Category: XenApp/XenDesktop

Director Load Balancing – NetScaler 11

Last Modified: Nov 6, 2020 @ 7:25 am

37 Comments

Navigation

Monitor

  1. On the left, expand Traffic Management, expand Load Balancing, and click Monitors.
  2. On the right, click Add.
  3. Name it Director or similar.
  4. Change the Type drop-down to HTTP.
  5. If you will use SSL to communicate with the Director servers, then scroll down and check the box next to Secure.
  6. Switch to the Special Parameters tab.
  7. In the HTTP Request field, enter GET /Director/LogOn.aspx?cc=true
  8. If Single Sign-on is enabled on Director, then you might have to add 302 as a Response Code.
  9. Click Create.

Servers

  1. On the left, expand Traffic Management, expand Load Balancing, and click Servers.
  2. On the right, click Add.
  3. Enter a descriptive server name. Usually it matches the actual server name.
  4. Enter the IP address of the server.
  5. Enter comments to describe the server. Click Create.
  6. Continue adding Director servers.

Service Group

  1. On the left, expand Traffic Management, expand Load Balancing, and click Service Group.

  2. On the right, click Add.
  3. Give the Service Group a descriptive name (e.g. svcgrp-Director-SSL).
  4. Change the Protocol to HTTP or SSL. If the protocol is SSL, ensure the Director Monitor has Secure enabled.
  5. Scroll down and click OK.
  6. Click where it says No Service Group Member.
  7. If you did not previously create server objects, then enter the IP address of a Director Server. If you previously created a server objects, then change the selection to Server Based and select the server objects.
  8. Enter 80 or 443 as the port. Then click Create.
  9. On the right, under Advanced Settings, click Monitors.
  10. On the left, in the Monitors section, click where it says No Service Group to Monitor Binding.
  11. Click the arrow next to Click to select.
  12. Select the Director monitor and click Select.
  13. Then click Bind.
  14. To verify that the monitor is working, on the left, in the Service Group Members section, click the Service Group Members line.
  15. Highlight a member and click Monitor Details.
  16. The Last Response should be Success – HTTP response code 200 received. Click Close twice.
  17. Then click Done.

Responder

Create a Responder policy to redirect users from the root page to /Director.

  1. Go to AppExpert > Responder and enable the feature if it isn’t already enabled.
  2. Go to AppExpert > Responder > Actions.
  3. On the right, click Add.
  4. Give the Action a name (e.g. Director_Redirect).
  5. Change the Type to Redirect.
  6. In the Expression box, enter "/Director", including the quotes.
  7. Click Create.
  8. Go to AppExpert > Responder > Policies.
  9. On the right, click Add.
  10. Give the Policy a name (e.g. Director_Redirect).
  11. Select the previously created Action.
  12. In the Expression box, enter HTTP.REQ.URL.PATH.EQ("/")
  13. Click Create.

Load Balancing Virtual Server

  1. Create or install a certificate that will be used by the SSL Virtual Server. This certificate must match the DNS name for the load balanced Director servers.
  2. On the left, under Traffic Management > Load Balancing, click Virtual Servers.

  3. On the right click Add.
  4. Name it Director-SSL-LB or similar.
  5. Change the Protocol to SSL.
  6. Specify a new internal VIP.
  7. Enter 443 as the Port.
  8. Click OK.
  9. On the left, in the Services and Service Groups section, click where it says No Load Balancing Virtual Server ServiceGroup Binding.
  10. Click the arrow next to Click to select.
  11. Select your Director Service Group and click Select.
  12. Click Bind.
  13. Click Continue.
  14. Click where it says No Server Certificate.
  15. Click the arrow next to Click to select.
  16. Select the certificate for this Director Load Balancing Virtual Server and click Select.
  17. Click Bind.
  18. Click Continue.
  19. On the right, in the Advanced Settings column, click Persistence.
  20. Select SOURCEIP persistence.
  21. Set the timeout to match the timeout of Director. The default timeout for Director is 245 minutes.
  22. The IPv4 Netmask should default to 32 bits.
  23. Click OK.
  24. On the right, in the Advanced Settings section, add the Policies section.
  25. On the left, in the Policies section, click the plus icon.
  26. Select Responder in the Choose Policy drop-down and click Continue.
  27. Select the previously created Director_Redirect policy and click Bind.
  28. If you haven’t enabled the Default SSL Profile, then perform other normal SSL configuration including: disable SSLv3, bind a Modern Cipher Group, and enable Strict Transport Security. 
    bind ssl vserver MyvServer -certkeyName MyCert

set ssl vserver MyvServer -ssl3 DISABLED -tls11 ENABLED -tls12 ENABLED

unbind ssl vserver MyvServer -cipherName ALL

bind ssl vserver MyvServer -cipherName Modern

bind ssl vserver MyvServer -eccCurveName ALL

bind lb vserver MyvServer -policyName insert_STS_header -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression END -type RESPONSE

SSL Redirect

  1. Right-click the Director SSL Load Balancing Virtual Server and click Add.
  2. Change the Name to Director-HTTP-SSLRedirect or something like that.
  3. Change the Protocol to HTTP.
  4. Click OK. This HTTP Virtual Server uses the same VIP as the SSL Load Balancer.
  5. Bind the AlwaysUp service. See SSL Redirect – Responder Method for more information.
  6. Bind the http_to_ssl_redirect_responderpol Responder Policy.
  7. That’s all this LB vServer needs. Click Done when done.

