While a mandatory based profile solution was the original approach (something we leveraged in the earliest releases), we are not going to return to that method. Let me explain why and get your thoughts and opinions on this.

One request that has been commonly voiced has been around a mandatory style implementation. While previously we had leveraged a mandatory profile as the base, for many reasons we moved away from that approach. One key reason was to save time that the merging process required (the copying of the mandatory down first and then copying of all the net changes). All in the spirit of logon speed. Another key reason is that it really was not a mandatory profile anymore. Profile management captured all the net changes from that base mandatory. So no settings were enforced or re-written at next logon. Basically it was a holder of starting settings when a profile was loaded. But the net changes were always re-applied over the base so nothing was ever enforced. So in the end, you needed to leverage Group Policy to enforce any permanent settings anyway.

It's also been explained that having a mandatory approach enables customers without Group Policy delegation to have a means to control the profile settings. And mandatory by itself is a great solution albeit the limitations on the breadth of personalization - which the amount of personalization afforded by a mandatory solution is probably adequate for many scenarios. While you can redirect folders like My Documents, Favorites, Cookies and others, the ability to change anything registry related is prevented e.g. wallpapers, application configurations and such. But if you try to combine this with something like Profile management to enable those changes, how are you going to restrict what does not get saved? You would need to create an exclusion list of all the settings you want enforced (and thus excluded from being saved). Doable on a few settings but it will get unwieldy really fast. And I am willing to bet it's going to be harder than Group Policy to manage before long. In the end, it seems capturing all the settings and using Group Policy to enforce setting as required is the way to go and thus the direction for our profile management solution.

Finally, let's address the capability of having a base profile to start with. We do offer a template profile capability which you could think of as a Global Default User profile. When a user logs onto Windows and does not have an existing profile (be it local, mandatory, roaming or TS), Windows creates a new profile for that user based on the Default User profile located on that current machine. The fun of this is unless you want to sync all the Default User profiles across all the machines a user might likely log onto for the first time, the starting profile will different (although often only slightly) from user to user. Might not be a big deal initially or on smaller scales, but will be more problematic as your environment expands and grows.

The purpose of the template profile is to enable a consistence starting point for a new profile being created no matter the machine. The template profile can leverage a copy of the mandatory profile you use today but you just need to rename the NTUSER.MAN back to NTUSER.DAT (so no you can't use the same one as both the template and a mandatory). And the template profile has to be complete (e.g. the entire directory structure and NTUSER.DAT). Also keep in mind that this is used for profile creation. So changing the template is fine, but only affects new profile being created and not existing ones. Need to change or enforce a setting for all users? Then we are back to using Group Policy for those situations.

So that is where we stand today with our Profile management feature (a feature of both XenApp (Enterprise and Platinum) and XenDesktop (Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum). Of course this is always open to debate and discussion if you have scenarios that illustrate weaknesses to this approach that Citrix should pay more attention to addressing.

As previously announced, three legacy Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator™ (CCEA) and Citrix Certified Integration Architect™ (CCIA) certifications will expire on June 30, 2010. After this date, these credentials will no longer be current and will be listed as "expired" on Certification Manager transcripts. These certifications are:

• CCEA for MetaFrame XP Presentation Server

• CCEA for MetaFrame Access Suite3.0

• CCIA for MetaFrame XP Presentation Server

So how do you update or keep your certification valid if you hold one of the above?

Before Expiration Date of June 30, 2010

• You may take advantage of update paths* for the new Citrix Certified Enterprise Engineer™ (CCEE) and CCIA for Virtualization, available in January 2010. With the update path, only one exam is required for updating to CCEE and one additional (two total) exams are required for CCIA. To learn more about the update paths, visit www.citrix.com/CCEEupdate or www.citrix.com/CCIAupdate

After Expiration Date of June 30, 2010

• If you have achieved three or more requirements towards the Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator (CCEA) for Citrix XenApp (Presentation Server 4), complete the track. Doing so will extend the validity of your CCEA and enable you to take advantage of the CCEE and CCIA update paths.

