A blog for to share your information, tips and hints about Servers and Application Delivery. Sharing information is the key to extend your knowledge.
MDOP 2009 R2, which containts App-V 4.5, is available for current MDOP customers and MSDN/Technet subscribers. Besides MED-V, all the products within MDOP now support Windows 7. MED-V will support Windows 7, as Host OS (not Guest OS) in a release planned for Q1 2010.
Check out the detailed article on http://blogs.technet.com/mdop/
The RDS (Terminal Server) team blog announces the release of an App-V for Terminal Services Whitepaper:
”We are proud to announce the availability of the white paper “Application Virtualization 4.5 for Terminal Services.” This white paper discusses the benefits, configurations, and considerations when planning a Terminal Services (TS) solution with Microsoft Application Virtualization for TS (App-V for TS). Many customers want to find out the best way to configure and/or deploy App-V for TS on terminal servers. This paper includes topics ranging from choosing an App-V for TS application delivery method to configuring RemoteApp and App-V for TS to work together. We hope you find this document an indispensible read if you are implementing App-V for TS.”
Download the whitepaper here
I got this info from Softgridblog.com and thought it was interesting enough to share with you. I found this post when I had issues with sequencing a application.
When you are sequencing an application the Windows Installer service might give you an error during monitoring phase.
Error 1719. Windows Installer service could not be accessed. Contact your support personnel to verify that it is properly registered and enabled.
When the application is installed without the sequencer monitoring, the installation finishes without an error and the application works fine.
In this particular situation the sequencer was running Windows Server 2003 and was accessed remotely through a Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc.exe).
The solution to this issue is create a console RDP session to the sequencer machine instead of an regular RDP session.
You can connect to a console session through the following command:
mstsc /console /v:<server>
Thanks to my colleagues for publishing and solving this issue!
update for Windows Server 2008:
“mstsc /console” has been replaced with “mstsc /admin” on newer Windows Operating Systems (Windows 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 and up). So the correct syntax would then be:
mstsc /admin /v:<server>
Many driver problems in the Terminal Services environment revolve around poor multi-threaded performance, which in turn can cause Print Spooler instability. Problematic multi-threaded performance is usually exposed when multiple users connect to a Terminal Server simultaneously using the same print driver. Symptoms include the failure to autocreate client printers, increased thread count of the Printer Spooler and/or Citrix Print Manager services, and possibly the unresponsiveness and/or unexpected termination of these services (crashes).
This tool can be used to simulate multiple sessions autocreating printers using the same print driver.
It can also be used to compare the following among various drivers:
Note: The current version of the tool does not test concurrent printer capabilities, settings, or actual printing calls, which are also possible causes of printing crashes. Therefore, good stress results do not mean that printers are actually working or certified.
Go to the Citrix Support site for more information and download. CTX109374
Proudly I can announce that the version of WordPress is upgraded from version 2.8 to 2.8.5!
For a detailed explanation of the upgrade, please follow this link.
Some of the common compatibility issues with TS are highlighted here-in. For more information on the best practices for
developing applications for TS please refer to the TS Programming Guidelines.
Most of application installations are designed for a single user client system which causes problems in the Terminal Services environment. Usually the installation does not create files and registries that would be usable by all the other users (other than the administrative user who is doing the install).
Files, registries, pipes, IP address, ports etc. are used concurrently by multiple instances of applications in a TS environment. If an application is not designed to take care of such concurrent access/modification scenarios then it might face compatibility issues on TS.Concurrent modification of these resources leads to data corruption and other unexpected behavior.
Having your application in a multi-user environment makes it vulnerable to privacy breach and unexpected sharing of data and user preference.
TS sessions work over networks where multiple users log on to a Windows Server machine over a network. When network bandwidth or machine hardware is a constraint, performance may become a bottleneck for applications.
While TS does redirect clipboard, printers and drives to allow seamless integration from the client to the server. Several features and devices might not be available over a remote session.
TS Application Analyzer is a runtime program analysis tool to enable administrators/users to determine if they can deploy an application on TS with a degree of confidence. It provides a summary of TS incompatible behaviour of an application and provides recommendation indicating the confidence level for deploying the application on TS. The classes of Application Compatibility issues that are being targeted for detection are:
The tool does the following:
For the full documentation/step-by-step details of the tool please refer to the tool user guide here.
