http://www.brianmadden.com/forum/Welcome to Brian Madden.com Tech ForumAll rights reserveden-USbrian@brianmadden.comhttp://www.brianmadden.com/forumshttp://www.brianmadden.comTerminal Serviceshttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/103178We are a business (90 users) in Western Australia which has resulted from merging two companies that previously competed in the property sector. We provide property advice (valuations) to financial institutions. The two companies have existed for over 15 years. The new merged company launches soon.
4 offices spread out over 300 kilometres, all on a Tier 1 Managed VPN, but with 5 or 6 home users (and increasing numbers will work from home via ADSL). Three of the offices are limited to 1.5Mb AD SL due to lack of telco infrastructure. That said, the managed VPN highly optimises the ADSL.

We have two IT Admins (ie one from each company). Separately, neither of the companies has relied in the past on extensive use of Terminal Services, but we have used TS a small scale via MS Server 2003. For the new merged company, we have built a dual blade server using the Intel Modular Server system, running MS Server 2008. All users will use Terminal Services.

In other words, we are moving from fat clients to thin clients and want the transition to be as painless as possible for our users. We cant afford Citrix, but we can probably afford Provision Networks VAS or Ericomm WebConnect Enterprise. There is so much happening right now (literally, this month!) in the areas of virtualization and terminal services that our brains are about to burst just trying to assimilate the possible options?.

Our users comprise property valuers who use PDAs to collect valuation data (proprietary web connected software). Valuation reports are then completed in the offices. Workflows involve dictation, transcription and printing. We can change the dictation platform from fat clients to the PDAs, but that doesn?t resolve the issue of transcription (ie typing). So audio, typing and PDA Sync are big issues for us. File transfer between offices is also important.

I have reduced our options down to three: 1. MS TS 2008 with the free WebConnect, 2. MS TS 2008 with WebConnect Enterprise or 3. MS TS 2008 with Provision Networks VAS.

I?m leaning heavily towards Provision Networks VAS. Any suggestions, tips or pointers to comparative info would be really appreciated. Sales proposals are very welcome ? please email me via diggowestnet.com.au

Thanks,
Sean Diggins

PS We have a particular issue with respect to PDF workflows. We need all users to be able to create PDFs. In our testing, the fastest tool with the best compression (very important) has been FinePrint PDF Factory. However, we need full PDF Editing (with secure signature features and electronic form design) for 5 or 6 users. We cant really afford Acrobat and are struggling to assess alternatives. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Terminal Services]]>Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:54:44 GMT103178Profiles / User Environmenthttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/102627
I am trying to figure out a way to have users do a fresh logon to a new desktop (without the need to customize all users each time they log on.

Any help would be great! Thanks again!Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Profiles / User Environment]]>Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:38:50 GMT102627Citrix Presentation Server / XenApphttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/102258
Situation:
I get a new Proliant Server with Windows 2003 64bit Standard Edition
The server will get 12 GB RAM.
I install some few application and we want to put this standalone server to the DMZ.
Only some few people from other countries will have access to this server and no sensitive data
will be placed to this server.
The easist way now to access it, is using the WebInterface which translates my external IP to my internal DMZ IP address. I used this last time with Citrix XP FR3, but since XenApp is different, I need to know
which ports in the DMZ firewall must be opend to have access. I don't plan to use a CSG. The installaion will be as easy as possible, but still should give some protection.

Can anybody tell me, which port in the DMZ for a XenApp without CSG I must keep open ?
Has anybody such a simple solution in place ?
Or would you recommend an other solution, maybe still to use a CSG ?

Thanks
Chris
Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Citrix Presentation Server / XenApp]]>Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:50:51 GMT102258Management, Maintenance & Reportinghttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/101951
The industry's premier business technology event, held in Mumbai and Bangalore Sept. 22-26, will host sessions by Peter Coffee of Salesforce.com, Dr. Alan-Pelz Sharp of CMS Watch, Dr. Chris Harding of The Open Group, Ismael Ghalimi of Intalio, Hans De Groot of SDL Tridion, Morris Panner of OpenAir, Dr. Robert Marcus of NCOIC.org, Ravi Gururaj of VMLogix. On tap at Business Technology Summit 2008 are deep dives in SOA & Web Services, SaaS, Virtualisation and ECM, and the Expo. See the program here: http://www.btsummit.com/summitSchedule.html.

The 2008 edition of Saltmarch Media?s Business Technology (BT) Summit, centered around the theme of Riding the Workhorse IT Hockey Stick, features a convergence of four co-located tracks that have been identified as the power team for Workhorse IT -- SOA & Web Services, SaaS/PaaS, Virtualisation, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) -- offering complimentary synergistic for a robust IT infrastructure that no IT decision-maker, manager, architect, or professional can afford to ignore in their quest for business technology success.Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Management, Maintenance & Reporting]]>Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:04:21 GMT101951Terminal Serviceshttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/101378 than the privious day.