• If you have not made any progress towards updating your CCEA or CCIA, begin completing requirements for the new CCEE for Virtualization. The new, streamlined requirements consist of a total of five exams, and if you possess any of the recent Citrix Certified Administrator™ (CCA) or Citrix Certified Advanced Administrator™ (CCAA) certifications, you may have already fulfilled part of the requirements.

*PLEASE NOTE: The update path is recommended for seasoned professionals who possess knowledge of, or hands-on experience in, Citrix virtualization technologies. For those without experience in these technologies, following the complete CCEE and CCIA paths is recommended. Please note that individuals with versions of the CCEA and CCIA for XP expired in 2005 are not eligible to use the update path and are encouraged to take one of the two courses of action indicated above now. Visit Certification Manager to confirm your certification status.

If you have any questions about this expiration notice, or about how to maintain your certification status, contact training@citrix.com.

At Citrix Education, we are often asked the following question:

What is the difference between CXA-201-2I Implementing Citrix XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2008 and CTX-1259BI Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 and XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2003?

The easiest answer to this is simply, the operating system. CTX-1259BI applies to XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2003 and CXA-201-2I applies to XenApp 5.0 for Windows Server 2008. However, the more complicated answer is...a lot of smaller differences, like features.

During the development of courseware, Citrix products, including XenApp, continue to evolve and change. We manage this constant change in two primary ways:

1. We plan an update/maintenance cycle
2. We include features late in development (if they have been announced)

These two approaches, while capturing most changes, cannot reflect all changes to the product. That's why you may see a difference between what the courseware describes and what you can actually view in the live product. This, essentially, is the other fundamental difference between CXA-201 and CTX-1259. They each represent XenApp (on a different OS) at different times in XenApp evolution.

CXA-201-2I, available October 2, 2009, is the latest full course update on Citrix XenApp. It contains the most current and complete picture of XenApp on Windows Server 2008. CXA-201-1I, was the first release for the WS 2008 platform, and released in May of 2009. The features included in that course reflected XenApp 5 and nothing that has happened since...clearly, it was time for an update! Learn more about the delta between CXA-201-1I and CXA-201-2I (document also posted below).

In November 2009, we will release an update to CTX-1259BI. It will contain information including Feature Pack 2. Because it is available after the release of CXA-201-2I, it will become the course with the most current feature set of XenApp (WS 2003). Learn more about the delta between CTX-1259BI and CTX-1259CI (document also posted below).

In short, the main difference is the OS. The best choice for which class to take should be based on the OS on which you wish to learn. Or, if you are preparing for a platform migration from 2003 to 2008, we recommend CXA-201. To stay up to the minute current on new XenApp features, you can always reference the XenApp product pages.

If you have any questions or suggestions for the next release of XenApp courseware, please send them to training@citrix.com. We want to hear from you!

CXA-201 version overview

CTX-1259 version overview

You may already know about this feature as it was previously called User Profile Manager. Profile management is the new name for User Profile Manager. This technology is a feature of both XenApp (Enterprise and Platinum Editions) and XenDesktop (Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum Editions). For a more detailed overview of what Profile management is and how it works to improve application virtualization, please read this article. For this article I will focus on the improvements in this updated feature that will first be available in XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2.

The improvements added into this release have focused around improved logging, Citrix product line integrations and Windows 7 support (really just testing and validation as the profile mechanism did not significantly change in this release from Vista and Windows Server 2008). And of course we have fixed many of the known issues and support concerns.

We've introduced EdgeSight counters to add visibility into the logon process and activities. Here is a summary of the counters that are provided:

• Logon Duration - this is the total logon time.
• Local Profile Setup Duration - aka the time to set up the user's local profile. Basically this compromises of the following steps:
  • Does the user have a local profile - if not create one
  • Is a profile migration required? If so migrate the profile
  • The time to copy down files from the user store to the local profile location
  • Synchronize with user store. This is only needed at logon for a new profile. While a Microsoft roaming profile copies a new roaming profile back to the network at logoff, Profile management performs this activity during that first logon.
  • At this point Profile management gets notified that this profile is ready to be managed
• Time to Start Monitoring - this is the gap from the last step of notifying Profile management that a profile is ready to be monitored and until monitoring actually starts (meaning the user is allowed to start their session). This consists of processing the NTFS change journal entries (basically a start point for monitoring file changes). The purpose of this counter is to help narrow the area causing longer than expected logon times. This should be fairly short time period and if not, you know something is happening out of the ordinary here. How short should it be - defining your baseline will provide you that measurement.
• Logoff Duration - this is the total logoff time
• Stop monitoring profile - NTFS change journal processing. This time should be very short
• Logon Bytes - total bytes in the user's profile copied down at logon
• Logoff Bytes - total bytes from the user's profile copied to user store at logoff
• Processed Logon Files - total number of files in the user's profile copied down at logon. How many files and their respective size grouping.
• Processed Logoff Files - total number of files from the user's profile copied to user store at logoff. How many files and their respective size grouping.

