What I’m going to cover in this post are the issues I’ve encountered whilst using the HP t5565 Linux-based thin clients with Microsoft’s RDS.

Remote Desktop Services Connection Broker

Lets start with the BIG one; they do not support the Remote Desktop Connection Broker (RDCB) or should I really say the open source rdesktop doesn’t! Now when I mean they it’s not supported, it can imply that it will work fine (but please don’t ask the vendor to help if any issues arise). In this case it simply doesn’t work. When the RDCB tries to either load balance or reconnect a disconnected session you will face a situation where you enter your login credentials then the session seems to just drop. If you are lucky your load balancer or round-robin DNS will direct you to the correct server, but this is just the laws of probability in action.

I should point out that this point will probably be an issue for any thin clients that are Linux-based and and utilising the rdesktop client. I have heard rumours that FreeRDP does work with the RDCB but I’ve not tried that myself so can’t confirm this; though this forum post does suggest it will work.

Bitmap Caching

Using “Bitmap Caching” in the rdesktop settings causes the screen to freeze randomly; so you have to way up the pros and cons of leaving it turned on. The benefits of enabling the bitmap cache is to minimise the amount of data transferred between the RDP client and server. However, this introduces the screen freezes. As a result, I went with disabling the bitmap caching to improve the user experience - the client had a well connected network so latency etc. was not an issue.

Other Issues

1. Drawing shapes in Office 2003 will cause the screen to freeze and the system will become unresponsive – Resolved with this forum post.
2. Using a second monitor to extend the primary display doesn’t work i.e. only show the taskbar on the primary display. What happens is screen spanning occurs therefore the taskbar is split across both monitors and the “Ctrl+Alt+Del” dialogue appears slap bang in the middle of where the monitors join – Resolved with this forum post (though I haven’t had time to test this myself).

I think the moral of this story is to try before you buy and then try some more! If you want to use the RDS Connection Broker then go for a Windows Embedded thin client, if indeed you want to use a thin client. Taking this approach may save you a lot of headaches going forward.

Nathan

Nathan Sperry

Nathan Sperry is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Professional and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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User Settings Storage Migration

This option available under the Composition > User Settings within the RES Workspace Manager console allows you to migrate stored User Settings from a previous location and looks just a little bit like this:

When would we enable this option? You will use this option when you want to move or copy settings stored in a prior location to an alternative location. Historically, RES PowerFuse always required that you stored the user’s User Settings in their home drive location. Although hidden, this could quite often cause confusion and had serious consequences if hard quotas were in place.

Starting with RES Workspace Manager 2011, this is no longer the case. User Settings still have to reside within an assigned drive letter location, but this no longer has to be the same location as the user’s home directory. This very option enables you to migrate existing user settings from a previous location to another drive. Nothing more, nothing less (and no migration of settings defined behind a Word 2003 application to Word 2007!). Here’s an example:

• User home directories are mapped to H: and you previously stored the User Settings in the \PWRMENU subfolder (may or may not be mapped via Active Directory).
• You wish to store User Settings in the X:\UserSettings folder that will be hidden by RES Workspace Manager (how and where you map X: are up to you!).
• Configuring the migration settings as above will move all the User Settings from H:\PWRMENU to X:\UserSettings, but only if they exist.
• All new captured User Settings will be put into X:\UserSettings.

Zero-Profile Migration

The second User Settings migration option allows you to migrate existing User Settings captured with one Zero-Profile mode to the other, i.e. migrate UPR/UPF files to/from UPR2/UPF2 files. You may or may not know this, but the way in which RES Workspace Manager stores User Settings depends on the configured Zero-Profile mode. If an application is configured to “Capture” then the settings are stored in the traditional format, e.g. .UPR and .UPF files. If you happen to configure an application in “Tracking” mode then you’ll end up with .UPR2 and .UPF2 files. I am informed that this is due to the fact that tracked settings are appended to the resulting file (and compressed) as they’re changed etc.

By default, if you switch from one Zero-Profile mode to another, RES Workspace Manager will suddenly be looking for User Settings files that don’t exist. Worse still, if you happened to have had the other mode configured for a while, changed it and then reverted, you may place some old Users Settings back into the user’s profile!

The migration setting on the User Settings tab behind an application is designed to help avoid this situation and migrate the captured User Settings to/from UPR/UPR2 (and UPF/UPF2) files.

