Introducing RepairCBDChain a Citrix Tool written by Dmitry Vostokov,
a tool that immediately restores clipboard functionality on the client and server.

Have you ever had a problem where the cut and paste clipboard functionality would not work in a ICA session? I know, silly question, of course you have. I would like to introduce you to a tool I use whenever the clipboard functionality stops working. This tool was written by Dmitry Vostokov a Citrix employee in EMEA. I had the pleasure of meeting him while I was over in Dublin, Ireland visiting the Citrix office there. He is an amazing individual with many accomplishments, you should seriously check out his site, Crash Dump Analysis. http://www.dumpanalysis.org/, I'm willing to bet that you will be as awed as I was.

Continue to download RepairCBDChain:

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX106226 (32-bit)
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX109234 (64-bit)

Here is a quick snippet from a session that Dmitry Vostokov gave at PubForum 2008 in Dublin this year.
(PS - You may have to turn up the audio to hear it better)

?

Continue to PubForum for the full video and powerpoint:

http://www.pubforum.info/welcome/PFResources/tabid/55/Default.aspx
http://www.pubforum.info/welcome/Portals/0/PubForums/DUB08/PPT/Hyper-V.ppt
http://www.pubforum.org/videos/DUB08/Citrix_Tools.wmv

We have recently released an update for the Health Monitoring & Recovery SDK, and it is now available for download.

The popularity of the Health Monitoring & Recovery (HMR) feature, included with XenApp 4.5 Platinum and Enterprise editions, has greatly increased during the last few months among Citrix customers. This feature monitors the health of XenApp by periodically executing multiple tests and by starting a recovery action if any of those tests fails.

Citrix provides multiple HMR tests out-of-the-box for the administrators to configure, but customers and third parties can use this SDK to develop additional tests.

Some of the improvements in this update of the SDK include:

• Improved error handling.
• Support for additional test formats.
• Additional sample tests.
• Support for Windows Server 2008.

We are planning a future video blog regarding HMR in general and about the SDK in particular. So, stay tuned!

In the mean time, you can check the Citrix Presentation Server Administrator's Guide or a prior posting about the feature for more information.

Enjoy!

Aureliano Lopez-Martin
Senior Product Manager, XenApp SDKs

Wow, I landed here in Houston and got on a cab towards the convention center - I open my laptop and I get a new feed alert, " Silverlight Web Interface Sneak Peek", from Jason's bog.

I'm thinking: "Damn Jason did it again... this kid is on fire!"

He just posted a video preview of his next project, running Web Interface with a Silverlight front-end.

He used the new APIs on WI 4.5 along with AJAX, and Citrix XenApp 4.5.

Check this out:

Keep a close look on JasonConger.com

cheers,

Gus Pinto
Microsoft MVP - Virtualization
Follow Me

There are many changes at the Citrix user conference this year. The new name, Citrix Synergy, is only the most obvious difference.

iForum is now a breakout session track, and the IT 2.0 Business Symposium track, the Application Delivery track and the Geek Speak track (including Geek Speak Live! and Geek Speak BarCamp) are all new. There are more technical sessions than ever (over 90 total). There are more industry heavyweight keynote speakers than ever before, and a keynote by a Senior Vice President from the largest software company on the planet (and our most important partner).

For the first time ever, we have an opening keynote from a best selling (and controversial) author on technology and business, and a closing keynote by a very accomplished comedian and actor. Citrix Synergy is shaping up to be the most engaging, interactive, technical and relevant Citrix user conference in our history.

I recognize that many of you across the world will not be able to attend Citrix Synergy for a number of reasons (such as the rapidly increasing costs of energy and fuel). Due to constraints such as distance, time or an overwhelming work load, several of you may have not been able to come to a Citrix conference in sometime (or ever).

The members of the Community and Solutions team at Citrix would like to bring a taste of this conference directly to you. We have put together a plan to show you the face behind the name Citrix Synergy - the faces of the attendees, partners and Citrix employees who all come together to make this event happen. We want to bring you an inside (and unofficial) look at the people and events at our user conference.