I don't know if this makes a difference but the all the users are connected via vpn connection and the server is located in a datacenter. There is a AD server in both locations. I have the My Documents folder mapped from the Datacenter to the main office( I am almost certain this is not good???)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You. Nitesh

Read more:
Group: Tech Support Forums
Forum: Terminal Services]]>Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:46:37 GMT101378Virtualization + Server-Based Computinghttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/101221
I would like to utilize the XenDesktop Premium. My thought is to use the Ardence, (Stream via PXE) on all my existing workstations and clients to log into the vitural machine. I would like to set 2 new servers (Either virtually or physcially for the DDC and the Provision Server). I would like to create 2 template (which I can do updates, and install new softwares on the OS and applications). I can provision them ON-DEMAND as a user would log on. This way, It would keep the VM Clean and the VM FAST for performance. AS for the clients, If the PXE boot would possibly Fail, The user can log into the local hard drive and use either Linux Based OS or the OEM Windows and connect to his VM Via Remote Desktop Connection. (This method could poissbly used in a WAN or Home experience as well, I hope!)



I have tested Xendesktop on a setup. However, the biggest thing I am looking for are the graphics. I am looking into the Apollo Project with Citrix to help boost the performance of the graphics so I can deliver CAD like Experience to the client from the Server.

On the flip side. I have tested or testing the SPICE, SolidIce Setup. We like it, however, there are a few things which Xendesktop offer we like, which SolidIce does not have. We like the idea of a diskless client (PXE Boot). We like the On-Demand Provisioning of fresh desktops to our users. However, SPICE Graphics are way better than Xendesktop SpeedScreen, but still not like a Local Workstation Setup.

I hope my idea is not to out of the way, I think this is possible... Any thoughts would be great!
thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Virtualization + Server-Based Computing]]>Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:35:55 GMT101221Application Installation & Compatibilityhttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/100705
I have recently installed ?Access Essentials? and installed it on a MS running Server 2003. It works perfect from the internal site configuration. But clients try to connect from the External site using the Web Interface are getting the following error - "there is no citrix presentation server configured on the specified address'. The clients login to the web interface ok but when they try to run any published application this error appears.

My configuration is a single static IP, port forwarding directly to the internal citrix server. I have opened and forwarded these ports: 1494 ? 1024 ? 80 ? 443, but I?m still getting the same fault. Does anyone know what ?access route? I should use in the External site, should it be ?Direct, Alternate, Translated, Gateway Direct etc?

Also do I need to use the Firewall Translations with any off these setting?

Thanks

Brian ReaRead more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Application Installation & Compatibility]]>Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:10:13 GMT100705Citrix Presentation Server / XenApphttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/100585Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:52:16 GMT100585Citrix Presentation Server / XenApphttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/99496
Cheers

Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Citrix Presentation Server / XenApp]]>Tue, 20 May 2008 05:11:38 GMT99496Citrix Presentation Server / XenApphttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/98859
This is probably something I am overlooking or something that is by design, but I want to get some opinions.

We have a MPS farm of 8 servers running MPS 4.0 and some running MPS 4.5. Users connect to the servers desktop (published desktop) via a Wyse (non-domain attached) terminal using the latest program neighborhood. PN has provided the easiest to use interface for our users is why we use PN. What is happening is that users will disconnect (voluntarily, say to goto lunch) and return and try to reconnect, but they don't always get the same session that was disconnected. They might get the same session or they might create a totally new session on another server. What it looks like is happening is that load balancing is trumping any disconnected session. So for example, if the user has a disconnected session on Server A and Server A is loaded down more that Server B, they will create a new session on Server B. I believe the workspace control feature would solve this, but correct me if I am wrong, PN is not capable of workspace control? Also when we had MPS 4.0 the problem existed and it looks like MPS 4.5 makes no difference.

Has anyone ever ran into this before? Any workarounds where we can still use PN on our terminals and still have load balancing?

Thanks so much everyone, this one has plagued us for some time now!

-ShaneRead more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Citrix Presentation Server / XenApp]]>Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:08:30 GMT98859Citrix Presentation Server / XenApphttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/98407
Any information from the forum would be appreciated.

Thanks

EricRead more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Citrix Presentation Server / XenApp]]>Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:03:36 GMT98407Profiles / User Environmenthttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/97789
What i am trying to do is set it up so the users profiles are on the client machine.
I have tried to set up the default file location in office to some success. But when the use Groupwise and try to attach a document it defaults to the server and they have to know where to go in order to get to their file. I tried to redirect the desktop folder using AD but that is not working. According to microsoft this will not work with mapped drives. (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/en-us/management/manage_faq.mspx)

Is there a way for me to do this.

Is there a way for citrix to set up profile on the client machine? or set the environmental veriables to the client drive?Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Profiles / User Environment]]>Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:38:55 GMT97789Citrix Presentation Server / XenApphttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/97685
The following is our setup at the moment:

1. Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition SP2, latest patches applied.
2. Citrix Presentation Server S 4.5 with Feature Pack 1 Platinum Edition 2003
3. Client drive mapping is allowed (this is critical to our setup).
4. Users are allowed to execute binaries from mapped client drives (this is critical to our setup).
5. Server desktop is published via Access Management Console (this is critical to our setup).