We also focused and extended on XenDesktop and Provisioning Server testing and validation. A key aspect of this was the new log file redirection capability. Now administrators can configure the log file to any local drive instead of the default %WINDIR%/system32/LogFiles/ location. This addressed the critical issue of capturing a log file from a local drive that is reset at logoff. The log file being just another changed file from the session is thus lost when system is reset at logoff.

I also would like to add clarification around the extended synchronization capability. Extended Synchronization was introduced in the User Profile Manager v2.0 release. It become apparent we were not clear enough in the context of its purpose and often it was being leveraged beyond its scope and ability. It was designed to enable personalization settings that are not properly stored in the user's profile location to be captured as part of the user profile. So-called "bad applications", for example, store settings in non-standard locations. However, the capability was not documented clearly in the Version 2.0 administrator's guide, which resulted in attempts to use the feature in ways for which it was not designed. We have clarified the supported scenarios in this release.

Extended synchronization is not intended to manage multi-user access to these files or folders (for example, we are not compensating for an application that is not multi-user aware). Nor is it intended to become a file and folder synchronization mechanism (for example, one that allows you to synchronize the entire contents of c:\docs across machines). It is intended purely to extend personalization settings that exist outside the default user profile location and thus provide a consistent experience across all resources accessed by the user.

This latest version (2.1) will be available for download on September 29th 2009 via MyCitrix. So now that you know a little more about Profile management, I recommend you check back on the 29th to MyCitrix and grab a copy (logon required) to evaluate and consider for your environment. Please note that it is important to review the current profile technologies available and ensure a good match with your business needs. There are a broad range of solutions and ensuring a good match is critical in order to properly balance the administrative needs with user personalization needs. You should review this best practices guide covering profile options such as mandatory, roaming and of course Profile management.

Finally, if you would like to learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 here are some useful links:

• Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
• XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
• XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
• Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
• XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

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• Listen to archived episodes:
  • Episode 4: HDX MediaStream for Flash with Juan Rivera
  • Episode 3: An Overview of HDX with Derek Thorslund
  • Episode 2: Profile Management with David Wagner
  • Episode 1: Power Management with Sridhar Mullapudi

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VM hosted apps will be a new way of virtualizing applications that will be available in the next Feature Pack for XenApp. Harry Labana blogged about it yesterday. Bring yourself up to speed and then register for the TechTalk scheduled for September 23rd.

You can also stay updated on XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 by tuning in to our twitter account (@xenappjunkie) and by keeping an eye on our blog feed. This month, you can expect a XenApp Expert Series video with one of the developers on the project (Modesto Tabares). Stacy Scott, one of our resident experts has also let me know that she'll be entering the blog foray on this topic so stay tuned for her (WARNING: She's super sharp so be prepared for some serious stuff). I'll be announcing everything on our blog feed and on Twitter.

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You may have seen an earlier blog post on application virtualization with VM hosted apps from Harry Labana, CTO of XenApp (@harrylabana) titled "Seamless applications beyond Terminal Services, does it help?". You probably have some questions on this technology as well. Well, let me be the first to give you a bit more background on this feature. Your comments and feedback are always appreciated.

Why VM hosted apps for application virtualization?