Citrix Synergy Underground will bring you inside the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston during the conference. Our team (including Rich Crusco, Vishal Ganeriwala, Gus Pinto and me) will bring you instant text updates from the keynotes via Twitter. You will see numerous live video (via Qik and Mogulus TV) and recorded video interviews (via BrightCove TV). These video will be taken inside the Convention Center common areas and halls, the Exhibit floor, Tech Lab, and Geek Speak Live and Geek Speak BarCamp (no keynote or breakout videos). We plan to speak to as many customers, partners, resellers, and Citrix employees as we can at the event, and show you many of the great demos and new technology that will be unveiled. We hope to give you an inside look at the event that you have never seen before at any user conference.

Our team put together a short video to introduce themselves and the Citrix Synergy Underground site.

(Thanks to Bryon Thomas for pointing me to Qik. Thanks to Gus Pinto for putting together the web page with Microsoft Expression Engine, and Saul Gurdus and his Web Services team for hosting the site for us and providing tech support)

Our underground coverage will begin formally on Tuesday, May 20th. Tune in to http://community.citrix.com/underground to watch.

Voting is now closed on the XenDesktop Video Tips Contest. Here are the final vote talliesfor the best desktop virtualization video tip -

The Winner of the 16 GB Apple iPod Touch is "20 Desktops Delivered in 20 Minutes" -

The winner of the 8 GB Apple iPod Touch is "VDI Made as Easy as Pie" -

The winner of the Apple iPod Nano is "XenDesktop User Experience" -

Congratulations to the winners. All of the other finalists will receive an Apple iPod Shuffle 2 GB. If you are a winner and are attending Citrix Synergy, please let me know. I would like to recognize any winners at the Geek Speak BarCamp event on Wednesday evening.

I ask each of the winners to send me your address and contact info to citrixblogger
@citrix.com.

Thanks again for participating and voting in the XenDesktop Video Tips contest.

What are the rules for the contest?-         

• No video from the keynote.

• No video from any breakout sessions.

• Ask customers/friends/colleagues to withhold their last name and company to protect them from legal liability.

• Do not Interview any Press or Analysts.

• The video clips have to be less than or around 5 minutes.

• Citrix may use these videos for promotion purposes and can decide not post a video if we find the content inappropriate.

Can you give me few examples of video clips to record?
You can record interesting XenApp or XenServer demos or partner product demonstration at the exhibit hall. You can interview your friends, colleagues or vendors and capture their view about the Synergy. Just be innovative and record fun, cool and informative videos. Show us Synergy through your eyes.

How will I recognize you at the registration desk?
Here is my picture. Click to enlarge.

How will I win a Flip Video?
I will upload all the videos to YouTube and tag them Citrix_Synergy08_flipcontest. The top 3 most viewed videos on YouTube will win the Flip Video. The contest will end on 6^th of June 2008 at 6 PM EST.

I have a question not answered above where do I ask it?
Just post a comment on this blog post and I will get back to you

If you have been following some of the recent blog posts about Nirvana Devices and Nirvana Phones, you can get a better idea of what we are talking about in this video clip. Conceptually the Nirvana Phone takes the Smartphone to the next level by solving the existing limitations of small screens and keyboards. There are now some new devices that are close to making this possible, especially in combination with a Virtualized Desktops and applications like XenDesktop and XenApp.

The voting is now open for this years Citrix Innovation Award -

The Citrix Innovation Award is for Citrix customers who innovate in utilizing technology to make a significant impact on their business. Ultimately, information technology is about delivering applications to end users so they can perform business transactions. These three nominees have innovated in their use of Citrix technology to cut costs, reduce time to revenue for projects, and to mitigate risk.

Here is the video from Betchel Corporation -

Next up is Cocamar Cooperativa Agroindustrial-

And finally the video for Mutual of Omaha (yes, the Wild Kingdom guys for those who remember that show) -

The judges for this years Citrix Innovation Award are listed below -

How to Vote
You can vote now for the Citrix Innovation award online at http://www.citrix.com/innovationaward. The winner will be named during the keynote session at Citrix Synergy 2008 on Wednesday, May 21st. Citrix Synergy will be held on May 20th to May 23rd at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.

