terminal-server « WordPress.com Tag Feed

How to configure Terminal Server licensing on Windows Server 2008

itbod — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:18:58 +0000

Open Server Manager and select Roles from the left hand pane

If the TS Licensing role is not already installed it will need adding as a role service

Select Add Role Services

Check the TS Licensing box and click Next

I want a domain level discovery scope

At the Confirmation Screen click Install

Click Close when the installation completes

Open TS Licensing Manager, right click the server and select Activate Server

Click Next at the Activate Server Wizard

Select the connection method

Enter the requested details

You can ignore the optional information screen. The server is then activated and the wizard completes

Leave the ‘Start Install Licenses Wizard now’ checked and click Next if you wish to install TS CALs. Otherwise uncheck and click Finish.

If installing licenses the Install Licenses Wizard begins

Select the relevant license program from the drop down selection

Enter any details relating to your license agreement when prompted. In my case this is a Select agreement

Once accepted you are prompted to enter the Product Version and License Type

Once the license details are added the wizard completes

In the TS Licensing Manager the licenses should now be visible

If you haven’t already done so, access the Terminal Services Configuration Tool to change the Terminal Services licensing mode. Right click and select Properties

Select the licensing mode that matches your TS CAL licensing. You can also specify the license server rather than using automatic discovery

Licensing should now be complete.

'MMC has detected an error in a snap-in and will unload it’ error message when adding the TS Licensing role to a Windows 2008 server

itbod — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:10:56 +0000

I tried to add the TS licensing role to a Windows 2008 Terminal Server but received an MMC error

Additionally a second error message appears regarding an ‘Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation’ with the Exception type: System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException

To resolve this I tried repairing and uninstall/installing the .NET framework but without success.

I was logged into the server locally with the local administrator account. When I logged into AD with a domain admin account I was able to add the TS Licensing role.

Please ensure that you are logged into the domain that the TS server resides on and with an administrator level account to be able to add the role.

How to lock down Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server Sessions

itbod — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:44:37 +0000

Having only used Terminal Services sparingly in the past as a means to run single applications made available to remote desktop clients or to make websites available to thin clients, I had to create a terminal server that provided a desktop of icons that provide access to applications, email and web for laptops accessing via corporate VPN. The laptops are light and have only the OS and anti-virus installed so would be reliant on the capabilities of the terminal server.

Previously, as we had been deploying an .rdp icon that is configured to access an app or webpage now we were making a TS fully available for access which meant that we had to use group policy to lock it down.

To do this I created an Organisational Unit in Active Directory called Terminal Server Lockdown and added the Windows 2008 Terminal Server as a member of the newly created OU.

Next, I enabled Group Policy on the OU (Right click then Properties) and selected Group Policy.

I created a new local group policy object and called it Terminal Server Lockdown.

Finally, I edited the group policy here used the settings that Microsoft recommends in their ‘Locking Down Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server Sessions’ document that is available here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/8/b/d8b21533-a5bf-4d46-8878-ebbf834fc6f7/Win2003_Teminal_Server_Lockdown.doc

Some of the recommended settings may cause some problems but this depends on your environment and how tightly you want to lock down TS sessions. After testing and adding further restrictions this solution is very effective.

Apple เปิดตัว Wyse PocketCloud เป็น iPhone Apps เจาะกลุ่มธุรกิจ

thinvision — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:18:35 +0000

Cloud Computing บน iPhone โดย Wyse ผู้ผลิต thin client ชั้น

Apple เปิดตัว iPhone Apps ที่ให้ท่านได้เข้าถึงข้อมูลธุรกิจไม่ว่าท่านจะอยู่ที่ไหน ด้วย Wyse PocketCloud ท่านจะสามารถเข้าถึง Virtual Desktop, terminal server หรือ เครื่องพีซี เพื่อใช้งาน desktop ของ Windows จากระยะไกล จะช่วยให้ท่านไม่ต้องเสียเวลาและค่าใช้จ่ายในการเดินทางกลับเข้าที่ทำงาน ขณะเดียวกันท่านก็สามารถบริหารเวลาอันมีค่าของท่านอย่างคุ้มค่า

ดูรายละเอียดเพิ่มเติมได้ที่ http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/apps-for-iphone/mobile-it.html

ที่มา : Apple Newsletter ประจำเดือน พฤศจิกายน 2009

Centralis use Citrix XenDesktop & AppSense for 3,000 users at Dudley PCT

Gareth Kitson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:16:33 +0000

Dudley Primary Care Trust (PCT) has worked with Centralis (a key Citrix & AppSense partner) to deliver a virtual desktop environment to over 3,000 staff.

Using Citrix XenServer, Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenApp and AppSense, Dudley PCT are able to provision desktops to their staff from just 16 Virtual Servers.

AppSense enables a single standardize image of the OS and Applications to be stored, managed and delivered as fully configured and personalized desktops to thousands of users at minimal operational cost.

A more detailed account of this project can be found here

Other joint Citrix and AppSense Customers can be found here

Further information on the joint Citrix & AppSense Solution can be found on the Citrix website here

Thanks

Gareth

The VDI Penny Is Starting to drop.

shanewescott — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:12:27 +0000

Enviroman (Oliver Sills, Product Manager for AppSense Environment Manager) was in the office the other day, pestering me about signing a petition to change the Environment Manager “colour” from green to Tangerine – something to do with some UK footy club. I told him the Budgie Smugglers don’t look any better in Tangerine, so stop sitting on my desk

Just about then the phone rings, it was a Solution Architect from a large software company. “Tell him about Personalization”, Environman whispers in my ear. I covered the phone, told him to go way, and went back to the call.

