So I got an email indicating several users are unable to launch a published application from our production XenApp 6.5 farm.  Great was my immediate thought!  But after navigating to the icon and thinking to myself, doesn’t this environment have 6 servers this specific application? Then upon clicking on the “servers” tab I immediately became suspicious of what I saw. “WORKER GROUPS!!!”

I must have been grumbling or something as I cast a stare over at a fellow colleague. “I swore off worker groups a long time ago” he said. Yep was my response. So this utterly disgusting mix of servers in different domains and XenApp 6.5 worker groups smacked yet again. essentially Anybody attempting to access icons published to a worker group that were not sourced from the same domain the servers resided in had connectivity issues. Upon attempting to launch the icon, they were immediately presented with an error indicating > “an error occurred while making the requested connection”.

How did we resolve this specific issues?

  1. remove the server group (worker group) from the published icon.
  2. individually add each server from the worker group to the icon
  3. test, and respond to the user group reporting the issue upon success!
  4. go grab a cup of coffee, or beer depending on the time, or if allowed (even if its still only 9AM).

 

 

 

When you think about migrating a user or a group of users from Windows XP to Windows 7, or perhaps replacing an existing build with a new build, the task at hand can be complicating for an administrator and completely annoying for  end users.  One question we should all be asking, is there software we can use to seamlessly migrate user specific and customized settings automatically without risking the loss of data and consuming way too much time? And then have the settings seamlessly pushed to the new OS/build or virtual machine from one central location…

Prior to an OS, user migration, or virtualization initiative there are several very important factors one would want to take into consideration before investing capital in software, people, time and/or processes. In this day and age, it’s not uncommon to have to deal with stretched IT resources and finances and elevated pressures from management.  We need to be smart and use all available tools and resources to the best of our advantage as we push towards a more standard and repeatable approach to OS, user migrations, and virtualization.  Especially with the onslaught of virtual entities and virtual machines, processes and infrastructure.  One proven way to reduce TCO (total cost of ownership) with migration initiatives is by leveraging industry proven automation software which seamlessly provides the needed functionality all while decreasing time, and efforts spent on each user migration.

Now with the above in mind, what do we want to automate as we prepare for our OS migrations and user virtualization initiatives? Here are some settings one would want to migrate, with the overall goal of making the job easier for technicians and completely minimizing end user frustration.  With user virtualization and OS migration software from SlyAdmin, these settings are already preconfigured and ready to use out of the box. A fine combination between customization and automation is what we all want to achieve in any initiative.

Out of the box, here is what you can do with SlyAdmin user virtualization and Operating system migration software.

  • Capture custom settings:
    • Capture and migrate registry, and files
    • Seamlessly migrate application specific and custom application settings (market data, spreadsheets, macros, etc.).
    • Migrate Lotus Notes and Database specific settings…
    • Migrate custom applications, and homegrown applications.
  • Capture, store and migrate user relevant Microsoft Office settings (97,2000, 2007, 2010).
    • User specific customizations, color schemes, and  preferences.
    • Localized outlook customizations (pst files, contacts, etc.).
  • Capture and migrate user relevant OS properties
    • Theme settings, desktop colors and customizations.
    • Window appearance and user defined schemes.
  • Internet Explorer customizations
    • Capture favorites and taskbar settings
    • IE certificates
  • Seamless Mobile Device Migrations and synchronization
    • Capture and migrate Active sync settings.
    • capture and migrate Blackberry (RIM) configurations.
    • iPhone/iPad and iTunes customizations and settings.

 

 

So whats the deal with this? I have a reporting services site which gives the users the ability to export the reports as either an excel or acrobat file by clicking on the Select a format dropdown. Xenapp 4.5, 5.0 work fine but when we attempt to export the data from a XenApp 6 farm, we get nothing!

Now get this, when you manually rdp into the 2008 R2 server and launch the 32 bit version of internet explorer, it does not work. But when you launch the 64 bit of internet explorer, the export feature works like a champ.

Now, for the purpose of this article. I have seen some crazy stuff in regards to how to address this issue.

  • one site recommended replacing iexplore from c:\Program Files (x86)\internet explorer\iexplore.exe, with the 64bit version from c:\Program Files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe. Of course the caveot is that you need to assume ownership of the (x86)\internet explorer directory to make the copy possible. And you probably want to make sure noboy is using iexplore.exe as well. doh!
  • the other completely intersting observation I found was when you fire up the registry and navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command, you will see that it has been updated with “C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\system32\iexplore.exe” “%1″ by the default install of XenApp 6.  Now note, prior to the install, you would have seen the default path to iexplore. If you want – this is a good spot to replace the existing 32 bit version of IE with your 64 bit version to quickly address.
  • Next, just quickly check where the following registry path points to > HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\E&xport to Microsoft Excel and make sure defult [REG_SZ] points to res://C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1\Office12\EXCEL.EXE/3000 for your office 2007 install. Office 203 may be slightly different.

Now with all of the existing options – here is what i’ve tried which has proven a decent success with exports and sites hosting reporting services accessed by XenApp Servers.

  • its honestly not woth your time to dig into the activeX settings and toggle simply because all you do is put yourself at risk. If anything, add the internal url to the trusted sites. if the site is external to your lan, make sure its affixed with https.
  • consider how your browser is configured to work. reporting services wants to prompt you to download your file, not open a new tab. dig into the local group policy or setup something with an ad template to fix the following.
    • start > run > gpedit.msc
    • expand ‘local computer policy’
    • expand ‘computer configuration’
    • expand ‘administrative templates’
    • expand ‘windows components’
    • expand ‘internet explorer’
    • double click on “turn off tabbed browsing”
    • set to “enabled” and click apply
  • refresh the policy
    • start > run > gpedit.msc /force
  • now test the icon pointing to the reporting services site and your will be suprised at the results.
  • Note: you may need to quickly reset a profile if corrupt!
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