The settings above have the following definitions:

• Ignore – RES Workspace Manager will ignore the other file type (if present) and start capturing in the configured mode.
• Remove – RES Workspace Manager will delete the User Settings stored (if present) in the alternative format.
• Apply and Remove – RES Workspace Manager will migrate the stored User Settings (if present) and then delete the alternative format.

All this is fairly straight forward once you know the in’s and out’s (and still no migration of settings defined behind a Word 2003 application to Word 2007 regardless of the configured Zero-Profile mode!). You can manually move User Settings from one application to another and this might be a future post or even make it into the Virtual Engine Toolkit.

As always, I hope this helps clarify things for somebody, some day! Iain

Iain Brighton

Iain Brighton is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Trainer (RCT) and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the founder and co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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• Conversion of Group Policy Objects to RES Workspace Manager building blocks;
• Conversion of Active Directory published printers and site definitions to RES Workspace Manager building blocks;
• Direct import into the RES Workspace Manager console;
• Multiple profile updates with the Profile Update Utility (PuU);
• Ad-hoc registry changes in the Profile Update Utility (PuU).

For more videos on the Virtual Engine Toolkit, please check out our YouTube channel here.

Nathan Sperry

Nathan Sperry is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Professional and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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Best practise within RES Workspace Manager mandates that application settings should be captured at the application level to improve logon performance etc. For example, we normally configure Microsoft Word to capture user personalisation settings behind the application like so:

In addition we probably have our applications to to be hidden (I’ll come back to this later) when they’re not detected on a machine, i.e. we won’t show the Word 2003 icon if Word 2010 is installed (and vice versa). The different application versions are installed into different paths and we don’t want both application icons appearing and confusing our users. Therefore, all the various Office applications are configured with the ‘Hide application if executable was not found‘ option.

This is fine for the individual application settings, but what about Office-wide settings, i.e. the stuff stored in ‘HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common‘ or ‘HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common‘? Normally we capture these all encompassing settings as a global User Setting, a la:

It’s all fairly straight forward thus far and so why the blog post? Well, this is where the fun starts. We have all our Office 2003 applications configured and we introduce the Office 2010 applications into Workspace Manager and configure the user personalisation capture settings as defined above, probably like this:

Are you with me so far? Good!

The first time that an Office 2010 application is run it will attempt to migrate/upgrade the existing user settings (if they exist) and write them into the Office 2010 specific locations, i.e. ‘HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0‘. Now, think about this for a second as we have a BIG problem… We have moved the user from a v1 profile (on Windows XP) to a v2 profile (on Windows 7) which means a clean slate and no existing user settings. “WAIT,” I hear you cry, “RES WM will layer the user settings back in!”

Unfortunately, you’re wrong! RES Workspace Manager will only layer the application settings back in for an individual application if it’s detected on the system. Remember, we’ve elected to ‘Hide the application if executable was not found’ and therefore, they’re not loaded. When we start an Office 2010 application there is seemingly nothing to migrate. DOH! We’re safe with the global Office-wide settings though, as they are configured at the global level (loaded at logon) and not dependent on any application detection.

So how do we at Virtual Engine get around this little conundrum? Simple; linked user settings!

I don’t know why but this solution seems to confuse a lot of people. It’s actually an elegant solution and should be (in my humble opinion) adopted as a standard/best practice :=). Essentially we configure dummy applications that have the various user personalisation settings configured for each version of the application that we’re interested in. For example, we create a ‘Microsoft Word’ application that is hidden but will capture the user settings for all the individual Office Word versions, e.g. in our example Microsoft Word 2003 and Microsoft Word 2010 like so:

Each of the individual applications are configured as before, but their user personalisation settings are linked to our dummy Word application. Fortunately, this means that both the Word 2003 and Word 2010 settings will be layered onto the Windows 7 machine if either Microsoft Word 2003 or Microsoft Word 2010 is detected. When a user launches Word 2010, the previous settings will be available, upgraded and then captured in the same way. Here is how we now configure Microsoft Word 2003 as an example:

There is a small down-side to this approach. We’ll be collecting two sets of roughly the same settings for a short period. However, it’s a small price to pay compared to losing everyone’s settings and once the migration is complete, the user settings definition previous Word version, 2003 in our instance, can be removed from the dummy application. If you ever need to upgrade to the next version of Office you’ll also be covered with this solution. Hopefully, it’s fairly obviously that this approach can be used for application other than the Microsoft Office suite too.

We would like to hear how other people tackle this problem as well as update this post if someone has a more elegant solution/idea. Please leave your comments below and thanks for persevering.