Users (admin users) will access the web interface using IE. They will have a USB drive plugged in. Once the server desktop application is launched, users will start windows explorer (on the remote server) and execute a file located on the USB drive (mapped on the remote server).

Now as everyone must have noticed that the mentioned setup is a huge security concern for any network administrator. So here is what we wish to achieve:

1. If possible mount only the USB drive and not the local hard disk drives (not essential).
2. Allow file execution for selective binaries from the mapped client drives.

Is this any bit possible? Or is there any other way by which we can secure the mentioned setup? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Sam.Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Citrix Presentation Server / XenApp]]>Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:57:45 GMT97685Profiles / User Environmenthttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/96067
Kevin
Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Profiles / User Environment]]>Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:30:57 GMT96067Terminal Serviceshttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/96019
I was wondering if anyone has some info/advice for my problem:

I have a customer with a single terminal server that supports about 5-6 remote users. The users are complaining about their remote sessions overlapping with each other. Someone will be working remotely on the server, and then all of a sudden their session will be controlled by another user. I have never seen this before in a single server environment.

Thanks,

Phil Bender Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Terminal Services]]>Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:30:40 GMT96019Terminal Serviceshttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/95300
Background:
I'm picking this problem up third hand. We have 2 Terminal Servers load balanced using the native windows Network Load Balancing. Both servers are windows 2003 Enterprise servers at the current patch level. We are using session directory which is sitting on a third server, I don't think this is involved with the problem so I won't list the details on it. It is important to note that both of the Terminal Servers only have one NIC each. Although the unicast configuration isn't ideal for single NIC servers it has been working for about 2.5 years without any problems. I'm not opposed to putting additional NICs in the server or changing the broadcast mode but want to be sure that I'm doing it for a good reason. This problem seems to be related to swapping out their old router with a new one but we're not 100pct sure on that. The previous router had a hub while the new router has a switch built in, this is essentially the only difference.

Problem:
Users on the Terminal Servers are getting intermittent internet connection problems, all LAN side resources seemed to be unaffected. Using IE7 when a user is browsing around on the internet they are getting a lot of time outs and blank pages loading (The kind of thing you get when a site does not respond). At first we though perhaps it was dns so we checked dns and also added an additional external DNS server which had no impact on the problem. Our guess is that it's related to the NLB and the broadcast that's happening and it not being able to get back to the correct server all the time since they are sharing the same MAC(Unicast), or something along those lines at least. The interesting thing is if they refresh the page a few times it will come up eventually. Some users report having to get completely out of their session and come back in though I do not think that is the case.

Router:
Netopia 3386 v8.7r10
No outbound filtering
LAN address 10.220.220.1

Switch:
NetGear FS526TNA
The Terminal Servers, Session Directory server, and router are all plugged into the 10/100 ports.
No VLAN setup.

NLB
Cluster IP Configuration
IP address: 10.220.220.25
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Full Internet Name: tscluster.domain.local
Cluster Operation Mode: Unicast
Port Rules
Port range 3388-3390
Protocols: Both
Filtering Mode: Multiple Host
Affinity Single

TS01 ipconfig information
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : domain.local
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.220.220.25
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.220.220.21
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.220.220.1

TS02 ipconfig information
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : domain.local
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.220.220.25
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.220.220.22
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.220.220.1

Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Terminal Services]]>Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:42:48 GMT95300Terminal Serviceshttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/95261
Thanks,

TonyRead more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Terminal Services]]>Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:21:19 GMT95261Terminal Serviceshttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/94894
I plan to use MS NLB. I have 5 class C IP addresses. How should I configure the IPs and router. Should I create 2 VLAN and connect NIC 1 to VLAN 1 and NIC 2 to VLAN 2? I would like to be able to connect to each of the servers indivually to perform maintenance.

Any suggestions?Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Terminal Services]]>Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:00:02 GMT94894Terminal Serviceshttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/93831
I have seen some forums state to uninstall Flash using the Flash uninstaller with each administrative account. Then install the stand-alone flash player using the admin account and all should work. That didn't work in my case. We also tried to change the security zone to Medium with no avail. I even tried to select a custom zone and enabled everything just as a test. That still didn't fix my issue.

I do have all the users in a GPO which is not being applied to the Admins. However the GPO has nothing configured in the IE section. Does anyone have any thoughts??? This has been going on for a week now and the users are getting frustrated. Thanks in advance for your help! Read more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Terminal Services]]>Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:13:14 GMT93831Citrix Presentation Server / XenApphttp://www.brianmadden.com/Forum/Topic/93635
We are looking to build a new server -

Dual Quad Core 2.66
16 GB RAM

- disk config -

What do I go with -

RAID 1 with RAID 5 (2x73 for OS) (3x146 for data)
OR

RAID 10

OR ????

Looking for some direction - this is going to be a single server - stand alone - no farm.

Not sure if we are going 32-bit or 64-bit

Thanks.

-CCI HelpdeskRead more:Group: Tech Support ForumsForum: Citrix Presentation Server / XenApp]]>Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:11:59 GMT93635