Turns out one of his clients was trying to deploy 600+ Virtual Desktops, and it had just dawned on them that Policy, Profiles and the User Personality had become a nightmare to maintain when using a Non Persistent Pooled Desktop environment.

Think about it – each user, every time they log in, has a brand new base model PC.

This Client did a Proof of Concept – easy – P To V a couple of desktops, load a client, connect in using RDP – jobs a good’un – look Mum no hands – I’m doing VDI

So then they ticked all the boxes, app compatibility – tick, ease of use – tick, centrally managed and deployed – tick, user acceptance – tick, user personalization – tick – hey, not so fast.

You CAN have a tick in that box if you are talking One to One, dedicated hosted virtual desktops for a small number of users – otherwise, you need to think again.

It’s like when I started talking to the Aussie market about AppSense back in 2004 “Yes I hear what you say, but I’ve only got 5 servers – it’s not a problem” 6 months later “Yes I hear what you say, but I’ve only got 10 servers – it’s not a problem” 6 months later “Our farm is out of control, now we have 15 Citrix servers we now understand what you guys were on about 6 months ago”

As we always say – we don’t hold a grudge – and we don’t ever say “I told you so”. After all we’re from AppSense – we’re here to help

Virtual Desktops are starting to ramp up, and unfortunately with some clients projects, the devil will be in the detail.

Like the client we are now helping, they thought the “Profile Stuff” built into the VDI solution would be the easy bit. “There’re tools built into the base product” they say – yes there are, but those built in tools can be compared to other in-built free software like NTBackup – yes it will backup a file, but it’s not granular enough, and it just won’t cut it in an Enterprise environment – that’s why companies invest in a Third Party backup products.

AppSense is exactly the same. Built in “Profile” tools or features are o.k. for a simple small deployment where one size fits all, but the reality is most organisations will need more. The reason for this is simple, profile management tools are there to solve profile issues such as bloat and logon times.. they are not designed to be cross platform, cross delivery mechanism personalization solutions, not to mention the need for policy action control also.

It’s just not as easy as saying “We use Roaming Profiles and redirected folders” – try reimaging every PC in your business, every morning, and see if it causes a few hassles for users.

So we keep plugging away out there – educating the market in advance, some clients “get it” up front and they’re the ones with the smooth running, no surprises VDI projects.

As for the rest of you – we’ll be here, happy to answer questions, happy to show and tell – all with passion and enthusiasm.

After all – we’re from AppSense – we’re here to help

проблема с Normal.dot на терминальном сервере

Sharm — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:16:09 +0000

MS Word 2003, установленный на терминальном сервере Windows 2003 Server, начал через раз выдавать предложение создать новый файл шаблонов Normal.dot в связи с его повреждением.

Выглядело это так:

Word has detected a problem with the existing Normal.dot. Would you like to create a new Normal.dot?

Полное удаление существующих шаблонов и временныз файлов никак не влияло – Word стабильно выдавал свое предупреждение, есть шаблон или его нет.

Помогло выполнение действий, описанных в статьях базы знаний Microsoft:

Every other time that you open a document in Word, the document opens in recovery mode or you receive an error message

You are prompted to save the changes to the Normal.dot or Normal.dotm or Normal.dotm global template every time that you quit Word

Every other time that you open a document in Word, the document opens in recovery mode or you receive an error message

To work around this issue, delete the DisabledItems subkey and the Startup subkey. To do this, follow these steps:

Log on as an administrator to the console of the computer that is a terminal server.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
Locate and then click the following registry subkey, as appropriate for your version of Word.

Word 2002

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\MICROSOFT\Office\10.0\Word\Resiliency

Word 2003

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\MICROSOFT\Office\11.0\Word\Resiliency

Word 2007

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Resiliency

With the registry subkey that is specified in step 3 selected, follow these steps:
1. Right-click DisabledItems, and then click Delete.
2. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the DisabledItems subkey.
3. Right-click Startup, and then click Delete.
4. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the Startup subkey.
Locate and then select the following registry subkey, as appropriate for your version of Word.

Word 2002

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Resiliency

Word 2003

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Resiliency

Word 2007

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Resiliency

With the registry subkey that is specified in step 5 selected, follow these steps:

. Right-click DisabledItems, and then click Delete.

Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the DisabledItems subkey.
Right-click Startup, and then click Delete.
Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the Startup subkey.
On the File menu, click Exit to exit Registry Editor.

You are prompted to save the changes to the Normal.dot or Normal.dotm or Normal.dotm global template every time that you quit Word

Cause 1: The “Prompt to save Normal template” check box is selected

You receive this message if the Prompt to save Normal template check box is selected.

Workaround

To turn off this message, follow these steps.

Important If you turn off this message in Word, you may still have a problem. Word will automatically save the changes to your global template, Normal.dot or Normal.dotm, but you will not be prompted. You may still have to perform the other steps listed in this article.

If you use Microsoft Office Word 2003 or an earlier version of Word:

On the Tools menu, click Options.
On the Save tab, click to clear the Prompt to save Normal template check box.

If you use Microsoft Office Word 2007:

In the upper-left corner of the screen, click the Office button.
In the lower-right area of the drop-down box, click Word Options.
In the Word Options page, click Advanced in the left menu.
Use the scroll bar to scroll down to the Save section.
In the Save section, click to clear the Prompt before saving Normal template check box.