Today, you use XenApp to deliver virtual applications in 2 ways - hosted or offline. With offline delivery, you use application streaming technology to place the app in an isolated container running on the users PC. With hosted delivery, you stream or install an application onto XenApp servers and users connect to these servers to access the application via a highly optimized protocol (e.g. Citrix ICA powered by HDX technology). Each user gets their own memory space but they all share the same instance of the operating system - that being Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008. Now, with VM hosted delivery, you stream or install an application into an image or virtual machine and users connect to their own instance of the virtual machine in order to access the application (pooled VM's are the best way to do this). Applications virtualized with VM hosted apps are run in a dedicated environment for each user with dedicated memory AND their own instance of the operating system such as Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.

Why is this important? Well, as the folks who invented application virtualization and who have been doing it the longest, we've learned throughout the years that not every application can run in a server-hosted or Terminal Services environment. There are some apps that users needed to take offline with them and others that simply wouldn't run well in a multi-user environment for a number of reasons. This is why we added application streaming technology to XenApp a few years ago. Still, there were some applications that customers wanted to host in the data center but which didn't run well in Terminal Services. An example could be a custom application that had proprietary data in it and putting the app on the desktop would put the data at risk. Another example could be an application that is unsupported by the ISV in a Terminal Services environment. And yet another example might be a health care application that is certified to run on the desktop and putting it in a multi-user environment would lead to a breach of HIPAA compliance. Whatever the reason, VM hosted applications provides another alternative.

Application management with VM hosted apps

With VM hosted apps, you'll create a virtual machine or desktop image (vDisk) into which you install the given application and any helper apps needed. This image can be running Windows XP, Vista or Win7. There are some configuration steps you need to go through to set up the image properly but they are minor (e.g. placing a shortcut to the app in a special folder, installing a software agent, etc.). Once the image is created, you'll use our management tools to publish the application. Basically, what you are doing is publishing a desktop pool, assigning it the icon of the application you want to make available, giving it a friendly name, and defining the users and conditions that the application will run in. You can configure the application to run as a VM, on a blade PC or even a PC running in the datacenter. The only reason I see for running it on a blade or a PC is for applications that require a GPU or have specific hardware requirements that can't be virtualized at this time. You'll get better ROI if you can virtualize.

One thing to note is that this is being done in an independent console snap-in for this release so you'll want to use the MMC to bring everything together. In addition, the control mechanism for VM hosted apps requires and independent farm. Not to worry though... this is all hidden from the user because it all comes together via XenApp Web and XenApp Services or what our old-timers know as Web Interface and PNAgent sites. You simply add the VM hosted apps farm to your Web Interface or PNAgent site and when a user logs in to Citrix Receiver or to Web Interface they'll see all of their apps in a single list - VM hosted, server hosted or streamed. When users open an application, it will appear in seamless mode with no components of the remote desktop showing - just like other server-hosted applications delivered with XenApp. In this release, users can access a single published application within a virtual machine instance but we are investigating ways to improve on the flexibility here for future releases.

From a licensing perspective, the plan is to make this feature available to XenApp Enterprise or Platinum customers. On the Microsoft side, you'll need a Microsoft VECD license to stay in compliance with hosting Windows virtual desktops. It's important to note that VM hosted apps DOES NOT allow you to run a full virtualized desktop session such as what you would have with XenDesktop. It wasn't built for such a purpose and it doesn't work technically. You can, however, leverage the same infrastructure for VM hosted apps to deliver virtual desktops if you purchase XenDesktop licenses and you can use same VH hosted apps console to manage the delivery of those desktops to users. One of the best things about this is that if you choose to extend your XenApp deployment with VM hosted apps you're essentially putting yourself in the position to easily adopt Essentials for Xen and Hyper-V as well as XenDesktop in the future.

If you're trying to figure out if VM hosted apps is for you, it'll become pretty obvious very quickly that there is a decision tree involved here that has variables associated with it like application compatibility, criticality, overall cost and ROI among the many. We'll reveal the elements of this decision tree in future posts but one thing your should certainly take away is that server hosting (XenApp on Terminal Services) is still your best bet for the lowest cost application delivery. In fact, you'll probably find yourself using this is a stop-gap for some of your apps that you'll need to deliver quickly to give you some time to do proper validation and testing for hosting on XenApp servers. In any case, stay tuned for more information on this topic as I'm sure it will be sought after.

