter "IpEnabled = TRUE"
foreach ($Nic in $Nics)
    {
    $Mac = $Nic.MacAddress
    Break
    }

# Remove colons from MAC Address
$Hwid = $Mac.Replace(":", "")

# Add new HardwareID registry entry
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection\SMC\SYLINK\SyLink" /v HardwareID /d "00000000000000000000$Hwid" /f /reg:64

# Start Symantec Management Client
Start-Service SmcService

Like I mentioned earlier: This script is for 64-bit with SEP 11, but with the help of the original Symantec article it is very easy to make this work for SEP 12 or 32-bits.

First install all your required language packs on your XenApp or RDS server or if you’re using Citrix Provisioning, install them in your vDisk.

1 . Security groups

Create a separate active directory security group for each language. I’m going to use these groups as conditions in AppSense environment manager and for security filtering on the active directory GPO’s.
So for example create a security group called “Japanese language” and add all Japanese users to this group.

2. Ignore remote keyboard

When a RDP client connects to a remote desktop server, the client’s input language and keyboard settings are detected, which will obviously cause trouble if you want to push language and keyboard settings for your users.
To disable this feature on your remote desktop or Citrix XenApp server, add a DWORD value called IgnoreRemoteKeyboardLayout with a value of 1 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout.

3. Regional options

Create a separate GPO for all your languages, remove the “Authenticated Users” from the security filtering and add your corresponding active directory security group to each GPO.
Edit each GPO with the regional options you require and make sure to hit F5 on all tabs so that the dotted red line turns into a green line (only settings which have a green line underneath are applied).

4. Display language

Create a node in your AppSense environment manager policy configuration and add the active directory security groups as a user group conditions.
The registry settings for the display language are located under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.
Change the language to your required language an export these two values to a reg file: PreferredUILanguages and PreferredUILanguagesPending.
So if you created an AppSense environment manager user group condition for the Japanese active directory security group, import the Japanese reg file underneath that condition.

5. Keyboard layout

The preferred keyboard layout registry key is located under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Keyboard Layout\Preload.
The string value named 1 is the one you need. The value will be the keyboard code for your country.
So for a Japanese keyboard we need a string valued named 1 with a value of 00000411
For a complete list of keyboard codes, refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262283

6. Geographical location

The geographical location registry key is located under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International\Geo.
The value of the string value called Nation determines the user’s geographical location.
For a complete list of geographical location values, refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms912039.aspx
Import this registry key in your AppSense environment manager policy configuration.

7. Hide the language bar

If you are going to push all these language en regional settings to your users, you might as well hide the language bar.
To do this, create a DWORD value named ShowStatus with a value of 3 under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\CTF\LangBar in your AppSense environment manager policy configuration.

8. AppSense personalization desktop settings

Now that we have all settings in place, we have to tweak AppSense personalization.
When you would remove a user from the Japanese security group and add him to another language security group after he has already logged in at least once, you will see some unexpected behavior.
The desktop settings from AppSense personalization will persist some of his old Japanese settings and the user will now have a mixture of language settings.
Connect to your AppSense personalization server, go to desktop settings and uncheck the following: Keyboard, language and locale.

Everything is now configured properly and ready to go!