Cause 2: An installed add-in or an installed macro is changing the global template Normal.dot or Normal.dotm

You may receive the message that is listed in the “Symptoms” section if an add-in or a macro on your computer modified the Normal.dot or Normal.dotm template. Add-ins that are known to cause this behavior include the following:

Stamps.com Internet postage
Works Suite add-in for Microsoft Word

An add-in installed in Word may add one or more of the following items to your computer:

WLL file
Templates
COM add-in
Auto macros

Workaround

How to remove WLL add-ins and templates in the Word and Office Startup folders

When you start Word, Word automatically loads templates and add-ins that are located in the Startup folders. Problems in Word may be the result of conflicts or of problems with an add-in. To determine whether an item in a Startup folder is causing the problem, temporarily empty the folder.

Word loads items from the Office Startup folder and the Word Startup folder. To remove items from the Startup folders, follow these steps:

Quit all instances of Word. If you use Word as your e-mail editor, make sure that you quit Outlook also.
On your Windows desktop, double-click My Computer, and then locate your Office Startup folder. The default location is:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Startup

Note For Office versions 2000 and earlier, the Office folder is Office. For Office XP, the Officefolder is Office10. For Office 2003, the Office folder is Office11.

Drag each item from the Startup folder to the desktop. (Or create a folder on your desktop and drag each item to this new folder.)
Note To create a new folder on the desktop, right-click a blank area on the desktop, point toNew, and then click Folder.
Find the Word Startup folder, and then drag each item from the Startup folder to the desktop. (Or create a folder on your desktop and drag each item to this new folder.) The default location for the Word Startup folder depends on the operating system.
On Microsoft Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition without profiles enabled, the location is:

C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup

On Windows 98 and Windows Millennium with profiles enabled or on Windows NT 4.0, the location is:

C:\Windows\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup

On Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003, the location is:

C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup

Start Word.
If you can no longer reproduce the problem, and you removed multiple items from the Startup folder or folders, you can try to isolate the problem by adding the files back to the appropriate Startup folder, one by one. Try to reproduce the problem after each addition to determine which file causes the problem.

How to remove COM Add-ins

COM add-ins can be installed in any location. COM add-ins are installed by programs that interact with Word. To view the list of installed COM add-ins, follow these steps:

If you use Word 2003 or an earlier version of Word:

On the Tools menu, click Customize.
Click the Commands tab.
On the Commands tab, click Tools in the Categories list.
Use the mouse to drag the COM Add-Ins command to a toolbar.
Click Close to close the Customize dialog box.
Click the new COM Add-Ins button to view the COM add-ins that are loaded with Word.

If add-ins are listed in the COM Add-Ins dialog box, temporarily turn off each of the add-ins. To do this, click to clear the check box for each COM add-in that is listed, and then click OK. When you restart Word, Word starts without loading the COM add-ins that you turned off.

If the problem is resolved after you turn off the COM add-ins, one of the listed COM add-ins is the cause of the problem. If you have multiple COM add-ins listed, you may want to determine which one is causing the specific problem. To determine this, turn the COM add-ins back on one at a time, and then restart Word.

If you use Word 2007:

In the upper-left corner of the screen, click the Office button.
In the lower-right area of the drop-down box, click Word Options.
In the Word Options page, click Add-ins in the left menu.
At the bottom of the page, select COM Add-ins in the Manage: drop-down list, and then clickGo.
Note If add-ins are listed in the COM Add-Ins dialog box, temporarily turn off each add-in. To do this, click to clear the check box for each COM add-in that is listed. Then, click OK. When you restart Word, Word starts without loading the COM add-ins that you turned off.

If the problem is resolved after you turn off the COM add-ins, one of the COM add-ins is the cause of the problem. If you have multiple COM add-ins listed, you may want to determine which one is causing the specific problem. To determine this, turn the COM add-ins back on one at a time, and then restart Word.

How to remove Word auto macros

Some macros are named “auto” macros. These auto macros run automatically when Word is started. The following table lists these auto macros. To start Microsoft Word without running the auto macros, hold the SHIFT key while you start Word. To do this, click Start, point to Programs, and then hold the SHIFT key and click Microsoft Word.

Macro	Storage location	Automatically runs
AutoExec	In the Normal template or in a global add-in	When you start Word
AutoNew	In a template	When a new document that is based on the template is created
AutoOpen	In document or template	When a document that is based on the template or that contains the macro is opened
AutoClose	In document or template	When a document that is based on the template or that contains the macro is closed
AutoExit	In the Normal template or a global add-in	When you quit Word

Word recognizes a macro with a name that begins with “Auto” as a macro that automatically runs when the situation to which it applies occurs. You can temporarily prevent an auto macro from running by holding SHIFT while performing the action that causes the macro to run. For example, to prevent an AutoOpen macro from running, hold SHIFT while you open a document or a template.

If the problem is resolved by holding the SHIFT key when you start Word or when you perform an action in Word such as opening a document, an auto macro is the problem. To work around this problem, follow these steps:

If you use Word 2003 or an earlier version of Word:

Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type winword, and then click OK.
On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Macros.
In the Macros dialog box, a list of macros may appear. If any macro listed begins with “Auto,” you may want to remove this macro. To remove an auto macro, click the macro, and then clickDelete.

Note An auto macro may have been added by a Word add-in. To determine what template contains the auto macro, change the Macros in box to a listed template. After you determine which template contains the auto macro, you may want to remove that template from your computer. Removing a template that was added by a Word add-in may reduce or stop the add-in’s functionality.

Click Cancel or click Close to close the Macros dialog box.
On the File menu, click Exit to quit Microsoft Word.

Expand this image

If the problem is resolved after you restart Word, the auto macro was the problem.