Thanks, Iain

Iain Brighton

Iain Brighton is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Trainer (RCT) and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the founder and co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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1. Configure IE User Settings at a global level (or as an ‘auto launched’ application) so that they get applied to the user’s session at log on. There are lots of applications that rely on these settings and if they’re loaded in the background, they may not be available when needed and cause confusion.
2. Do not use “Zero Profile” mode User Tracking for Internet Explorer. I’ve seen lots of deployments with this enabled and it generates very large User Settings (UPR2 and UPF2) files as IE touches lots of files and registry keys when running. This will certainly result in slower log on/off times and is not required - use the built-in User Settings template.
3. Keep user Favo(u)rites, Cookies and History User Settings separate from the IE application User Settings, i.e. define two User Settings. This is contrary to the default User Settings template supplied by RES, however, but this allows users to reset the general settings for IE without affecting the their personal Cookies, Favo(u)rites and History.
4. We have found that when using the default User Settings template supplied by RES it doesn’t capture any typed URL history in Internet Explorer. To resolve this issue just add the registry key : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs to the IE application User Settings.
5. If you have multiple managed instances of Internet Explorer, i.e. shortcuts to URLs that point to IEXPLORE.EXE make sure you link the settings back to the “master” IE application. Creating “snapshots” of the same keys and files/folders can cause major inconsistencies to the user’s environment as RES Workspace Manager loads different settings depending on which shortcut is used.

Enjoy ! Additional comments and recommendations are more then welcome!

Thanks,

Simon

Simon Pettit

“Simon Pettit is an experienced virtualisation consultant, with a keen interest in enabling organisations to benefit from a dynamic and managed computing environment – Citrix Certified Administrator in XenApp, XenDesktop and XenServer. He is a consultant working for Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.”

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Here’s the new process:

1. Obviously you’ll need to have downloaded (it’s free) and installed VET.
2. Once installed, simply launch the Profile Update Utility.
3. Select your mandatory profile by clicking the “Browse” button (step 1).
4. Check the “Merge HKEY_CURRENT_USER ActiveSetup keys” checkbox (step 2).
5. Click the “Go” button (step 3).

It doesn’t get much simpler than that! Note: This will merge the ActiveSetup keys from the currently logged on user. Therefore, you need to perform this action on a machine that you’ll be using the mandatory profile on.

The “Output Options” at the bottom of the PuU windows could probably do with some explaination as there is sometimes some confustion.

1. Update Original Profile: Overwrites the source (Step 1) profile.
2. Backup Profile: Copies the source profile (in Step 1) to a .bak file and then updates the original.
3. Create New Profile: Copies the source profile (in Step 1), renames the original (in Step 1) to a .bak file and then updates the new copy.

Which option you use is up to you depending on how you manage the lifecycle of your mandatory profiles.

Enjoy – Iain

Iain Brighton

Iain Brighton is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Trainer (RCT) and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the founder and co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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One of the issues they had on the new environment was the Office 2007 Quick Access Toolbars (QAT) weren’t being captured by WM using the built-in templates provided which capture the locations set out below:

Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (v1 profiles):
%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office

Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 (v2 profiles):
%USERPROFILE%\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Office

So everything appeared to be configured correctly; but still the QAT files weren’t being captured or worse still weren’t being saved in those locations.

Upon further investigation the QAT files where actually being saved in ‘%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Office’ which seemed very odd to me as I was sure one of the problems that people found when using roaming profiles with Office 2007 was the QAT didn’t roam!. This led me into thinking that maybe Microsoft had at some point released a hotfix that did in fact allow the QAT files to roam. So lets turn to the interweb and see what that brings up, and low and behold, Microsoft did just that and released a hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958062 (included in Office 2007 SP2). Setting the registry key as described in the Microsoft article forces the QAT files to be saved in the users profile which would then allow them to roam.

Once I had this vital information I quickly found that this particular customer had uncovered this fix and had implemented it using RES PowerFuse 2008 (clever boys/gals!!). Because we had copied and upgraded the RES PowerFuse 2008 datastore to WM 2011, this user registry setting was being applied to the new environment. To resolve the problem we simply removed that registry setting and let the power of the templates supplied with RES WM 2011 do their thing and capture the QAT files in the default location.

NOTE: One thing I will add about the supplied templates is they don’t capture the QAT files for Outlook 2007 i.e. Olkaddritem.qat, Olkapptitem.qat, Olkdistitem.qat, Olklogitem.qat, Olkmailitem.qat, Olkpostitem.qat and Olktaskitem.qat.