Availability of VM hosted apps

We're planning to release the VM hosted apps feature in the next Feature Pack for XenApp which is planned for Q3 2009. In the meantime, you can learn more about it by staying tuned to our twitter account (@xenappjunkie) and by keeping an eye on our blog feed. This month, you can expect a XenApp Expert Series video with one of the developers on the project (Modesto Tabares) and Cris Lau will be doing a TechTalk scheduled for September 23rd so reserve your seat today. Stacy Scott, one of our resident experts has also let me know that she'll be entering the blog foray on this topic so stay tuned for her (WARNING: She's super sharp so be prepared for some serious stuff). I'll be announcing everything on our blog feed and on Twitter.

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UPDATED July 31, 2009 - Clarified that pooled VM's are supported, separate farms are used not separate IMA database, consoles come together via MMC.

XenApp Expert Series - Informational, News, Interviews (2009) The show where we interview the experts to get you the latest research and technology news on XenApp application virtualization. Host Vinny Sosa (@vinnysosa) interviews Citrix Engineer and Graphics Guru Juan Rivera (@juancitrix) on the HDX MediaStream for Flash and graphics remoting. How it works, why is it important and general technical musings are prevalent in this information packed episode. Episode 4, Season 1.

View this Episode and Subscribe to the XenApp Expert Series

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XenApp Expert Series - Informational, News, Interviews (2009) The show where we interview the experts to get you the latest research and technology news on XenApp application virtualization. Host Vinny Sosa (@vinnysosa) interviews Citrix Engineer and Graphics Guru Juan Rivera (@juancitrix) on the HDX MediaStream for Flash and graphics remoting. How it works, why is it important and general technical musings are prevalent in this information packed episode. Episode 4, Season 1.

Listen to this episode

• Listen to archived episodes:
  • Episode 3: An Overview of HDX with Derek Thorslund
  • Episode 2: Profile Management with David Wagner
  • Episode 1: Power Management with Sridhar Mullapudi

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Learn more about Citrix HDX

When you're setting up a User Store for Profile Management, you configure the location in the GPMC under "Path to user store" (as described in http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX118944 ), and in the simple case, that's a single location, such as \\server1\profiles . 

(Actually, you'd also include the username and probably the userdomain variables as well, and a system environment variable to indicate the profile version or platform e.g. \\server\profiles \ %USERNAME%.%USERDOMAIN% \ %ProfVer . However, it all gets very verbose, and I'll assume you can add these bits yourselves in the discussion below.)

Anyway, we've had a couple of requests recently on how to load-balance User Stores for Profile Management across multiple servers, and we came up with a couple of approaches which might be helpful generally.

A couple of reasons for load-balancing came to light:

• simply to balance the load across several servers
• where an organisation operates several datacenters, each serving one or more geos.

The customers didn't want to use DFS, because they recognised that replication would take place of all profiles between all DFS servers, which would waste bandwidth. I seem to recall that Microsoft doesn't recommend DFS for storing profiles, anyway.

One administrator asked if he could use %homeshare% on the assumption that %homeshare% ought to reference a local server.  No, because %homeshare% is a user environment variable, and Profile Management can't see user environment variables ... but AD does have a property #homeDirectory# which holds the same information.  So if you're OK to put profiles on the same share as the users' HOME directories, configure the "Path to user store" as #homeDirectory#\profiles

The other approach is more general, and may require some AD configuration and/or some DNS hackery.

If you can find an AD attribute, such as #c# (country) or #l# (location - that's #L# but lower case), then the job may be easy - just set the "Path to user store" to \\FileServ#c#\profiles (say) - this should expand to \\FileServUS\profiles or whatever your country happens to be.  Similarly #l# could be used, but if your office is in "Ashby de la Zouch" or "Llanfairpwllgwyn..." (you know the place I mean, in Wales) that may cause grief when used as part of a server name!

So if there are spaces or just a very long name, you'll have to get your AD admins to create and populate a new attribute, such as #geo#

What if you've got a #l# attribute, short, with no spaces, but you want to map several different values to the same server?  In Citrix, for example, we have several geographically close offices sharing a single datacenter, and some offices which have had different names in their history, e.g.

Chalfont (CHF), High Wycombe (HW), Gerrards Cross (GX) and even London (LON) all actually refer to the same office, so \\FileServ#l#\profiles will expand to

\\FileServCHF\profiles or \\FileServHW\profiles etc...