If you use Word 2007:

In the upper-left corner of the screen, click the Office button.
In the lower-right area of the drop-down box, click Word Options.
In the Word Options page, click Popular in the left menu.
In the Top options for working with Word section, click to select the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon check box, and then click OK.
At the top of the Word window, click the Developer tab.
On the Developer tab, click Macros in the Code group.
In the Macros dialog box, a list of macros may appear. If any macro that is listed begins with “Auto,” you may want to remove this macro. To remove an auto macro, click the macro, and then click Delete.

Note An auto macro may have been added by a Word add-in. To determine what template contains the auto macro, change the Macros in box to a listed template. After you determine which template contains the auto macro, you may want to remove that template from your computer. Removing a template that was added by a Word add-in may reduce or stop the add-in’s functionality.

Cause 3: Word is infected with a macro virus

This problem may occur if your computer is infected with a virus that changes the global template (Normal.dot or Normal.dotm). To help avoid virus infection, keep your antivirus software and your virus definitions updated with the latest versions. Ask your antivirus software vendor for the latest information.

For information about how to contact your antivirus software vendor, click the appropriate article number in the following list to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

65416 Hardware and software vendor contact information, A-K

60781 Hardware and software vendor contact information, L-P

60782 Hardware and software vendor contact information, Q-Z

For additional information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

211800 How to deal with a macro virus in Word 2000 or Word 2002

233396 How to reduce the chances of macro virus infection

211607 Frequently asked questions about Word macro viruses

Configurando opções do Internet Explorer via Políticas de Grupo (Group Policy)

felipempm — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:56:37 +0000

Por muito tempo configurei proxy e opções de segurança via script e muitas chaves de registro, não u

Dicas para otimizar o Terminal Server [parte 1]

felipempm — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:48:22 +0000

Com esta seção irei divulgar dicas para otimizar o Terminal Server, ficando atento que em breve nova

AppSense Channel on YouTube

Gareth Kitson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:04:29 +0000

A few weeks ago AppSense HQ was the center point for our quarterly Systems Engineering / Pre-Sales Conference..

I thought, while I have 30 or so consultants at my disposal, to take this opportunity to catch them off-guard and have them white-board some of the key AppSense messages and overviews.

Videos / Whiteboard Presentations include (amongst others):

User Environment Management Overview
Windows 7 and VDI Overview
Eliminating the need for Roaming Profiles
Rolling-back User Personalization Settings
Automatically Blocking Unauthorized Executables
Controlling Microsoft Application Per Device Licensing
Client & Cloud Computing

These videos have now been uploaded to YouTube and are available for viewing here – at the AppSense YouTube Channel

I hope these are of use to people, and where possible, I am keen to read your comments, so please do leave a note of your thoughts on there

AppSense on YouTube

Desktop Virtualization Technical Briefing with Citrix, Microsoft, AppSense and more key ISV’s

Gareth Kitson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:24:43 +0000

Learn the difference between just throwing in a VDI solution, and designing a true Desktop & Application Delivery Architecture. Learn why most VDI projects fail, and the best practices that will show a solid ROI to your CFO/CIO.

Don’t try to bolt-on a Frankenstein solution, – come hear from our team of technical experts. You’ll also experience a great networking opportunity to meet your peers, and learn from their projects as well. Some questions we will help you answer…

Why is desktop virtualization different than server virtualization
Is VDI the same thing as Desktop or Application Delivery (hint: it is not)
What architecture/designs are available
What are the SAN requirements for Desktop Delivery
How do you handle user profiles
How is printing different with virtual desktops or Terminal Services
When do you use Terminal Server based Application Delivery versus Desktop Delivery (or both)
What licensing is needed from each manufacturer to implement a solid desktop virtualization architecture

A solid line up of technical presenters; from Microsoft, Citrix, AppSense, and AGSI coming to a city near you…

10/27/09 – Raleigh, NC

10/28/09 – Charlotte, NC

10/29/09 – Charleston, SC

More details: http://www.advantec.us/events-dtv.htm

To register: http://www.advantec.us/eventspdtv-reg.asp

Terminal Services - Problemas comuns [Erros durante logon - parte2]

felipempm — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:36:58 +0000

Ao longo dos anos de minha carreira profissional alguns problemas sempre me acompanharam, são os meu

Terminal Services - Problemas comuns [Erros durante Logon - parte1]

felipempm — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:26:27 +0000

Ao longo dos anos de minha carreira profissional alguns problemas sempre me acompanharam, são os meu

DABCC Podcast - AppSense (Martin Ingram) And Doug Brown Discuss Citrix XenDesktop 4 & User Environment Management

Gareth Kitson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:30:44 +0000

Douglas Brown interviews Martin Ingram, Vice President of Strategy at AppSense. Douglas and Martin discuss the recent release of Citrix XenDesktop 4, what this means for the desktop virtualization, AppSense, and VMware. Martin also talks a bit about their upcoming “user installed applications” technology which will allow end-users to install their own applications and have those apps roam with the user while allowing IT to centrally manage these ‘one off’ applications centrally.

The podcast is hosted on DABCC.com and can be found here

DABCC Podcast

Migrating User Profiles And Existing Personalization Settings to Win 7 with AppSense

Gareth Kitson — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:49:07 +0000

A major challenge in migrating existing users to Windows 7 is user profile data and desktop setup scripts. It’s highly unlikely that anything the user has done to their existing machine to personalize it will be compatible with the new Windows 7 desktop. The result? All upgraded employees have to re-personalize their desktop – not a quick task, especially as the process to make such personalization changes may require changing options and settings in new menu locations.

One of the most important things to consider in your Windows 7 migration project is the retention of all user-specific information (we call it the “user personality”) from the ‘old’ desktop and simply injecting this back into the new Windows 7 desktop following upgrade, ensuring a seamless experience to the user and a de-risked Win 7 migration.