SSL Warning

  1. If you are doing SSL Offload (SSL on front end, HTTP on back end), when connecting to Director it might complain about “You are not using a secure connection”.
  2. To turn off this warning, login to the Director servers and run IIS Manager.
  3. On the left, navigate to Server > Sites > Default Web Site > Director.
  4. In the middle, double-click Application Settings.
  5. Change UI.EnableSslCheck to false.

CLI Commands

Here is a list of NetScaler CLI commands for Director Load Balancing:

add server Director01 10.2.2.18
add server Director02 10.2.2.100
add server 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1
add service AlwaysUp 127.0.0.1 HTTP 80
add serviceGroup svcgrp-Director-HTTP HTTP
add ssl certKey wildcom -cert WildcardCorpCom_pem -key WildcardCorpCom_pem
add lb vserver Director-SSL-LB SSL 10.2.2.210 443 -persistenceType SOURCEIP -timeout 245
add lb vserver Director-HTTP-SSLRedirect HTTP 10.2.2.210 80 -persistenceType NONE
add responder action Director_Redirect redirect "\"/Director\"" -responseStatusCode 302
add responder action http_to_ssl_redirect_responderact redirect "\"https://\" + HTTP.REQ.HOSTNAME.HTTP_URL_SAFE + HTTP.REQ.URL.PATH_AND_QUERY.HTTP_URL_SAFE" -responseStatusCode 302
add responder policy Director_Redirect "http.REQ.URL.PATH.EQ(\"/\")" Director_Redirect
add responder policy http_to_ssl_redirect_responderpol HTTP.REQ.IS_VALID http_to_ssl_redirect_responderact
bind lb vserver Director-HTTP-SSLRedirect AlwaysUp
bind lb vserver Director-SSL-LB svcgrp-Director-SSL
bind lb vserver Director-SSL-LB -policyName Director_Redirect -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression END -type REQUEST
bind lb vserver Director-HTTP-SSLRedirect -policyName http_to_ssl_redirect_responderpol -priority 100 -gotoPriorityExpression END -type REQUEST
add lb monitor Director HTTP -respCode 200 -httpRequest "GET /Director/LogOn.aspx?cc=true" -LRTM DISABLED -secure YES
bind serviceGroup svcgrp-Director-SSL Director01 443
bind serviceGroup svcgrp-Director-SSL Director02 443
bind serviceGroup svcgrp-Director-SSL -monitorName Director
set ssl serviceGroup svcgrp-Director-SSL -tls11 DISABLED -tls12 DISABLED
bind ssl vserver Director-SSL-LB -certkeyName wildcom
bind ssl vserver Director-SSL-LB -eccCurveName P_256
bind ssl vserver Director-SSL-LB -eccCurveName P_384
bind ssl vserver Director-SSL-LB -eccCurveName P_224
bind ssl vserver Director-SSL-LB -eccCurveName P_521

Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) 7.7

Last Modified: Nov 7, 2020 @ 6:35 am

28 Comments

Navigation:

💡 = Recently Updated

Hardware

  1. If vSphere 6, don’t use hardware version 11 unless you have NVIDIA GRID. VMware 2109650 – Video playback performance issue with hardware version 11 VMs in 2D mode
  2. For virtual desktops, give the virtual machine: 2+ vCPU and 2+ GB of RAM
  3. For Windows 2008 R2 RDSH, give the virtual machine 4 vCPU and 12-24 GB of RAM
  4. For Windows 2012 R2 RDSH, give the virtual machine 8 vCPU, and 24-48 GB of RAM
  5. Remove the floppy drive
  6. Remove any serial or LPT ports
  7. If vSphere:
    1. To reduce disk space, reserve memory. Memory reservations reduce or eliminate the virtual machine .vswp file.
    2. The NIC should be VMXNET3.
  8. If this VDA will boot from Provisioning Services:
    1. Give the VDA extra RAM for caching.
    2. Do not enable Memory Hot Plug
    3. For vSphere, the NIC must be VMXNET3.
    4. For vSphere, configure the CD-ROM to boot from IDE instead of SATA. SATA comes with VM hardware version 10. SATA won’t work with PvS.
  9. Install the latest version of drivers (e.g. VMware Tools).
    1. If Windows 7 on vSphere, don’t install the VMware SVGA driver. For more details, see CTX201804 Intermittent Connection Failures/Black Screen Issues When Connecting from Multi-Monitor Client Machines to Windows 7 VDA with VDA 7.x on vSphere/ESXi.