The trick here is to configure multiple names in DNS with the same IP address, so that, regardless of what's configured in #l#, it all maps to the same physical server.

XenApp Expert Series - Informational, News, Interviews (2009) The show where we interview the experts to get you the latest research and technology news on XenApp application virtualization. Host Vinny Sosa (@vinnysosa) interviews Product Strategist Derek Thorslund (@derektcitrix) to help everyone understand the HDX Technology stack. This is part one of multiple videos that will dig deeper into HDX technologies. Episode 3, Season 1.

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Learn more about Citrix HDX

Last month we released the Power and capacity management tech preview for XenApp. If you're using server-side application virtualization and delivery with XenApp, then you'll want to check it out. We've put out a couple of blog posts (1 | 2), a demo, and a couple of videos on it including a XenApp Expert Series video and audio episode with Sridhar Mullapudi (Product Manager). We also have a new episode coming up in July with Juliano Maldaner (the Architect). What's more, both of these rock stars are getting together to do a TechTalk on this same topic.

The TechTalk is going to cover the features, functions and components of Power and capacity management and the guys will also talk about how to deploy it for virtual server infrastructures or physical machines using Wake on LAN. They'll even provide some tips on using this technology to help with migrations.

The great thing about this vs. the other content we've created already is that there's a Q&A at the end so if you're interested in the technology, now's the time to ask your questions.

Stay Updated! Follow XenApp... XenApp on Twitter | XenApp TV-Radio | XenApp Tech Previews

XenApp Expert Series - Profile Management Part 1 - Informational, News, Interviews (2009) The show where we interview the experts to get you the latest research and technology news on XenApp application virtualization. Host Vinny Sosa (@vinnysosa) interviews Citrix Product Manager Dave Wagner on the Profile Management feature of Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop and why this is key technology in the application and desktop virtualization stack. This is part 1 of 2 where we will bring Dave and/or another expert in to dive deeper into Profile Management. Episode 2, Season 1.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND: My intro would have been funnier but I totally screwed it up. I have a strict one take policy on the show though so it stayed as is. Dave is a great character. He has been with Citrix for 8 years 6 months 15 days and 7 hours by the start of this recording. While here, he has managed a number of products including Access Essentials, MetaFrame for UNIX, Conferencing Manager, MetaFrame x64, Desktop Broker/Server, Password Manager, Profile management, Web Interface, and the Linux Client. He doesn't have a Twitter account (yet!). He says he's still too busy jumping on the JAVA/Linux Desktops/Webify Everything bandwagons. After which he needs to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. He loves photography followed closely by video games ... xBox addict at the moment but that usually shifts around every few months. Why? He says he likes video games primarily because it annoys everyone else to think that it's a total waste of his time. Join us for this interesting episode with David Wagner.

Listen to this episode

• Listen to archived episodes:
  • Episode 1: Power Management with Sridhar Mullapudi

Follow XenApp on Twitter

Download XenApp technology previews

XenApp Expert Series - Profile Management Part 1 - Informational, News, Interviews (2009) The show where we interview the experts to get you the latest research and technology news on XenApp application virtualization. Host Vinny Sosa (@vinnysosa) interviews Citrix Product Manager Dave Wagner on the Profile Management feature of Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop and why this is key technology in the application and desktop virtualization stack. This is part 1 of 2 where we will bring Dave and/or another expert in to dive deeper into Profile Management. Episode 2, Season 1.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND: My intro would have been funnier but I totally screwed. I have a strict one take policy one the show though so it stayed as is. Dave is a great character. He has been with Citrix for 8 years 6 months 15 days and 7 hours by the start of this recording. While here, he has managed a number of products including Access Essentials, MetaFrame for UNIX, Conferencing Manager, MetaFrame x64, Desktop Broker/Server, Password Manager, Profile management, Web Interface, and the Linux Client. He doesn't have a Twitter account (yet!). He says he's still too busy jumping on the JAVA/Linux Desktops/Webify Everything bandwagons. After which he needs to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. He loves photography followed closely by video games ... xBox addict at the moment but that usually shifts around every few months. Why? He says he likes video games primarily because it annoys everyone else to think that it's a total waste of his time. Join us for this interesting episode with David Wagner.