AppSense Environment Manager has been providing user profile migration solutions for global companies for several years, and fast becoming an essential component in many Win 7 migration projects. AppSense automatically identify all existing personalization settings on the current OS platform, separate them from the desktop and store them independent of the desktop itself. These settings can now be re-applied to the new Win7 OS platform, regardless of how the OS is hosted or delivered, either physical, virtual or provisioned..

For more information, please download our free Windows 7 Overview here or visit www.appsense.com/solutions/migration

Win7 Migration

Como cambiar puerto de escucha terminal server

Mauricio — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:05:12 +0000

Como todos sabemos de forma predeterminada el terminal server utiliza el puerto 3389. Puede que por

VDI Webinar: Citrix CTP Alexander 'Ervik' Johnsen hosts a VDI webinar with Citrix, AppSense & Commaxx

Gareth Kitson — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:59:03 +0000

Citrix CTP and owner of www.Ervik.as - Alex ‘Ervik’ Johnsen – is hosting a VDI webinar discussing the challenges faced in rolling out VDI, along with best practices and discussions & demonstrations from Citrix, AppSense and joint VAR Commaxx.

This webinar will include a Citrix XenDesktop overview, along with why AppSense is the only solution recommended by Citrix for Personalization and Policy management to enable the customization of single OS and App images to be tailored for each and every user in an organization.

Join us to understand how Commaxx, AppSense and Citrix can simplify your desktop virtualization plans, reduce cost, simplify management and provide the best user experience.

The webinar takes place on Monday 19th October, you can register your place here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/937376570

Together Citrix and AppSense have over 4,000 joint enterprise customers and have deployed some of the largest VDI environments in the world… attend this webinar to see why..

Click Banner To Register For Webinar

AppSense Announces Support for Citrix XenDesktop 4 with Leading User Personalization Technology

Gareth Kitson — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:09:14 +0000

The Only Partner Technology Recommended by Citrix to Ensure All Users Receive a Fully Personalized Working Environment at the Lowest Possible Cost

AppSense, the leading provider of User Environment Management solutions for the enterprise, today announced full support for Citrix XenDesktop 4,a groundbreaking new Citrix product designed to make virtual desktops a mainstream reality for hundreds of millions of corporate employees for the first time ever.

“AppSense has been working closely with Citrix and our joint customers for many years and we commend Citrix on this bold and significant move. By combining two market-leading products and introducing FlexCast technology to accommodate every user type, Citrix has been instrumental in further reducing the barriers to mainstream virtual desktop adoption,” said Charles Sharland, Chairman and CEO, AppSense. “As the only enterprise solution recommended by Citrix to provide comprehensive desktop personalization for all users, we look forward to providing our Citrix customers a way to scale their virtual desktop estates at lowest cost and with maximum user adoption.”

AppSense, a Citrix partner of over 10 years with some 4000 joint customers around the world, provides technology solutions that enable low-cost, standard desktop images to be delivered to employees as fully personalized desktops. This ensures maximum user adoption from just a few corporate base images, reducing cost, complexity and risk. Their User Environment Management solution is the only technology to provide on-demand desktop personalization across all delivery methods and operating system versions.

Based on this unique level of customer experience, AppSense is well positioned to work in conjunction with Citrix FlexCast to provide centralized management of the user personality for task workers, knowledge workers and power users in both server and client-hosted desktop environments.

“We look at the desktop in a different way at AppSense,” stated Pete Rawlinson, VP WW Marketing at AppSense. “We effectively separate the desktop into three layers; corporate operating system, corporate applications and the user. By managing all aspects of the user independent of the desktop, IT are able to standardize the corporate operating system and applications, delivering them on-demand only when needed. The combination of Citrix XenDesktop 4 and AppSense User Environment Management enables companies to truly eliminate unnecessary desktop management costs while ensuring users of all types receive the very best working experience – even in the most heterogeneous environments.”

This layered model looks to be the way forward for mainstream virtual desktop adoption, as Rachel Chalmers of The 451 Group states:

“Separating out operating systems and applications and provisioning them dynamically means that desktops can be assembled per session and disposed of when the session is over. To make all of this work like a physical PC, though, administrators need to store stateful user settings and preferences elsewhere. Separating out this layer of user data is what we call user virtualization. Citrix ecosystem vendors pioneered the art of maintaining these user profiles in terminal services environments, and AppSense has led the way in adapting it to desktop virtualization.”

AppSense will be a sponsor at the upcoming Citrix global online event on October 20, 2009, “Secrets, Lies and VDI: Dispel the Myths and Uncover the Truth about Desktop and Application Virtualization”. Click here to register your place…

CSC Dynamic Desktop - Citrix XenDesktop & AppSense

Gareth Kitson — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:38:09 +0000

I have just returned from a successful 2 day IPexpo event in London, and was extremely excited to see the many Google Alerts for ‘XenDesktop’, ‘AppSense’, and ‘User Environment Management’ in my inbox. Upon clicking on the alert I was taken to Daniel Fellers ‘Ask the Architect’ pages within the Citrix Community site.

In this instance, Daniel (a Lead Architect for the WorldWide Consulting Services at Citrix) interviews Sandy Kingdon (a Dynamic Desktop Architect at CSC) on how CSC has designed and is well into the implementation of Citrix XenDesktop, VMware ESX and AppSense User Environment Management to support a 40,000 user environment.