If vSphere, disable NIC Hotplug

  1. Users could use the systray icon to Eject the Ethernet Controller. Obviously this is bad.
  2. To disable this functionality, power off the virtual machine.
  3. Once powered off, right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
  4. On the VM Options tab, expand Advanced and then click Edit Configuration.
  5. Click Add Row.
  6. On the left, enter devices.hotplug. On the right, enter false.
  7. Then click OK a couple times to close the windows.
  8. The VM can then be powered on.

Windows Preparation

  1. If RDSH, disable IE Enhanced Security Config
  2. Optionally, go to Action Center (Windows 8.1 or 2012 R2) or Security and Maintenance (Windows 10) to disable User Account Control and enable SmartScreen .
  3. Run Windows Update.
  4. If Windows Firewall is enabled:
    1. Enable File Sharing so you can access the VDA remotely using SMB
    2. Enable COM+ Network Access and the three Remote Event Log rules so you can remotely manage the VDA.

  5. Add your Citrix Administrators group to the local Administrators group on the VDA.
  6. The Remote Desktop Services “Prompt for Password” policy prevents Single Sign-on to the Virtual Delivery Agent. Check registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services. If fPromptForPassword = 1 then you need to fix group policy. The following GPO setting will prevent Single Sign-on from working.
    Computer Configuration Policies Administrative templates Windows Components Remotes Desktop Services Remote desktop Session Host Security Always prompt for password upon connection
    Or set the registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\PorticaAutoLogon (DWORD) = 0x10.
  7. For Windows 7 VDAs that will use Personal vDisk, install Microsoft hotfix 2614892 – A computer stops responding because of a deadlock situation in the Mountmgr.sys driver. This hotfix solved a Personal vDisk Image update issue detailed at Citrix Discussions.
  8. If this VDA is Windows Server 2008 R2, request and install the Windows hotfixes recommended by Citrix CTX129229. Scroll down to see the list of recommended Microsoft hotfixes for Windows Server 2008 R2. Ignore the XenApp 6.x portions of the article. Also see https://www.carlstalhood.com/windows-server-2008-r2-post-sp1-hotfixes/.
  9. To remove the built-in apps in Windows 10, see Robin Hobo How to remove built-in apps in Windows 10 Enterprise.
  10. For Remote Assistance in Citrix Director, configure the GPO setting Computer Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | System | Remote Assistance | Offer Remote Assistance. See Jason Samuel – How to setup Citrix Director Shadowing with Remote Assistance using Group Policy for more details.

Install Virtual Delivery Agent 7.7

  1. For virtual desktops, make sure you are logged into the console. The VDA won’t install if you are connected using RDP.
  2. Make sure 8.3 file name generation is not disabled. If so, see CTX131995 – User Cannot Launch Application in Seamless Mode to fix the AppInit_DLLs registry keys.
  3. Make sure .NET Framework 4.5.1 is installed.
  4. Go to the downloaded XenDesktop 7.7 (XenDesktop Platinum, XenDesktop Enterprise, XenApp Platinum, or XenApp Enterprise) .iso file and run AutoSelect.exe. Alternatively, you can download the standalone VDA package and run that instead.
  5. Click Start next to either XenApp or XenDesktop. The only difference is the product name displayed in the installation wizard.
  6. Click Virtual Delivery Agent for Windows Desktop OS or Windows Server OS depending on which type of VDA you are building.
  7. In the Environment page, select Create a Master Image and click Next.
  8. For virtual desktops, in the HDX 3D Pro page, click Next.
  9. In the Core Components page, if you don’t need Citrix Receiver installed on your VDA then uncheck the box. Click Next.
  10. In the Delivery Controller page, select Do it manually. Enter the FQDN of each Controller. Click Test connection. And then make sure you click Add. Click Next when done.
  11. In the Features page, click Next. If this is a virtual desktop, you can leave Personal vDisk unchecked now and enable it later.
  12. In the Firewall page, click Next.
  13. In the Summary page, click Install.
  14. For RDSH, click Close when you are prompted to restart.
  15. After the machine reboots twice, login and installation will continue.
  16. After installation, click Finish to restart the machine again.
  17. If 8.3 file name generation is disabled, see CTX131995 – User Cannot Launch Application in Seamless Mode to fix the AppInit_DLLs registry keys.

Virtual Delivery Agent 7.6.300 Hotfixes

The core VDA software is actually VDA 7.6.300 so you can install core VDA 7.6.300 hotfixes on a 7.7 VDA. What’s different about 7.7 VDA vs 7.6.300 is the brokering agents, Director agents, and Profile Management built into the VDA 7.7 installer.