If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy..

If you are attending IT professionals TechMentor event this week in Orlando then I would recommend you go and check out Bradon Shell's session on "Automating Citrix Server Administration with Windows PowerShell"

"In this session you'll learn how to use Powershell to make Citrix server management easier. We'll also walk through the Citrix road map and how Powershell fits in. We will cover several different common administrative tasks and show how Powershell can make these tasks faster and easier to perform, including publishing applications, unpublishing applications, getting application information, and getting servers online. We'll look at using the PowerShell pipeline, and see how to make your scripts output information that can be piped to other scripts. Finally, you'll learn how to use MFCOM, get information from it, and look at some of the gotchas you'll need to be aware of when dealing with it"

Brandon and I have recently done a webinar on PowerShell and Citrix MFCOM. You can view the Webinar at this URL
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/114744868

UPDATE:
I have got several emails asking me if there will be any session on PowerShell and MFCOM during Citrix Synergy event . There is no specific session on PowerShell and MFCOM but we have speakers giving advance classes on MFCOM SDK and Hands on training with MFCOM SDK during Synergy. If you still have questions regarding PowerShell and MFCOM then come by during my Geek Speak session and I will try my best to answer them

It is time to start taking votes for the best XenDesktop Video Tip. The creators of the top three video tips will receive prizes including an Apple iPod Touch 16 G, an Apple iPod Touch 8 GB, and a Apple iPod Nano.

Here are the XenDesktop Video Tips -

XenDesktop User Experience Comparison

VDI Made as Easy as Pie

XenDesktop User Personalization with AppSense

20 Desktops Delivered in 2 Minutes

XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V

XenDesktop from Germany

Voting Now Closed

Voting will remain open until next Friday, May 16th.

Wanted to do a quick post on some of the cool gadgets we will be demoing in the Geek Speak Lounge at Synergy 2008 sponsored by Intel.  Alot of the devices are  the ones you may have seem me blog on earlier, and a few are potential candidates to add into the mix down the road.  Here's your chance to get hands on with some of these next generation access devices, and BYOG (Bring Your Own Gadget) that you think would make a good Nirvana Device candidate for use with Citrix:

 
If you look close you'll see 4 of these devices actively connected to a XenDesktop, and 2 of them remoting that desktop from the device out to a larger screen in true Nirvana Device fashion!
 
Devices shown starting in the front and moving counter clockwise:
 

• i-Mate 9502
• Impatica Showmate
• Nokia 810N
• HP iPAQ 210 - accessing a XenDesktop
• i-Mate 6150 (behind the iPAQ) - accessing a XenDesktop connected to the 22" Dell Monitor
• Celio Redfly Mobile Companion
• Sprint Treo 700wx (on the Redfly) - accessing a XenDesktop connected to the Redfly
• Nokia E90 - accessing a XenDesktop
• Nokia E61i

All of the devices shown currently work with XenApp and XenDesktop except for the Nokia 810N.  Intel will also be providing some prototype devices to show off as well. 

We'll also be following up to this post with a full rundown of all of the cool stuff that you can see and use in the GS Lounge early next week!

Look forward to seeing you and hearing your comments in the Geek Speak Lounge at Synergy 2008

PS: You might even have a chance to one of these cool devices home with you from the show to use with your own XenApp and soon XenDesktop environment!!!

I am sure you all must have heard about the GeekSpeak Live event during synergy. Barry Flanagan and I are also doing GeekSpeak BarCamp on Wednesday May, 21st.

The goal for this is to give the technical audience at Synergy a chance to get together to discuss technical content most interests you. No marketing slides, no features and benefits, just hard core technical discussions about any IT topic that interests you and the attendees. You can run a white board discussion, present a technical presentation on your latest project, or show a demo of your newest creation with an SDK. Anyone can sign up for a slot. You may be an IT admin, a technology consultant, a Citrix technical employee, a technical employee of a Citrix partner (or competitor), or a student who loves technology and wants to share it.