Sandy explains how CSC were able to overcome some notable challenges, including:

Supporting multiple users across different sites using different language and MUI packs from just 2 vDisks
Controlling Application Access
Persisting User Personalization Settings between sessions
Current and future plans for supporting User Installed Applications in a non-persistent environment

As AppSense are a core component of CSC’s standard offering for Dynamic Desktop, Sandy covers how by virtualizing the user and controlling Policy and Personalization separate from the underlying OS and App components that CSC were able to overcome the above challenges.

The podcast can be found here

Thanks to both Daniel and Sandy for the great podcast and an insight into a real world large scale XenDesktop deployments.

Citrix XenDesktop 4 - Now Includes XenApp.

peterjr11 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:04:04 +0000

Today Citrix announced the availability of XenDesktop Version 4, to be released in November 09. This is a significant announcement as it incorporates the combining of XenDesktop and XenApp into one (marketed) product – XenDesktop 4. Effectively, XenDesktop 4 is now the Citrix virtual desktop solution for all user types (including task workers on TS) with XenApp providing the application / TS side.

Citrix have made a bold and significant move here. By combining their new VDI solution with their long-standing and highly penetrated server-based computing solution, they have not only created a compelling product and simplified message, they have also provided a nice VDI on-ramp to their existing XenApp customer base, enabling them to potentially take a decent piece of market share. XenDeskop 4 will provide Citrix customers an easy on-ramp to VDI while maintaining their existing XenApp investment, as well as enabling them to leverage other technologies such as Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere.

What this move demonstrates is the high importance the major players like Citrix and VMware are now putting on VDI. We’re starting to see some major moves in the space as companies make a play for market share and I’m sure there’s a lot more to come.

As Citrix points out in their press release, the quality of the user experience is of paramount importance in the mainstream adoption of this new desktop estate – a desktop estate that will combine terminal server, server- and client-hosted VDI, blade systems, physical desktops and myriad other technologies, to deliver the lowest-cost, highest quality desktop to the employee. Maintaining a consistent, personal and productive environment to the user regardless of how the desktop is delivered seems set to become a major objective in this ‘new world’. Using Citrix FlexCast™ to accommodate the needs of all user types could be used in conjunction with a personality management solution to ensure a ‘follow me’ persona across all delivery mechanisms – effectively making the method of delivery seamless to the user.

With Windows 7 on its way, this could be just the catalyst needed for the VDI adoption curve to change its trajectory……….

Sharing Personalization Settings between Operating Systems – Debunking the Myth

guyrleech — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:02:50 +0000

I have recently heard, from several different sources, that it is “best practice” not to share user profiles, or personalization settings, between different operating system platforms. On the surface, this seems a sensible limitation since different operating systems have different user profile structures.

Vista and Windows Server 2008 (WS08) put most profile data somewhere in “\users\%username%\appdata”, whereas XP and Windows Server 2003 (W2K3) may place it in “\documents and settings\%username%\application data” or “\documents and settings\%username%\local settings” or somewhere else entirely.

We can’t predict where the data will go for a given application which doesn’t help us understand the “splatter” that it makes in the file system. This folder lottery is further compounded by the fact that Vista and WS08 implicitly add the “.v2” extension to any profile path you define for a user. What this results in is that with a roaming profile solution, you are forced to have different profiles, and therefore different settings, between XP/W2K3, which implicitly use a “v1” profile, and Vista/WS08 which explicitly use a “v2” profile (even though the path defined for this profile does not actually include the “.v2” extension).

Applications should get the paths to use within the profile folder hierarchy by using operating system API calls that are the same between the different operating systems but will yield the correct folder for the operating system it is being run on. Unfortunately, not all applications are written this way and some will make assumptions about paths and maybe even hard code them which is likely to cause problems even before operating system migration, particularly in Terminal Server/Citrix XenApp environments.

There is also the class of setting that is actually different between the different operating systems. Take for instance the good old desktop wallpaper which most people, if pushed, will confess is the one item that makes their PC experience “personal” (while this is not an essential productivity related personalization setting, it does however provide a good example as to how even the most basic of settings fail to migrate between OS platforms) Although users don’t know, and indeed do not need to know, they are actually stored in different file formats between XP/W2K3 and Vista/WS08. Therefore if the setting for this, which is stored in the user’s registry hive, was just unintelligently transplanted between the two operating systems then one of the desktops wouldn’t show the correct wallpaper.

Some implementers may say that it is a good idea to start with clean profiles when moving from one operating system to another system since it is a good opportunity, in their view, for a clean start and to leave all the myriad of settings behind that aren’t apparently used for anything and just clutter the profile. However, against this has to be weighed the cost of the user having to re-personalize their applications and desktop. This costs both in terms of time (both users being interrupted during their workflow as they find a toolbar or application setting they need is missing, and then having to remember where and how to re-make the customization, which could be different to how they would have changed the option on their old OS) and also can cause a certain amount of resistance when these users tell their yet-to-be-upgraded colleagues is that this great new operating system, which has been months in planning, has lost all of their settings and they are struggling to find the new ways to set things the way “they should be”.

Enter AppSense Environment Manager. All of the technical issues outlined above are addressed by Environment Manager making the migration from one operating system to another, and back again if required, a much less painless experience and instead now becomes an automated, seamless process for both the user and administrator alike. The files used by an application within the locally cached profile folders are stored in a relative, rather than absolute, form in the Environment Manager database which then allows them to be subsequently put back in the correct, operating system specific, folder hierarchies. Because Environment Manager functions on a per-application basis, it can much more accurately target which settings need to be brought over onto the new operating system and it also silently transmogrifies items and their settings, such as desktop wallpapers, to help ensure that seamless migration that administrators dream of. All this, of course, is done with next to no configuration by administrators so they do not need to understand the intricacies of any of the applications and subsequent registry settings and profile structures the user uses. This helps make for quick and easy migrations, although I don’t personally like the term “migration” since it implies a one way movement whereas Environment Manager provides bi-directionality with no extra effort.

