Helge pointed me out to his blog just recently, and you know what - he has really userful content there. He just recently blogged about a neat little app that allows you to manipulate REG_LINKs. Very useful for your XenApp environments when configuring your remote apps and streaming profiles.

Here's a snippet of hos post:

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Recently I got into a very interesting discussion with my colleague Nicholas Dille on various aspects of Windows x64. One question he brought up was especially intriguing: Knowing about registry redirection, it is not astonishing to find that the 32-bit version of the registry key HKLM\Software\Classes (aka HKCR) gets to be HKLM\Software\Classes\Wow6432Node. But there is also HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Classes!? How can there be two different Wow6432Node 32-bit keys for one 64-bit key?

It soon dawned on us that one of those two Wow6432Node keys must be a registry link to the other, meaning that the 32-bit data is actually stored in only one place as common sense dictates. But which is the original and which is the link? And what is a registry link anyway?

What Are REG_LINKs?

Registry links (internal type name: REG_LINK) seem to be one of the last great mysteries of Windows NT-based operating systems although they have been around since NT4 at least. Microsoft uses them to point the CurrentControlSet registry key to one of the actual ControlSets (typically 001 or 002). A registry link essentially is a symbolic link in the registry - one registry key pointing to another. The nice thing is that this whole pointing stuff happens completely opaquely to applications: if key A points to key B, and an application tries to access key A, it will actually see the contents of key B. The concept is simple, easy and powerful.

How to Manipulate REG_LINKs

There is only one problem: There is no officially documented way to list, create or delete REG_LINKs. The registry API simply does not have any functions for manipulating them. This makes things more difficult, but not impossible. Searching the net, I quickly found the excellent tool regln which comes with full source code and compiled both as 32-bit and 64-bit binaries. The source code of regln gave me the hints I needed: the internal NT API (not too well documented and hidden in ntdll.dll) contains the functions required for REG_LINK manipulation. With that information and some further research I put together a small command line program that scans the registry for REG_LINKs and lists those found along with their target: ListRegistryLinks.exe. The tool is available both in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

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Continue at source: Helge's Blog

Download: ListRegistryLinks.exe 1.0 for Windows x86 (32-bit)
Download: ListRegistryLinks.exe 1.0 for Windows x64 (64-bit)

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• What Ajax is (and isn't)
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This whitepaper recently released by out guys in consulting covers the design considerations on how policies can impact your XenApp (Presentation Server) 4.5 environment...

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There are numerous ways to apply a configuration or security setting onto a group of servers within a Citrix Presentation Server environment. Because policies are so unique, diverse and customizable, there is no single, correct method toward policy design. However, this document will give the key areas to consider when deciding on the appropriate approach to implementing a setting using a policy.  
This design consideration will look at the following types of policies and the comm on practices associated with them:

• Citrix Presentation Server policies: These policies are defined within the management console on Presentation Server and only apply to connections using the Citrix ICA protocol but not the Microsoft RDP protocol. Presentation Server policies also allow for the configuration of Presentation Server-specific options like Session Printers and Progressive Display. The power of these policies is that they have the ability to be filtered based on users, location and even the method for launching the published applications. Many of these filters are only available within Presentation Server.
  
  
• Active Directory Policies: These policies are configured within Active Directory. They are applied to organizational units (folders), domains, sites, etc. within the Active Directory structure. A single Active Director y policy can consist of a computer policy and a user policy. A computer policy consists of settings that affect the physical computer and impact all users logging onto the computer while a user policy affects the user and is applied on all systems the user logs on to. Local server policies and custom policies are types of Active Director y policies and are described as:
  
  
  • Local Server Policies and Settings: Local Server policies are similar to Active Directory policies, except they are managed on a server-by-server basis and configured locally on that specific server, where Active Directory policies are managed centrally and can impact hundreds or thousands of users or computers with a single application of a policy.
    
    
  • Custom Active Directory Policy Templates: Custom ADM templates, like the Citrix icaclient.adm template, are Active Directory or Local Server policies used to make configuration settings. They can be custom registry settings or simply standard policies re-organized as two examples. The concept of custom templates is supported, but depending on the author of the custom template, supportability by either Citrix or Microsoft might not be available. Organizations will have to verify the supportability of custom ADM templates. Also, any custom template used might already have settings configured, potentially causing issues with the environment. It is highly recommended to test custom policies in a test environment before implementing in production.

The following five areas are the basis f or the design decisions for an enterprise deployment of Presentation Server. These types of policies will be impacted by the following design areas:

• Policy Type
• Policy Integration
• Policy Filters
• Policy Prioritization
• Policy Precedence
  
  

Download it here