  1. Download Virtual Delivery Agent 7.6.300 hotfixes. There are DesktopVDACore hotfixes and ServerVDACore hotfixes, depending on which type of VDA you are building.
  2. Install each hotfix by double-clicking the .msp file.
  3. In the Welcome to the Citrix HDX TS/WS Setup Wizard page, click Next.
  4. In the Ready to update page, click Update.
  5. In the Completed the Citrix HDX TS/WS Setup Wizard page, click Finish.
  6. When prompted to restart, if you have multiple hotfixes to install, click Cancel.
  7. Continue installing hotfixes. Restart when done.

Controller Registration Port

Some environments will not accept the default port 80 for Virtual Delivery Agent registration. To change the port, do the following on the Virtual Delivery Agent:

  1. Open Programs and Features.
  2. Find Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent and click Change.
  3. Click Customize Virtual Delivery Agent Settings.
  4. Edit the Delivery Controllers and click Next.
  5. On the Configure Delivery Controller page, change the port number and click Next.
  6. In the Summary page, click Reconfigure.
  7. In the Finish Reconfiguration page, click Finish. The machine automatically restarts.
  8. You must also change the VDA registration port on the Controllers by running BrokerService.exe /VDAPort.

Controller Registration – Verify

  1. If you restart the Virtual Delivery Agent machine or restart the Citrix Desktop Service…
  2. In Windows Logs Application log, you should see an event 1012 from Citrix Desktop Service saying that it successfully registered with a controller. If you don’t see this then you’ll need to fix the ListOfDDCs registry key.
  3. You can also run Citrix’s Health Assistant on the VDA.

Profile Management 5.4.1  💡

Warning: If you are upgrading and have existing Windows 2012 R2 profiles based on the !CTX_OSNAME! variable, see http://discussions.citrix.com/topic/374111-psa-upm-54-ctx-osname-server-2012-value-change/ for why your profiles might stop working.

  1. Go to the downloaded Profile Management 5.4.1 and run profilemgt_x64.msi.
  2. In the Welcome to the Citrix Profile Management Setup Wizard page, click Next.
  3. In the End-User License Agreement page, check the box next to I accept the terms in the License Agreement and click Next.
  4. In the Destination Folder page, click Next.
  5. In the Ready to install Citrix Profile Management page, click Install.
  6. If you see Files in Use, click OK.
  7. Click OK to continue the installation.
  8. In the Completed the Citrix Profile Management Setup Wizard page, click Finish.
  9. Click Yes when prompted to restart.
  10. UPM 5.4.1 breaks Logon Duration in Citrix Director. To fix it, run the following commands: 
    C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\installutil.exe "C:\Program Files\Citrix\Virtual Desktop Agent\upmWmiMetrics.dll"

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\installutil.exe "C:\Program Files\Citrix\Virtual Desktop Agent\upmWmiAdmin.dll"


  11. See the Profile Management page for configuration instructions.

Upgrade to Receiver 4.4.1000

VDA 7.7 does not include this update.

If Receiver is installed on your VDA, upgrade it to version 4.4.1000 (or 4.4.1002)  💡

  1. Go to the downloaded Receiver 4.4.1000 and run CitrixReceiver.exe.
  2. In the Welcome to Citrix Receiver page, click Start.
  3. In the License Agreement page, check the box next to I accept the license agreement and click Next.
  4. If you see the Enable Single Sign-on page, check the box next to Enable Single Sign-on and click Next.
  5. In the Help make our products better page, make your selection and click Install.
  6. After installation, click Finish.
  7. See the Receiver page for configuration instructions.

HTML5 App Switcher 2.0.2

This tool is no longer needed for Receiver for HTML5 2.0 and newer.

  1. .NET Framework 4.0.3 or newer is required.
  2. Go to the downloaded Receiver for HTML5 App Switcher (Citrix_AppSwitcher_2.0.2) and run AppSwitcher.msi.
  3. Check the box next to I accept the terms and click Install.
  4. In the Completed the App Switcher Setup Wizard page, click Finish.

  5. In Programs and Features, it is shown as version 2.0.2.25.

Citrix PDF Printer 7.8.0

This tool is only used by Receiver for HTML5.

  1. Go to the downloaded Receiver for HTML5 Citrix PDF Printer 7.8.0 (Citrix_PDFPrinter_7.8.0) and run CitrixPDFPrinter64.msi.
  2. In the Please read the Citrix PDF printer License Agreement page, check the box next to I accept the terms and click Install.
  3. In the Completed the Citrix PDF Universal Driver Setup Wizard page, click Finish.
  4. In Programs and Features, it is shown as version 7.8.0.10.
  5. Configure a Citrix Policy to enable the PDF printer. The setting is called Auto-create PDF Universal Printer.

Framehawk Configuration

To enable Framehawk, see https://www.carlstalhood.com/citrix-policy-settings/#framehawkconfig

Remote Desktop Licensing Configuration

On 2012 R2 RDSH, the only way to configure Remote Desktop Licensing is using group policy (local or domain). This procedure also works for 2008 R2 RDSH. This procedure is not needed on virtual desktops.