So in summary…While it is right to say that it is NOT best practice to share ‘roaming profiles’ across OS platforms, AppSense Environment Manager dispels the myth that sharing ‘personalization settings’ between operating systems is not a recommended best practice –in fact AppSense recommend you embrace it…

AppSense Achieves Record Growth in Q3

Gareth Kitson — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:19:39 +0000

Despite such tough economic times, I am very pleased to be part of an industry sector that despite budget cuts, is operating at a profitable level and achieving record growth. Virtualization is a core part of many computing environments, and as technologies progress greater costs reductions can be achieved and as such is able to secure IT CapEx budget and continue to fuel virtualization development.

AppSense have experience profitable year on year growth since inception back in 1999, yet despite all the financial trouble we read about on a daily basis, 2009 has proven to be a record breaking year for AppSense.

A huge part of this success has come from our strong Channel, following huge investment and years of close relationships. With that said, to accommodate the huge uplift in demand for our solution set, AppSense have now reached out to a leading training company to help provide technical support and knowledge transfer for our ever growing Channel.

Further details on this can be found in this press release.

Citrix & VMware VDI Offerings - Is AppSense User Environment Management 'Really' included in their products?

Gareth Kitson — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:09:17 +0000

I recently read a great article titled ‘Windows 7 May Spur Virtual Desktops, On and Off the iPhone’ on CIO.com by Kevin Fogarty.

It is a great article and brings attention to the options available to us in how we can deliver desktop (sessions) to our users, even when they are not sat in front of a typical PC or Thin Client device – bring on, the mobile/cell phone device. However, I have recently received a few emails and mentions on my Twitter Account in relation to the write-up regarding how AppSense is represented in the article.

The article goes on the reference how ”VMware, Citrix and a range of other companies are putting clients on smart phones” and as part of this mobile discussion AppSense User Environment Management is rightly referenced as “The User Environment Manager from AppSense, for example, is designed to make a virtual desktop mimic the real thing by allowing end users to make changes, install software add photos, store cookies and do all the other things they’d do on an actual “personal” computer”.

Unfortunately however there appears to be a slight misrepresentation on the relationship between AppSense and the vendors Citrix& VMware, in that it says AppSense code is part of both the VMware and Citrix VDI offerings, “AppSense, whose code is part of both VMware and Citrix’s VDI offerings, stores all that data and code on the server and reloads it all every time that user logs on, no matter through what device the access comes” .

While AppSense enjoy a very close and strong relationship with both vendors, providing some of the strategic requirements for the VDI offerings in many of the largest enterprise deployments, I must at this point highlight that the AppSense capabilities come from a separate solution outside of VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop- in the form of the AppSense Management Suite.

The AppSense Management Suite is a standalone management framework and solution set which completely separates all elements of the user from the underlying desktop session, operating system and application set. While this platform agnostic technology integrates seamlessly with the VMware and Citrix offerings, AppSense code is NOT part of any VMware or Citrix offering, and must be implemented in addition to the VDI solution from either vendor.

Hope this clears up any confusion, and please do remember I fully support the article and agree with the other points made.. I just wanted to ensure no one is disappointed when they trial or purchase either VMware View or Citrix XenDesktop and find out there is no AppSense software built in J

Look forward to reading more great articles on the possibilities of desktop deliver.. and of course that AppSense is a key part to this personal computing shift…

(the original article can be read here).

Windows 7, The Secrets to Migration Success…

peterjr11 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:23:02 +0000

Unless you’ve been living on a desert island in the mid-Pacific for the past few months (actually, that sounds pretty good!), you’ve probably heard something about a new Microsoft OS called Windows 7. By all accounts, this OS looks set to be the next logical upgrade from XP (with many companies skipping Vista for reasons I don’t need to go into right now!). So not only will companies be looking to upgrade their existing physical PCs to this wonderful new OS, but the availability of Win7 will inevitably bring about a re-assessment of the corporate desktop estate. That re-assessment will of course consider the prospect of lowering management costs by moving from physical machines to a virtual desktop environment; Win7 seems much more ‘VDI friendly’ than any of its predecessors.

So….a company-wide OS upgrade is coming…. A migration from physical to virtual desktops is probably also coming…….

You might be thinking a couple of things about this….
1. “Will I see my family again?”
and
2. “I want to make this upgrade really work. I’m not going to have any support calls on this and I’m going to use this to reduce my costs….”

Well, I’m not sure what we can do about the family challenge, but I do know how you can answer number 2.

Let’s break the problem down into two parts; 1. upgrading to Win7 on the physical PC, and 2. the migration to a virtual Win7 environment.

Upgrading to Win7 on the physical PC

Win7 is quite different to XP. You may very well have problems running legacy or homegrown XP apps on Win7. In order to solve this problem, you might have to consider virtualizing troublesome apps rather than wait for upgrades from multiple app vendors.

Another problem you’ll have is the user profile data and desktop setup scripts. It’s highly unlikely that anything the user has done to the XP machine to personalize it (at both the OS and the application level) will be compatible with the new Win7 desktop. This is because XP uses a completely different User Profile format and structure to that of Win7, meaning it is not as simple as re-using their old profiles on the new OS. The result? All your upgraded employees have to re-personalize their desktop. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done a lot to personalize my desktop and applications over the years. I have all my apps just the way I want them, my email signature and rules are set just right and there’s probably a hundred other settings I’ve forgotten about and wouldn’t know how to re-do on a new OS. What a great start to my Win7 experience….a bland, impersonal machine. By the way, the same thing goes for policy settings, such as printer and file drive access as well as other ‘logon processes’. So, one of the most important considerations in your Win7 migration is to retain all this user-specific information (we call it the “user personality”) from the XP desktop and simply ‘inject’ this back into the new Win7 desktop following upgrade to ensure a seamless experience to the user.