This is not a step-by-step guide but is rather some key things to keep in mind when using the tool –
The tool primarily focuses on the “Concurrent usage” and the “Multi-user environment” related issues. The tool highlights potential problems in an application which might not always manifest. It is essential to understand this in order to correctly interpret and use the results effectively.
The tool breaks down issues into several categories by issue type like File, Registry etc. The tool also breaks down the issues into 2 severity levels “Warnings” and “Problems”.
For most of the times you would want to focus only on the “Problems” unless you are actually trying to pin-point a problem source (which an app-writer or tester might do).
One key thing to understand about a “Problem” is that the tool has detected that a non-TS-compatible API call has been made by the application but this call itself can be a part of a condition in the application.
So it can say “try to open this file as an administrator if you can or if you can’t then just open it as a normal user” but for the tool this would still mean that the application tried to open a file as an administrator and it would flag a “Problem”
So “Problems” are potential problems and need to be analyzed in order to interpret them correctly.
TS at TechNet
TS product homepage
Roaming profiles and folder redirection
TS Programming Guidelines
Today I found out that Login Consultants released a new freeware tool to support Microsoft Application Virtualization called App-V 4.5 Client Diagnostic and Configuration tool.
ACDC makes it possible for administrators or users to troubleshoot virtual applications and the environment they run in:
- Launch predefined and custom commands within the virtual environment of each application.
- See the impact of the App-V Client and the available virtual applications on your system by calculating package size, cache size, user delta file size, log file size etc.
- Diagnose problems with App-V applications by parsing the App-V Client log file (in real time) and search any message online.
- Configure settings that are not visible in the App-V Client GUI, such as “Predictive Streaming”, “Allow Stream from File”, “Max Package Age” and many more.
- Give an overview of application and package information by merging important WMI, registry and OSD information in one single window.
- ACDC can be run both as an Administrator and as a Limited User. Running as a limited user will limit the functionality of the tool due to the fact that it has less permission on the system.
Requirements
- Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
- Microsoft Application Virtualization Client 4.5 or
- Microsoft Application Virtualization Terminal Services Client 4.5
Supported Operating Systems
- Windows XP Pro w/SP2, Windows XP w/SP3
- Windows Vista RTM/SP1
- Windows Server 2003 (SP1, SP2, R2, SP2+R2)
- Windows Server 2008
Questions or suggestions can be provided through the website http://www.loginconsultants.com/forum under “SoftGrid Tooling”
ACDC can be downloaded here (registration required).
Below are several screenshots from the actual tool:
1. Launching commands within the virtual environment
2. Client installation and settings
3. Detailed cache information
4. Real time log parser
Now that the App-V client is part of the Windows Server 2008 CAL it seems that Microsoft has released the App-V 4.5 TS client as a free download.
Part of the download process is the registration of your 20 digit Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server Product Identification Key or your Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services Product Identification Key.
Note: although the article indicates that Windows Server 2008 R2 is supported this particular download can’t be used on that platform since it’s 64-bit only. App-V 4.6 (currently in development) however will support 64-bit and is planned to be available H1 2010.
Finally it’s here. Now all the people that have been bugging me about 64-bit support of the App-V Client, can have their way with App-V enabled packages. This release is mostly about supporting 64-bit (x64) on Desktops and Terminal Services. Also supporting Windows 7 x64 and Windows 2008 R2 x64 will be supported, when 4.6 will release in RTM.
Now, this is a Beta release, so don’t be stupid implementing this in production!
Login Consultants today released the App-V USB Tool 1.0 which you can download here.
The App-V USB Tool is an add-on to the App-V 4.5 Client. It makes it possible to automatically, or by request, import and register App-V enabled (sequenced) applications into the App-V Client from any USB storage device. Note: This will only work with applications that are sequenced with App-V 4.5 sequencer or above.
When the App-V USB tool is running it displays an icon in the system tray.
As soon as you insert a USB storage device, the App-V USB tool detects this and shows the following options.
When you select “Scan and Auto-Import all Virtual Applications” it will scan the complete USB storage device for App-V 4.5 sequences and import these automatically.
When you select “Scan and show list of found Virtual Applications” it will show a list of these applications. You can then select which applications you would like to import.
Once the tool is installed, there is also an option to right-click on any folder (local or USB storage) that contains App-V 4.5 sequences, and Auto Import.
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