To resolve this issue you can add file filter ’%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Office\Olk*.qat’ to the capture settings for Outlook 2007. Hopefully this will get rolled into the default Office 2007 application templates by RES in a future release.

Hope this helps.

Nathan

Nathan Sperry

Nathan Sperry is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Professional and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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While you can merge these Active Setup Keys to stop the message box appearing; this isn’t actually where the story ends. Behind some Active Setup Components there is a command line (Stubpath) that needs to run once per user i.e. for new users logging on for the first time (for a great explanation of Active Setup, check out Helge Klein’s write up here). The drawback of just merging these keys will be that the command line (Stubpath) will not run for any user. This could have undesirable results as mentioned in the RES Blog post here and Andrew Morgan’s Blog post here.

So the purpose of this blog is really for informational purposes above anything else and to detail the most common Active Setup components containing Stubpaths, by OS. Should you need this information, it’s here for reference. For example, if you disable the ActiveSetup option within RES Workspace Manager or merge the ActiveSetup keys using the Profile Update Utility (PuU), you may have to reinstate a particular action if it causes issues (like Andy’s issue). The command line (Stubpath) is highlighted in yellow and can be used to remedy the situation if necessary:

Windows XP

{2C7339CF-2B09-4501-B3F3-F3508C9228ED}
Themes Setup
%SystemRoot%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:/UserInstall %SystemRoot%\system32\themeui.dll

{44BBA842-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015B}
NetMeeting 3.01
rundll32.exe advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection C:\WINDOWS\INF\msnetmtg.inf,NetMtg.Install.PerUser.NT

{5945c046-1e7d-11d1-bc44-00c04fd912be}
Windows Messenger 4.7
rundll32.exe advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection C:\WINDOWS\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.QuietInstall.PerUser

{6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6}
Microsoft Windows Media Player
rundll32.exe advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection C:\WINDOWS\INF\wmp11.inf,PerUserStub

{7790769C-0471-11d2-AF11-00C04FA35D02}
Address Book 6
“%ProgramFiles%\Outlook Express\setup50.exe” /APP:WAB /CALLER:WINNT /user /install

{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4340}
Windows Desktop Update
regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:U shell32.dll

{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383}
Internet Explorer
C:\Windows\System32\ie4uinit.exe -BaseSettings

{89B4C1CD-B018-4511-B0A1-5476DBF70820}
DOTNETFRAMEWORKS
C:\Windows\system32\Rundll32.exe C:\Windows\system32\mscories.dll,Install

<{12d0ed0d-0ee0-4f90-8827-78cefb8f4988}
Internet Explorer Version Update
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ieudinit.exe

>{22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95}
Microsoft Windows Media Player
C:\WINDOWS\inf\unregmp2.exe /ShowWMP

>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}
Internet Explorer
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ie4uinit.exe -UserIconConfig

>{60B49E34-C7CC-11D0-8953-00A0C90347FF}
Browser Customizations
“C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe” “C:\Windows\System32\iedkcs32.dll”,BrandIEActiveSetup SIGNUP

>{60B49E34-C7CC-11D0-8953-00A0C90347FF}MICROS
Browser Customizations
RunDLL32 IEDKCS32.DLL,BrandIE4 SIGNUP

>{881dd1c5-3dcf-431b-b061-f3f88e8be88a}
Outlook Express
%systemroot%\system32\shmgrate.exe OCInstallUserConfigOE

Windows 7 32bit

{2C7339CF-2B09-4501-B3F3-F3508C9228ED}
Themes Setup
%SystemRoot%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:/UserInstall %SystemRoot%\system32\themeui.dll

{44BBA840-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}
Microsoft Windows (MailNews)
“%ProgramFiles%\Windows Mail\WinMail.exe” OCInstallUserConfigOE

{6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6}
Microsoft Windows Media Player
%SystemRoot%\system32\unregmp2.exe /FirstLogon /Shortcuts /RegBrowsers /ResetMUI

{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4340}
Windows Desktop Update
regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:U shell32.dll

{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383}
Web Platform Customizations
C:\Windows\System32\ie4uinit.exe -BaseSettings

{89B4C1CD-B018-4511-B0A1-5476DBF70820}
DOTNETFRAMEWORKS
C:\Windows\system32\Rundll32.exe C:\Windows\system32\mscories.dll,Install