Migrating from an XP PC to a Win7 virtual desktop

Rather than just upgrading physical PCs, you might want to take this opportunity to move employees over to a virtual environment. Not only does this provide the user with a nice, new Win7 desktop, it also can provide some huge desktop management cost reduction opportunities; no need to upgrade the desktop machine with hardware capable of running the new OS (as this can now be re-purposed as a ‘thin client’), centralized management of desktops, monitoring of the environment to reduce support costs etc . However, the real big opportunity to reduce costs here lies in the use of a single, standardized and leveraged Win7 desktop image across the entire company. Imagine creating ONE standardized, corporate Win7 desktop (possibly with a selection of baseline corporate apps such as Outlook and IE) and to have this provisioned to each employee as they require it. When the employee goes home, the desktop is deleted. No need to store and manage lots of desktops….instead they’re delivered on an ‘as-needed’ basis.

However, this standard Win7 image is by no means personal to the user – not if it’s being used by thousands of employees! This is where the user personality comes in. By centrally managing the user personality independent of this standard Win7 desktop, it can then be applied to the desktop when needed. So you now have a low cost, standard Win7 estate, with employees experiencing the same working environment as when they were using their desktop PC. Sound like heaven?

Well, it certainly might sound like futuristic, but believe me this is happening today! I see it in many of our enterprise customers, our VAR partners and our System Integrator partners – and it’s gaining huge momentum (see Sumit Dhawan’s latest blog on this here).

Win7 will be a game-changing event in the corporate desktop world. It will essentially be the catalyst to a whole new way of looking at and managing the desktop – and what we know to be true is that the user aspect of the corporate PC must now be treated as a separate entity unto itself – enabling the business tools (apps and OS) to be standardized and their delivery automated, leading to huge reductions in cost (management, storage, licensing) and productive employees.

Here are some of the things we believe you must consider as part of your Win7 migration. Remember all these things are possible today. There are some vendors who can provide some of the items below…..but there’s only one that can do them all!

Pete Rawlinson
VP WW Marketing, AppSense

Low cost, low risk migration to Win7 on your physical PCs

Seamlessly decouple all aspects of the user from the employees existing PC (XP, Vista), and reapply this data into a fresh, standard Win7 PC. The employee sees no change to the personal settings post-upgrade.

Eliminate the costs associated with using legacy scripts and bloated user profiles

Your Win7 migration affords the opportunity to replace outdated and management-intensive methods to manage the user experience on the desktop. Complex, often large login scripts can be replaced and selectively executed dependent on the user needs. Maintenance is reduced, as is the user logon time.

Low cost, low risk migration to Win7 in a virtual desktop environment

Decouple the user personality from the existing PC and store this independent of the desktop. The user can then be redirected to a low cost, standard, virtualized Win7 image, where their personality is applied on-demand. A low-cost physical-to-“Win7 virtual” migration process, with the employee seeing no change to their PC experience.

Ensure seamless user experience in multi-OS desktop estate

Regardless of whether your desktop estate is a mix of XP, Vista or Win7, the same centralized, independent user personality is able to seamlessly ‘roam’ across each OS version. This enables you to implement Win7 into your desktop estate gradually, without having to create multiple user profiles for each OS version.

Establish lowest cost Win7 desktop environment through standardized, personalized desktop images

Desktop management and storage costs can be reduced significantly by standardizing on your Win7 corporate image. By having one standard Win7 desktop provided to employees on-demand, desktop management becomes much easier and less risky. Including personality management into this scenario enables this standard desktop to be dynamically personalized on-access, providing the employee with their familiar PC-type experience.

Personalize virtualized applications

Many legacy, home grown and XP-based applications are unsuitable for use in a Win7 environment, making application virtualization a necessity. Unless the company is prepared to virtualize each individual employee’s applications, virtualized applications must be standard and therefore non-personal in nature. Applications must be automatically configured for each specific user and/or connecting device, and automatically personalized to the user based on their personality. You can now accelerate the Win7 roll-out since incompatible applications are virtualized, yet still remain personal to the employee.

Quickly and easily scale Win7 implementation with no impact to user experience

The user is provided with a consistent personal experience across multiple client OS versions, multiple delivery technologies, multiple accessing devices and accommodates the employee context (e.g. security level, accessing location etc).

Ensure quality user experience as your Win7 implementation scales through visibility and remediation

Migration to Win7 in your organization is a significant and on-going event. Adherence to SLAs and reducing support loads are paramount during this process. In addition to ensuring a consistent and personalized user experience during the Win7 migration process, you must also provide desktop optimization and remediation through reporting, monitoring and auditing of the user personality.

VDI - The Need For User Personalization

Gareth Kitson — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:40:42 +0000

Martin Ingram, VP of Strategy at AppSense has been inundated with Press and Analysts wanting to interview him to learn more about the strategic requirement for user personalization within VDI environments.

Personalization is key to reducing risk and increasing user satisfaction and enabling the adoption of lowest cost, non-persistent VDI environments.

You can read more about this topic along with the views of industry leading Commentators and Analysts at:

IT Business Edge – Putting a Personal Touch on VDI, by Michael Vizard

Virtualization Review – All about the User Personality, by Beth Schultz

These posts come further to Citrix recognizing the need for user environment management solutions in VDI environments, as posted by Sumit Dhawan here