View this Episode and Subscribe to the XenApp Expert Series

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Download XenApp technology previews

1. In the left pane of the Advanced Configuration tool, select Policies.
2. From the Contents tab, select the policy you want to apply.
3. From the Actions menu, select Policy > Apply this policy to.
4. In the Policy Filters dialog box, select Client Name.
5. Select Filter based on client name.
6. Select Add to add specific client names. Type Xen_iPhone* and enter. Make sure Allow is selected in the Client Name filters window.

Here are some example of things you can change, control and optimize for iPhone users:

• Remove Visual Effect like wallpaper
• Control session limits (e.g. virtual channel controls for clipboard, sound, com, display, etc.)
• Control client devices (Audio, drives, ports, etc.)
• Control encryption
• Assign a service level 

Now, bear in mind... I haven't played with this extensively so some of these settings may not even affect the iPhone user simply because the feature is not available for Receiver for iPhone (e.g. some SpeedScreen/HDX settings). It doesn't hurt to turn some of these off though and experiment. And the ultimate of course is controlling encryption and security settings. Also, once we release our next rev of the Receiver for iPhone which will have improved support for Access Gateway, I am hoping it will allow the assignment of policies based on Access Gateway connections. So at that point you can filter applications for iPhone users as well as control the experience they have with applications when they connect to a XenApp server.

KEWL!

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This is a tech talk that will be taking place on July 9, 2009. One of our propeller heads will be geeking out on how Citrix ICA (a key feature of Citrix HDX Broadcast) and the CGP protocol function. The discussion, from what I hear, is also going to dissect ICA packets and include best practices for ICA acceleration that will make your overall network traffic more efficient. One of the things I'm particularly interested in hearing about is why single session bandwidth testing isn't accurate.

~snip

In this TechTalk, you'll learn about:

*ICA protocol overview

*ICA bandwidth requirements and testing recommendations

*How Common Gateway Protocol (CGP) relates to ICA

*ICA Performance across the WAN with and without Citrix Repeater

Registration Info

Date: Thursday, July 9, 2009
Time: 1:00pm Eastern/10:00am Pacific
Register for "Decoding the Mysteries of ICA" 

Other Information

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I thought I would share some useful links that I tend to end up emailing around. Also a couple links to a some really useful tools for User Profile Manager (brought to you by our friends at Sepago).

First is a migration tool that enables customers to migrate from the sepagoPROFILE profile format to User Profile Manager v2 format. It also lets customers migrate from the Tech Preview version of User Profile Manager (as both the Tech Preview and sepagoPROFILE releases were based on a mandatory profile). Details and the tool are here: http://blogs.sepago.de/tools/category/citrix-user-profile-manager-migration-tool/

Next is a tool that helps prune your profiles of old or unwanted data. One of the biggest challenges with Windows profiles is removing unwanted items. All those registry settings or APPDATA files after an application is removed or just no longer used. Or perhaps some settings were captured unintentially and now you want to get them out of all your users' profiles. Let me introduce you to the ProfileNurse (stop your smirking) – full details and the tool can be found here: http://blogs.sepago.de/tools/category/profilenurse/.

While ultimately we will like to see this capability as part of the product, for now this nice tool helps fill this gap. Available operations in ProfileNurse include:
*Creating and deleting registry keys and values
*Altering registry values
*Deleting files or folders
*Copying files or folders into user profiles

And here is the basket of other links I've found useful:

General
http://www.citrix.com/upm Main Page with links to downloads (downloads are actually under XD and XA product sections)
https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/results.asp?productID=186 XA download page (Under Components and Evals)
https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/results.asp?productID=163057 XD download page (Under Components and Evals)
http://forums.citrix.com/category.jspa?categoryID=163 Support Forum

Product Docs
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx118943 Admin Guide
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx119791 Technical FAQ
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx119747 Licensing FAQ
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx119466 Logon/Logoff Chart
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx119039 Cross Platform Considerations FAQ
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx119038 Troubleshooting FAQ
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx118944 Group Policy Template Reference
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx119186 Using with XenDesktop
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp/upm-xa-wrapper.html Using with XenApp