  1. For local group policy, run gpedit.msc.
  2. Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Licensing.
  3. Double-click Use the specified Remote Desktop license servers. Change it to Enabled and enter the names of the RDS Licensing Servers (typically installed on XenDesktop Controllers). Click OK.
  4. Double-click Set the Remote Desktop licensing mode. Change it to Enabled and select Per User. Click OK.
  5. In Server Manager, open the Tools menu, expand Terminal Services and click RD Licensing Diagnoser.
  6. The Diagnoser should find the license server and indicate the licensing mode. It’s OK if there are no licenses installed on the Remote Desktop License Server.

Several people in Citrix Discussions reported the following issue: If you see a message about RD Licensing Grace Period has expired even though RD Licensing is properly configured, see Eric Verdumen No remote Desktop Licence Server availible on RD Session Host server 2012. The solution was to delete the REG_BINARY in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\RCM\GracePeriod only leaving the default. You must take ownership and give admin users full control to be able to delete this value.

C: Drive Permissions

This section is more important for shared VDAs like Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 2012 R2.

The default permissions allow users to store files on the C: drive in places other than their profile.

  1. Open the Properties dialog box for C:.
  2. On the Security tab, click Advanced.
  3. Highlight the line containing Users and Create Folders and click Remove.
  4. Highlight the line containing Users and Special and click Remove. Click OK.
  5. Click Yes to confirm the permissions change.
  6. If you see any of these Error Applying Security windows, click Continue.
  7. Click OK to close the C: drive properties.

Pagefile

If this image will be converted to a Provisioning Services vDisk, then you must ensure the pagefile is smaller than the cache disk. For example, if you allocate 20 GB of RAM to your Remote Desktop Session Host, and if the cache disk is only 15 GB, then Windows will have a default pagefile size of 20 GB and Provisioning Services will be unable to move it to the cache disk. This causes Provisioning Services to cache to server instead of caching to your local cache disk (or RAM).

  1. Open System. In 2012 R2, you can right-click the Start button and click System.
  2. Click Advanced system settings.
  3. On the Advanced tab, click the top Settings button.
  4. On the Advanced tab, click Change.
  5. Either turn off the pagefile or set the pagefile to be smaller than the cache disk. Don’t leave it set to System managed size. Click OK several times.

Direct Access Users

When Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent is installed on a machine, non-administrators can no longer RDP to the machine. A new local group called Direct Access Users is created on each Virtual Delivery Agent. Add your non-administrator RDP users to this local group so they can RDP directly to the machine.

Windows Profiles v3/v4/v5

Roaming Profiles are compatible only between the following client and server operating system pairs. The profile version is also listed.

  • v5 = Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016
  • v4 = Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
  • v3 = Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
  • v2 = Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
  • v2 = Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

Windows 8.1 and 2012 R2 don’t properly set the profile version. To fix this, ensure update rollup 2887595 is installed. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2890783. After you apply this update, you must create a registry key before you restart the computer.

  1. Run regedit.
  2. Locate and then tap or click the following registry subkey:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlset\Services\ProfSvcParameters
  3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then tap or click DWORD Value.
  4. Type UseProfilePathExtensionVersion.
  5. Press and hold or right-click UseProfilePathExtensionVersion, and then tap or click Modify.
  6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then tap or click OK.
  7. Exit Registry Editor.

Then, Windows 8.1 creates a user profile and appends the suffix “.v4” to the profile folder name to differentiate it from version 2 of the profile in Windows 7 and version 3 of the profile in Windows 8.

Registry

HDX Flash

From Citrix Knowledgebase article CTX139939 – Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 – Citrix Known Issues: The registry key value IEBrowserMaximumMajorVersion is queried by the HDX Flash service to check for maximum Internet Explorer version that HDX Flash supports. For Flash Redirection to work with Internet Explorer 11 set the registry key value IEBrowserMaximumMajorVersion to 11 on the machine where HDX flash service is running. In case of XenDesktop it would be the machine where VDA is installed.

  • Key = HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\HdxMediaStreamForFlash\Server\PseudoServer
    • Value = IEBrowserMaximumMajorVersion (DWORD) = 00000011 (Decimal)

From Citrix Discussions: Add the DWORD ‘FlashPlayerVersionComparisonMask=0′ on the VDA under HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Citrix\HdxMediaStreamForFlash\Server\PseudoServer.  This disables the Flash major version checking between the VDA and Client Device.

Published Explorer

This section applies if you intend to publish apps from this VDA.