>{22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95}
Microsoft Windows Media Player
%SystemRoot%\system32\unregmp2.exe /ShowWMP

>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}
Internet Explorer
C:\Windows\System32\ie4uinit.exe -UserIconConfig

>{60B49E34-C7CC-11D0-8953-00A0C90347FF}
Browser Customizations
“C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe” “C:\Windows\System32\iedkcs32.dll”,BrandIEActiveSetup SIGNUP

Windows 2008 R2 SP1 with Desktop Experience Installed

{2C7339CF-2B09-4501-B3F3-F3508C9228ED}
Themes Setup
%SystemRoot%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:/UserInstall %SystemRoot%\system32\themeui.dll

{44BBA840-CC51-11CF-AAFA-00AA00B6015C}
Microsoft Windows (MailNews)
“%ProgramFiles%\Windows Mail\WinMail.exe” OCInstallUserConfigOE
“%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Mail\WinMail.exe” OCInstallUserConfigOE

{6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6}
Microsoft Windows Media Player
%SystemRoot%\system32\unregmp2.exe /FirstLogon /Shortcuts /RegBrowsers /ResetMUI

{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4340}
Windows Desktop Update
regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:U shell32.dll

{89820200-ECBD-11cf-8B85-00AA005B4383}
Web Platform Customizations
C:\Windows\System32\ie4uinit.exe -BaseSettings
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ie4uinit.exe -BaseSettings

{89B4C1CD-B018-4511-B0A1-5476DBF70820}
DOTNETFRAMEWORKS
C:\Windows\system32\Rundll32.exe C:\Windows\system32\mscories.dll,Install
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Rundll32.exe C:\Windows\SysWOW64\mscories.dll,Install

{A509B1A7-37EF-4b3f-8CFC-4F3A74704073}
Applying Enhanced Security Configuration (Admin)
“C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe” “C:\Windows\System32\iesetup.dll”,IEHardenAdmin
“C:\Windows\SysWOW64\rundll32.exe” “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iesetup.dll”,IEHardenAdmin

{A509B1A8-37EF-4b3f-8CFC-4F3A74704073}
Applying Enhanced Security Configuration (User)
“C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe” “C:\Windows\System32\iesetup.dll”,IEHardenUser
“C:\Windows\SysWOW64\rundll32.exe” “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iesetup.dll”,IEHardenUser

>{22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95}
Microsoft Windows Media Player
%SystemRoot%\system32\unregmp2.exe /ShowWMP

>{26923b43-4d38-484f-9b9e-de460746276c}
Internet Explorer
C:\Windows\System32\ie4uinit.exe -UserIconConfig
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ie4uinit.exe -UserIconConfig

>{60B49E34-C7CC-11D0-8953-00A0C90347FF}
Browser Customizations
“C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe” “C:\Windows\System32\iedkcs32.dll”,BrandIEActiveSetup SIGNUP
“C:\Windows\SysWOW64\rundll32.exe” “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iedkcs32.dll”,BrandIEActiveSetup SIGNUP

Should anyone wish to expand on what each Active Setup Component does please feel free to leave a comment I’ll update the blog accordingly; some are more obvious than others .

Enjoy

Nathan

Nathan Sperry

Nathan Sperry is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Professional and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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My problem required creating an AD user (not via the built in task) in one script and then passing the username/password into another script. To overcome this particular issue, I started down the route of temporarily writing the information to the registry so that it could be read by the other script later in the Project. This is where I stumbled across a little gem hidden in RES Automation Manager. I don’t know whether it’s intentional and/or undocumented, but it certainly works!

I attempted to use a Parameter using the built-in @[REGISTRY] Function. In essence this instructs the RES Automation Manager agent to populate the Parameter with the contents of the registry key. This bit is simple to understand and you probably already knew this. However, what I didn’t realise is that this Parameter is updated/re-evaluated at every task within a Module. I assumed that it would only be evaluated when the Module is invoked by the RES AM agent. I’m certainly glad that this is not the case as we can now write values to the registry and AM will automatically pass the updated value to the next Task(s).

Here is an example building block that contains a single module with a single registry-based, emtpy Parameter value. The first script writes the current date to temporary location in the registry (just so happens to be where RES Automation Manager is reading the Parameter value from). The second script receives its Parameter value from RES AM (not directly from the registry within the script), adds a day (in US format!) and writes it back to the registry. The final task displays a pop-up message with tomorrows date from the RES AM Parameter.

