IE 8 has some great new features, one of which is adding custom Search Providers, allowing the user to quickly search any website with a built-in search feature, here I will show you how to customize IE8 so that you can find the information you require from Citrix, without having to first find the correct search location....

• Open up Internet Explorer 8
• Browse to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx

Searching the Citrix Knowledge Center

• Copy and paste this URL into the URL field: http://support.citrix.com/search/basic?searchQuery=TEST
• Copy and paste this into the Search Provider Name field: Citrix Knowledge Center
• Click Install

(Read on to add more Citrix sites or scroll to the end and check out "example 1" in  Example Uses section to use this new customisation feature)

To add more Citrix search websites, repeat the process above, using the following URLs

----

Searching the whole of the Citrix website

• Copy and paste this URL into the URL field: http://search.citrix.com/search?q=TEST
• Search Provider Name field: Citrix.com

Searching The Citrix Blog at the Citrix Community

• URL to add:
http://community.citrix.com/community/ourSearch.action?searchQuery.system=ocb&searchQuery.areas=wiki&searchQuery.areas=blog&searchQuery.areas=forum&searchQuery.queryString=TEST
• Search Provider Name field: Citrix Blogs

Searching the Citrix Support Forums

• URL to add:
http://support.citrix.com/search/forum/?searchQuery=TEST&categoryId=c150&search.x=9&search.y=12
Search Provider Name field: Citrix Forums

Example Uses

Example 1 - Finding a CTX article by CTX ID.

Go to the top right corner of the screen and type in a CTX + number in Internet Explorer,
(e.g. CTX119036)

Double click on the magnifying glass that represents Citrix Knowledge Center (hovering will display the search provider name) and hit Enter.
This will take you straight to the query results page on the Citrix Knowledge Center website. Our example (CTX 119036) would lead us to the "User Profile manager Deployment Best Practises" document at the top of the results.

Go to the top right corner of IE and enter "VDI Overview" in the search field.

Double click on the magnifying glass that represents "Citrix .com".

 You can use the above processes to customize your search functionality as much as you like, custom search providers are useful for searching both internal and external sites.

To add your own provider, simply go to the search page you use the most, type in the word "TEST" in capitals and hit search. Once the results are displayed, copy the URL now showing in the address bar and use this in the add custom search provider process.

I thought I would let you know about a little gotcha that I bumped into this issue yesterday.

So you are using Citrix User Profile Manager (a.k.a Profile management), you have installed it on machines running on VMware, (possibly in your XenDesktop or XenApp set up) probably because no-one has told you that you can get XenServer for free! 

You have your User profile Manager GPO settings to delete the cached local profiles when the user logs off, only they won't.....

...read on.

I had VMware tools installed on my XenApp server running on ESX 3.5 (I have some on XenServers too, I have make this clear before the XenPolice come and get me...)

I had installed the tools using the complete install. Little did I know that with a roaming profile of any variety this can cause issues. The "Shared Folders" option in VMware tools put a little file in your users profile, which gets locked by a running process. Consequently if you have a GPO set up to delete the users profile at log off, the system can't because of this pesky little file, namely;

C:\Documents and Settings\userid\Application Data\VMware\hgfs.dat

Your Profile management log (C:\Windows\system32\LogFiles\User Profile Manager\UserProfilemanager.log) will probably have an entry in it like the following: (if you have all the log options enabled in your GPO that is!)

2009-06-03;11:44:31.456;ERROR;PCNAME;johncarthy4;3;3640;DeleteDirectory: Deleting the directory <C:\Documents and Settings\johncarthy4\Local Settings\Application Data\VMware> failed with: The directory is not empty. 

Here's the quick fix:

1. If its XenApp log all your users off the server, preferably politely, send a warning message or if your feeling particularly ruthless a quick "session reset" will surely get them ranting at the helpdesk...

2. Login as an Administrator go to Control Panel - Add remove Programs.

3. Find VMware Tools and choose the "change" option.

4. Change the "shared folders" to "This feature will not be available".

5. Click "next", Click "Modify" and click "finish".

6. Restart the server / PC and now it's a good time to clean up those half deleted profiles.

7. Its best to use the My Computer - Properties - Advanced - User Profiles and select the remnant profiles and delete from here, this way you will always see any issue as Windows will kindly inform you of any difficulties by means of an error message...

Now I also found this to be the case on an XP vm that I had running on the same VMware server. The bizarre thing is that even if you click over the tools icon next to the clock, and check the settings, it said that the shared folder option was disabled, herein lies the difference, you will still see this issue even if the system is set to use Shared Folders, you just have to make sure it isnt installed at all.

Here's the other slightly longer fix:

1. Download XenServer.

2. Install your VM's on that.

3. Install Profile manager.

I hope this helps some of you.