From Citrix Knoweldgebase article CTX128009 – Explorer.exe Fails to Launch: When publishing the seamless explorer.exe application, the session initially begins to connect as expected. After the loading, the dialog box disappears and the explorer application fails to appear. On the VDA, use the following registry change to set the length of time a client session waits before disconnecting the session:

  • Key = HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\wfshell\TWI
    • Value = LogoffCheckerStartupDelayInSeconds (DWORD) = 10 (Hexadecimal)

Mfaphook – 8.3 File Names

  1. Open a command prompt.
  2. Switch to C:\ by running cd /d C:\
  3. Run dir /x program*
  4. If you don’t see PROGRA~1 then 8.3 is disabled. This will break Citrix.
  5. If 8.3 is disabled, open regedit and go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows.
  6. On the right is AppInit_DLLs. Edit it and remove the path in front of MFAPHOOK64.DLL.


Logon Disclaimer Window Size

From Xenapp 7.8 – Session Launch Security/Warning Login Banner at Citrix Discussions: If your logon disclaimer window has scroll bars, set the following registry values:

HKLM\Software\Wow6432node\Citrix\CtxHook\AppInit_DLLS\Multiple Monitor Hook\LogonUIWidth = DWORD:300
HKLM\Software\Wow6432node\Citrix\CtxHook\AppInit_DLLS\Multiple Monitor Hook\LogonUIHeight = DWORD:200

Login Timeout

Citrix CTX203760 VDI Session Launches Then Disappears: XenDesktop, by default, only allows 180 seconds to complete a logon operation. The timeout can be increased by setting the following:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Citrix\PortICA

Add a new DWORD AutoLogonTimeout and set the value to decimal 240 or higher (up to 3600).

Also see Citrix Discussions Machines in “Registered” State, but VM closes after “Welcome” screen.

Receiver for HTML5 Enhanced Clipboard

From About Citrix Receiver for Chrome 1.9 at docs.citrix.com: To enable enhanced clipboard support, set registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\wfshell\Virtual Clipboard\Additional Formats\HTML Format\Name=”HTML Format”. Create any missing registry keys. This applies to both virtual desktops and Remote Desktop Session Hosts.

4K Monitors

Citrix CTX201696 – Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp – Support for Monitors Including 4K Resolution and Multi-monitors: Up to eight 4K monitors are supported with the Std-VDA and RDS VDA irrespective of underlying GPU support, provided the required policies and/or registry keys are correctly configured. Currently the Std-VDA for XenDesktop and RDS-VDA for XenApp does not support resolutions higher than 4094 in any dimension.

Framehawk currently does not support 4K monitors. At the time of writing, the number of monitors supported is 1, the use of more monitors will cause the graphics mode to change from Framehawk to Thinwire to support multi-monitor.  The maximum resolution supported by Framehawk is currently 2048×2048.

From CTX200257 – Screen Issues Connecting to 4K Resolution Monitors: Symptom: A blank or corrupt screen is displayed when connecting to Windows 7 or 8.1 Standard XenDesktop Virtual Delivery Agents on a client which has one or more 4K resolution monitors.

  1. Calculate the video memory that is required for 4K monitor using the following formula:
    Sum of total monitors (Width * height * 4 * X) where width and height are resolution of the monitor.
    X = 2 if VDA is Windows 7 OR X = 3 if VDA is Windows 88.1
    Suppose a Windows 7 VDA is connecting to a client that has dual 4K monitors (3840×2160), then video buffer should be: (3840 x 2160 x 4 x 2) + (3840 x 2160 x 4 x 2) = ~132MB
  2. Open the registry (regedit) and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\vd3v
  3. Increase the value of “MaxVideoMemoryBytes” REG_DWORD value to the above calculated memory.
  4. Reboot the VDA.

When using Thinwire, Compatibility, Thinwire Plus or Legacy modes, the Display memory Limit policy needs to be configured appropriately for Std-VDA, as per Graphics Policy Settings at docs.citrix.com. The Default value for Display memory Limit is 65536KB and this is sufficient up to 2x4K monitors (2x32400KB). You can find more information on Graphics modes at Citrix Blogs – Site Wide View of HDX Graphics Modes.

Legacy Client Drive Mapping

Citrix Knowledgebase article How to Enable Legacy Client Drive Mapping Format on XenApp: Citrix Client Drive Mapping no longer uses drive letters and instead they appear as local disks. This is similar to RDP drive mapping.

The old drive letter method can be enabled by setting the registry value:

  • Key = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\UncLinks (create the key)
    • Value = UNCEnabled (DWORD) = 0

When you reconnect, the client drives will be mapped as drive letters (starts with V: and goes backwards).

COM/LPT Port Redirection

To signal Citrix’ intention to deprecate COM and LPT support in a future major release, policy settings for COM Port and LPT Port Redirection have moved from Studio to the registry, and are now located under HKLM\Software\Citrix\GroupPolicy\Defaults\Deprecated on either your Master VDA image or your physical VDA machines. The COM/LPT port registry values are detailed at docs.citrix.com.

Print Driver for Non-Windows Clients

This section applies to Windows 2012 R2, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 VDAs.

From Mac Client Printer Mapping Fix for Windows 8/8.1 and Windows Server 2012/2012R2. By default, Non-Windows clients cannot map printers due to a missing print driver on the VDA machine.