We have 12 slots filled up so far. Read Barry's Blogs for more info here and here.

If you want to sign up then please comment on my blog or go directly to the GeekSpeak BarCamp page or comment on this blog.

Are you planning to attend the GeekSpeak Live and the GeekSpeak BarCamp?	Choose
Won't miss it for anything. Looking forward to meet all the geeks
No. I will miss all the fun

We now have twelve of the twenty sessions at the Geek Speak BarCamp filled (read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here).

1. Virtualization Defined - Joe Shonk

2. The Stress of IT - Jim Kenzig

3. Virtualization Oriented Architecture over VDI - Jaymes Davis

4. What is High Availability - Michael Bilancieri

5. Ultra Mobile Gadget Tech - Adam Marano

6. HP Print Drivers in a Citrix Environment - Robert Tuft

7. Citrix WorkFlow Studio Examples - Vishal Ganeriwala

8. Fifteen Years with Citrix - Steve Greenberg

9. Web Interface Internals - Jason Conger

10. Provisioning Best Practices - Pete Downing

11. Performance Matters on the Edge - Tim Mackey

12. Server Virtualization Best Practices - Peter Blum

Geek Speak BarCamp has twelve tech sessions so far to go along with the nine industry experts speaking at GeekSpeak Live. There is also the long list of technical sessions in the iForum and Application Delivery tracks.

We are still working to fill the final eight slots. Please submit your session topic now. You can use the comments in this thread, or you can email me at citrixblogger @citrix.com . You can also IM questions to citrixblogger on MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk.

If you have not yet registered for Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.

I think this is the most useful post ever for Citrix admins!

Seriously it has always been hard for me to find where and what are the latest hotfixes for the Citrix products... but this picture has changed.

With the new revision of Citrix's Support site (support.citrix.com), now it's easier to find  the latest fixes and patchs for your Citrix products.

Here's the list:

Presentation Server 4.5 for Windows Server 2003 - x86

Presentation Server 4.5 for Windows Server 2003 - x64

Presentation Server 4.0 for Windows Server 2003 - x86

Presentation Server 4.0 for Windows Server 2000 - x86

Access Gateway 4.5 Advanced Edition

Access Gateway 4.5 Standard Edition

Access Gateway 8.0 Enterprise Edition

Provisioning Server 4.5

Citrix NetScaler 8.0

Citrix NetScaler 7.0

Citrix WANScaler 4.x


Select the products you have, subcribe to its RSS feed and stay in-sync with all later patches and fixes for it.
This is wicked useful!

Cheers,
Gus Pinto

I have taken all the posts in the series that I released on the Citrix Workflow Studio Partner Tech Preview, and have incorporated them into a single document.

After receiving many requests from people to make the entire series of articles available as a downloadable document, how could I not make one available.

So here it is by popular demand, enjoy!

Download: Introducing Citrix Workflow Studio - The Complete Introduction
 

One of the most common questions I here from customers is "Does this app work on Citrix?". One of the goals of the Citrix Ready program is to help our customers and ISV alliance partners answer this question.

So how does an ISV answer this question when they are doing a sale into a customer? A lot of ISVs do not have access to a XenApp or CAE environment to really answer this question. Even if they did, they may not have any expertise to setup/configure XenApp or CAE to do testing.

To help this scenario, we have been working on the creation of MyCitrixLab. An online lab environment available to Citrix Alliance ISV Partners to Citrix Ready verify their application in both XenApp/CPS and CAE environment.

MyCitrixLab is currently in Beta testing with a few soon to be Citrix Ready ISV Alliance partners and is planned to go live by Synergy 2008. If you're an ISV and have interest in use of MyCitrixLab to help get your application Citrix Ready verified, please send an email to CitrixReady@citrix.com. Or feel free to look me up at Synergy in the Geek Speak Lounge at Synergy where we can give you a early look.

So what is MyCitrixLab:

• An online lab environment accessible via the internet that meets the configuration requirements specified in the Citrix Ready Verification Test Kits.
  