What this does prove is that the Parameter is re-evaluated before each task is executed and therefore passed through all tasks. Never in this example module do we enter the date. Here is the status of the parameter before and after each task.

Task 1 – BEFORE: <Empty>, AFTER: <Empty> (We write today’s date to the registry, but it’s not re-evaluated until the next task)
Task 2 – BEFORE: <Current Date>, AFTER: <Current Date> (We write tomorrow’s date to the registry, but it’s not re-evaluated until the next task)
Task 3 – BEFORE: <Tomorrow’s Date>, AFTER: <Tomorrow’s Date>

I’m sure you can think of more ingenious ways of using this functionality. Enjoy! Iain

Iain Brighton

Iain Brighton is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Trainer (RCT) and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the founder and co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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Historically when deploying RES Workspace Manager on x64 Operating Systems you would have to update all your applications within the management console to reference the ‘%ProgramFiles(x86)%’ location as the installation paths are different. RES Workspace Manager attempts to fix problem this with on-the-fly redirection. That’s to say that it’ll automatically detect it’s running on a x64 OS and attempt to launch the executable in the %ProgramFiles(x86)% location instead of the defined %ProgramFiles% path. In turn this creates a problem for the 32-bit OSes as the ‘%ProgramFiles(x86)%’ system environment variable does not exist – DOH!

When I originally set out about writing this post, my understanding was slightly different from what I’ve ended up with. However, the findings are still valid so please continue to read. From the testing performed in preparation for this post with RES Workspace Manager 2011 SR2, it all appears to work correctly (shock/horror!). What I mean is, that not only does Workspace Manager appear to automatically redirect on 64-bit OSes, but also appears to attempt it on 32-bit OSes too.

The purpose of the “Disable folder redirection on 64-bit platforms” option (on a per application basis) stops RES Workspace Manager from redirecting entries defined with %ProgramFiles% to ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\’. Using Wordpad as an example, if you have the application entry defined as ‘%ProgramFiles%\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe’ Workspace Manager will automatically attempt to launch “C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe” by default (the 32-bit version) on a 64-bit OS.

Checking the ‘Disable folder redirection..’ check box forces Workspace Manager to launch the actual process defined in the executable path, i.e. the 64-bit version. Obviously, this example only works if both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the application are available. If you use Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 as an example, checking the ‘Disable folder redirection..’ option will break the 32-bit application on 64-bit OSes.

Caveat #1

The on-the-fly folder redirection only works when using system environment variables, i.e. %ProgramFiles% and/or %ProgramFiles(x86)%. If you have hard coded paths such as ‘C:\Program Files\’ or ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\’ it doesn’t work. So get updating all your applications to use these variables!

As previously mentioned, RES Workspace Manager appears to redirect on 32-bit OSes too. For example, Workspace Manager will launch an application defined with the executable path as ‘%ProgramFiles(x86)%’ successfully on a 32-bit OS even though the environment variable does not exist. I was not aware of this and can only assume that it’s a recent addition. Unfortunately this is different from what we’ve seen happening in the field and hence why we earmarked the subject for a blog post! What we have seen are applications failing to appear and/or launch correctly when updated to point to ‘%ProgramFiles(x86)%’ on 32-bit Operating Systems.

Caveat #2

Once you’ve updated all your applications with environment variables it should just work. To circumnavigate this issue we put the following simple workaround in place. Note: from the above diagnosis you should no longer have to do this.

Workaround

1. Define the %ProgramFiles(x86)% environment variable only on 32-bit machines via a Location/Device zone. Configure this environment variable to point to %ProgramFiles%. On 32-bit systems both variables will point to same location but your applications are guaranteed to work on 32-bit OSes.
2. Ensure that you replace all file paths for managed applications with their associated environment string (I have mentioned this already haven’t I?!). If you don’t do this then you’ll need to ensure you manage the availability another way, e.g. via Workspaces or Zones.
3. Add/configure applications in the RES Workspace Manager console on 64-bit OSes wherever possible. This will ensure that 32-bit applications always use the %ProgramFiles(x86)% variable (and not cross-platform %ProgramFiles%). If not, you need to hope that RES Workspace Manager performs it’s on-the-fly redirection magic!

Thanks, Iain

Iain Brighton

Iain Brighton is an experienced virtualisation consultant, RES Software Certified Trainer (RCT) and Valuable Professional (RSVP). He is also the founder and co-owner of Virtual Engine Limited, the Dynamic Desktop Delivery Specialists, providing consultancy services on various desktop virtualisation solutions to European organisations.

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