  1. Requirements:
    • Internet Access
    • Windows Update service enabled
  2. Click Start and run Devices and Printers.
  3. In the Printers section, highlight a local printer (e.g. Microsoft XPS Document Writer). Then in the toolbar click Print server properties.
  4. Switch to the Drivers tab. Click Change Driver Settings.
  5. Then click Add.
  6. In the Welcome to the Add Printer Driver Wizard page, click Next.
  7. In the Processor Selection page, click Next.
  8. In the Printer Driver Selection page, click Windows Update. The driver we need won’t be in the list until you click this button. Internet access is required.
  9. Once Windows Update is complete, highlight HP on the left and then select HP Color LaserJet 2800 Series PS (Microsoft) on the right. Click Next.
  10. In the Completing the Add Printer Driver Wizard page, click Finish.
  11. Repeat these instructions to install the following additional drivers:
    • HP LaserJet Series II
    • HP Color LaserJet 4500 PCL 5

SSL for VDA

If you intend to use HTML5 Receiver internally, install certificates on the VDAs so the WebSockets (and ICA) connection will be encrypted. Internal HTML5 Receivers will not accept clear text WebSockets. External users don’t have this problem since they are SSL-proxied through NetScaler Gateway. Notes:

  • Each Virtual Delivery Agent needs a machine certificate that matches the machine name. This is feasible for a small number of persistent VDAs. For non-persistent VDAs, you’ll need some automatic means for creating machine certificates every time they reboot.
  • As detailed in the following procedure, use PowerShell on the Controller to enable SSL for the Delivery Group. This forces SSL for every VDA in the Delivery Group, which means every VDA in the Delivery Group must have SSL certificates installed.

The Citrix blog post How To Secure ICA Connections in XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6 using SSL has a method for automatically provisioning certificates for pooled virtual desktops by enabling certificate auto-enrollment and setting up a task that runs after the certificate has been enrolled. Unfortunately this does not work for Remote Desktop Session Host.

The following instructions can be found at Configure SSL on a VDA using the PowerShell script at docs.citrix.com.

  1. On the VDA machine, run mmc.exe.
  2. Add the Certificates snap-in.
  3. Point it to Local Computer.
  4. Request a certificate from your internal Certificate Authority. You can use either the Computer template or the Web Server template.

    You can also use group policy to enable Certificate Auto-Enrollment for the VDA computers.
  5. Browse to the XenApp/XenDesktop 7.7 ISO. In the Support\Tools\SslSupport folder, shift+right-click the Enable-VdaSSL.ps1 script and click Copy as path.
  6. Run PowerShell as administrator (elevated).
  7. Run the command Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted. Enter Y to approve.
  8. In the PowerShell prompt, type in an ampersand (&), and a space.
  9. Right-click the PowerShell prompt to paste in the path copied earlier.
  10. At the end of the path, type in -Enable
  11. If there’s only one certificate on this machine, press Enter.
  12. If there are multiple certificates, you’ll need to specify the thumprint of the certificate you want to use. Open the Certificates snap-in, open the properties of the machine certificate you want to use, and copy the Thumbprint from the Details tab.

    In the PowerShell prompt, at the end of the command, enter ?CertificateThumbPrint, add a space, and type quotes (").
    Right-click the PowerShell prompt to paste the thumbprint.
    Type quotes (") at the end of the thumbprint. Then remove all spaces from the thumbprint. The thumbprint needs to be wrapped in quotes.
  13. If this VDA machine has a different service already listening on 443 (e.g. IIS), then the VDA needs to use a different port for SSL connections. At the end of the command in the PowerShell prompt, enter -SSLPort 444 or any other unused port.
  14. Press <Enter> to run the Enable-VdaSSL.ps1 script.
  15. Press <Y> twice to configure the ACLs and Firewall.
  16. You might have to reboot before the settings take effect.
  17. Login to a Controller and run PowerShell as Administrator (elevated).
  18. Run the command asnp Citrix.*
  19. Enter the command: 
    Get-BrokerAccessPolicyRule -DesktopGroupName '<delivery-group-name>' | Set-BrokerAccessPolicyRule ?HdxSslEnabled $true

    where <delivery-group-name> is the name of the Delivery Group containing the VDAs.

  20. You can run Get-BrokerAccessPolicyRule -DesktopGroupName '<delivery-group-name>' to verify that HDX SSL is enabled.
  21. Also run the following command: 
    Set-BrokerSite –DnsResolutionEnabled $true

You should now be able to connect to the VDA using the HTML5 Receiver from internal machines.

Anonymous Accounts

If you intend to publish apps anonymously then follow this section.