  
• Lab scheduling environment that allows an ISV alliance partner to schedule a 3 or 7 day lab environment for use with Citrix Ready Verification.
  
  
• SharePoint portal that contains additional information on use of the lab and helpful lab guides.
  • FAQ - additional information on the use of the lab
  • Verification Assist Guides that provide "extra details" on the use of the lab for a specific Citrix Ready Verification Kit. Step by step screen shots walk an ISV partner through each required step to complete the tests in a test kit if they are not familiar with a Citrix environment.
  • Administrator guides for products
  • Links to the Citrix Ready Verification Test Kits
  • Discussion site that lab users can leave tips and tricks on use of the lab for other users.
• Lab Environment
  • All of the actual lab servers/workstations area running on XenServer
  • Citrix Presentation Server/XenApp preconfigured lab environments
    • Lab environments uses of CPS 4.0 or 4.5 both 32bit and 64bit labs
    • CPS servers in a farm preconfigured
    • 2 client systems preconfigured for use with the CPS farm (1 XP and 1 Vista)
    • 1 Domain controller for the isolated lab environment
    • 1 SQL servers to use with apps the require a SQL database
  • Citrix Access Essentials preconfigured lab environments
    • Lab environments uses CAE 2.0
    • 1 CAE server preconfigured
    • 2 client systems preconfigured for use with the CPS farm (1 XP and 1 Vista)
    • 1 Domain controller for the isolated lab environment
    • 1 SQL servers to use with apps the require a SQL database

Note that this lab environment is reserved for use by Citrix Alliance ISV Partners solely for the intent of Citrix Ready verification of their product, so they can help properly answer the above questions "Yes, my app is Citrix Ready for XenApp and CAE!".

The current architecture of MyCitrixLab limits it use in most cases to ISV partners, being it is secured and isolated in such a way that no direct inbound ICA connections can be made from the internet, as well as being securely isolated from other labs being hosted in the environment. This level of isolation today prevents device and other IHV vendors from using the lab. Only the XP and Vista clients in the isolated lab environment have access to the CPS or CAE server's via ICA.

Some screen shots of MyCitrixLab below:


Pic 1: Logon/Sign Up page
 

Pic 2: WI Server page with scheduler shown
 

Pic 3: CPS lab server
 

Pic 4: Vista lab client system
 

Pic 5: MyCitrixLab SharePoint Portal
 
 

Last week Dr. SDK completed his ultimate guide to MFCOM (101 pages). This is the only guide you will ever need to understand and learn about MFCOM SDK. It covers everything up to SDK version 4.5.

It covers all the advance MFCOM topics such as multifarm management, publishing different type of Applications, policies, load evaluators and more.

Hope you enjoy reading it.

Download the ultimate guide to MFCOM SDK

ADI stands for Application Delivery Infrastructure, the category of technologies used to deliver applications. Here you can find best practices, architectures, implementation guides, tools, tips and techniques not only for using Citrix products but for any technology and vendor involved in ADI.

The architecture of application delivery infrastructure centers on virtualization, optimization and management, and security technologies that interoperate and work with other IT infrastructure components to deliver the application from its inception in the datacenter to its consumption at the endpoint.

Continue to the ADI Community

Citrix AppExpert  is an online community dedicated to NetScaler users. This moderated community is the best place for conversations on how to get the most from your NetScaler deployment, including creative AppExpert policies, innovative configurations, integration with other infrastructure technologies and more

AppExpert represents a breakthrough in ease-of-use, developers occasionally need more programmatic ways to invoke policies or system settings as well. For these scenarios, AppExpert also provides powerful APIs that use industry-standard WSDL (web services description language). Using AppExpert APIs, external applications and systems can automatically modify any NetScaler system setting and any AppExpert policy.

Continue to the AppExpert Community

This video is a follow-up from my previous one with a bit more information on the app, a greater insight on how it works and how it was built.

Stay tuned as I wil be releasing more information on Citrix Fast Launch on the next few days.


cheers,

Gus Pinto
Technology Evangelist
Microsoft MVP - Virtualization

*PS. Check out the HALO 3 sticker on the back of my notebook.