Best Practices
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX119036 Best Practices
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx120285 User Profile Best Practices (XenApp 5)
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX110351 User Profile Best Practices (CPS 4.5 and prior)
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX114884 - Password Manager Best Practices

Overview
http://community.citrix.com/x/AoEAAg (overview and insight on UPM)
http://community.citrix.com/x/OIENAg Last Write Wins
http://community.citrix.com/x/A4AaAg Profile Bloat
http://community.citrix.com/x/SIOZAg UPM and Office Settings
http://community.citrix.com/x/HYXuAg Improve logon speed?
http://community.citrix.com/x/AwBeAw Differences from Tech Preview and v2
http://community.citrix.com/x/8ICsAw Using GPOs
http://community.citrix.com/x/3IGiAw Quick Setup Guide

Sepago
http://blogs.sepago.de/tools/category/adm2html/ - ADM to HTML
http://blogs.sepago.de/helge/2009/01/23/citrix-user-profile-manager-released-user-store-design-recommendations/ - User Store
http://www.sepago.de/citrix/upmwhitepaper.html Sepago White Paper
http://blogs.sepago.de/helge/2009/02/25/citrix-user-profile-manager-how-registry-exclusion-lists-can-mess-up-group-policy-processing/

Microsoft Office:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768089.aspx - Configure Outlook settings
http://office.microsoft.com/download/afile.aspx?AssetID=AM102105061033 - Outlook 2007 setup automation
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ork2003/HA011402061033.aspx - Office installation recommendations
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926805/en-us - Office 2007 Toolbar settings
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ork2003/HA011402691033.aspx - Recommended strategies for Outlook roaming

Microsoft Profiles
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc784484.aspx - Best Practices for Roaming Profiles
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/fd81008e-269a-4155-b81a-752242bec9ff1033.mspx?mfr=true - User Profiles Overview in User Data and Settings Management
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/fd81008e-269a-4155-b81a-752242bec9ff1033.mspx?mfr=true - Folder Redirection Overview
http://blogs.technet.com/neilcar/pages/247903.aspx - SMB/CIFS Performance Over WAN Links
 
Microsoft
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms675090.aspx AD Attributes
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963907.aspx - AD Explorer

An update to User Profile Manager was released a few weeks ago (v2.0.1). This contains fixes and improvements for some known issues such as:

• Support for the user variables %USERNAME% and %USEROMAIN%. This enables explicit paths to be defined for users when supporting multiple domains
• Profiles are now migrated properly when defined by the GPO "Set path fopr S Roaming User Proifle"
• Addressed the issue of unresponsive logons in certain cases with cloned images or provisioned shared images
• Resolved the issue with default registry exclusions and the conflict it created with Windows caching of group policies

The full details are here: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX120967

The documentation when using with XenApp is located here: http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xenapp5fp-w2k3/upm-xa-wrapper-v2.html

And the documentation when using with XenDesktop is located here: http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xendesktop/upm-xd-wrapper.html

This updated install package completely replaces the previously posted package (and thus the old one is no longer available). You may run this install on existing deployments and it will upgrade your service. As well as use it for a fresh install. BUT defintely upgrade any existing installs before rolling out this new version since you do not want to mix the versions in your deployment (and thus have some services that recognize variables like %USERNAME% and some that do not). I assure you it would not be a very pleasant experience. The UserProfileManager.exe binary version is 2.0.1.48.

The ADM template was updated but it was just helper text updates. Basically calling out items like the added support for %USERNAME% and %USERDOMAIN%. So you do not need to update the ADM template unless you want to read the new helper text or just enjoy updating ADM templates. Or you can just open up the ADM file in your favorite text editor and scroll to the end and read it there.

On a side note here are some links to the main page, support forum and XenApp/XenDesktop download site (you need to be logged on to MyCitrix to see the downloads – and it is the same download so pick either product and look in the in the Evaluations and Components sections). And yes, the official name for this is Profile management which you will see reflected in the next release.

Main Page http://www.citrix.com/upm
XA download page https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/results.asp?productID=186
XD download page https://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/results.asp?productID=163057
Support Forum http://forums.citrix.com/category.jspa?categoryID=163

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.