  1. Anonymous accounts are created locally on the VDAs. When XenDesktop creates Anon accounts it gives them an idle time as specified at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\AnonymousUserIdleTime. The default is 10 minutes. Adjust as desired.
  2. You can pre-create the Anon accounts on the VDA by running “C:\Program Files\Citrix\ICAConfigTool\CreateAnonymousUsersApp.exe”. If you don’t run this tool then Virtual Delivery Agent will create them automatically when users log in.
  3. You can see the local Anon accounts by opening Computer Management, expanding System Tools, expand Local Users and Groups and clicking Users.
  4. If you open one of the accounts, on the Sessions tab, notice that idle timeout defaults to 10 minutes. Feel free to change it.

Group Policy for Anonymous Users

Since Anonymous users are local accounts on each Virtual Delivery Agent, domain-based GPOs will not apply. To work around this limitation, you’ll need to edit the local group policy on each Virtual Delivery Agent.

  1. On the Virtual Delivery Agent, run gpedit.exe.
  2. Open the File menu and click Add/Remove Snap-in.
  3. Highlight Group Policy Object Editor and click Add to move it to the right.
  4. In the Welcome to the Group Policy Wizard page, click Browse.
  5. On the Users tab, select Non-Administrators.
  6. Click Finish.
  7. Now you can configure group policy to lockdown sessions for anonymous users. Since this is a local group policy, you’ll need to repeat the group policy configuration on every Virtual Delivery Agent image. Also, Group Policy Preferences is not available in local group policy.

Antivirus

Install antivirus using your normal procedure. Instructions vary for each Antivirus product.

Microsoft’s virus scanning recommendations (e.g. exclude group policy files) – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822158.

Citrix’s Recommended Antivirus Exclusions

Citrix CTX127030 Citrix Guidelines for Antivirus Software Configuration: Based on Citrix Consulting’s field experience, organizations might wish to consider configuring antivirus software on session hosts with the settings below.

  • Scan on write events or only when files are modified. It should be noted that this configuration is typically regarded as a high security risk by most antivirus vendors. In high-security environments, organizations should consider scanning on both read and write events to protect against threats that target memory, such as Conficker variants.
  • Scan local drives or disable network scanning. This assumes all remote locations, which might include file servers that host user profiles and redirected folders, are being monitored by antivirus and data integrity solutions.
  • Exclude the pagefile(s) from being scanned.
  • Exclude the Print Spooler directory from being scanned.
  • Remove any unnecessary antivirus related entries from the Run key (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run).
  • If using the streamed user profile feature of Citrix Profile management, ensure the antivirus solution is configured to be aware of Hierarchical Storage Manager (HSM) drivers. For more information, refer to Profile Streaming and Enterprise Antivirus Products.

Symantec

Symantec links:

Non-persistent session hosts:

After you have installed the Symantec Endpoint Protection client and disabled Tamper Protection, open the registry editor on the base image.

  1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection\SMC.
  2. Create a new key named Virtualization.
  3. Under Virtualization, create a key of type DWORD named IsNPVDIClient and set it to a value of 1.

To configure the purge interval for offline non-persistent session host clients:

  1. In the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager console, on the Admin page, click Domains.
  2. In the Domains tree, click the desired domain.
  3. Under Tasks, click Edit Domain Properties.
  4. On the Edit Domain Properties > General tab, check the Delete non-persistent VDI clients that have not connected for specified time checkbox and change the days value to the desired number. The Delete clients that have not connected for specified time option must be checked to access the option for offline non-persistent VDI clients.
  5. Click OK.

Make the following changes to the Communications Settings policy:

  1. Configure clients to download policies and content in Pull mode
  2. Disable the option to Learn applications that run on the client computers
  3. Set the Heartbeat Interval to no less than one hour
  4. Enable Download Randomization, set the Randomization window for 4 hours

Make the following changes to the Virus and Spyware Protection policy:

  1. Disable all scheduled scans
  2. Disable the option to “Allow startup scans to run when users log on” (This is disabled by default)
  3. Disable the option to “Run an ActiveScan when new definitions Arrive”

Avoid using features like application learning which send information to the SEPM and rely on client state to optimize traffic flow

Linked clones:

To configure Symantec Endpoint Protection to use Virtual Image Exception to bypass the scanning of base image files

  1. On the console, open the appropriate Virus and Spyware Protection policy.
  2. Under Advanced Options, click Miscellaneous.
  3. On the Virtual Images tab, check the options that you want to enable.
  4. Click OK

 

Trend Micro

Citrix CTX136680 – Slow Server Performance After Trend Micro Installation. Citrix session hosts experience slow response and performance more noticeable while users try to log in to the servers. At some point the performance of the servers is affected, resulting in issues with users logging on and requiring the server to be restarted. This issue is more noticeable on mid to large session host infrastructures.

Trend Micro has provided a registry fix for this type of issue. Create the following registry on all the affected servers. Add new DWORD Value as:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TmFilterParameters] “DisableCtProcCheck”=dword:00000001

Trend Micro Links:

Optimize Performance

VDA Optimizer

Installation of the VDA might have already done this but there’s no harm in doing it again. This tool is only available if you installed VDA in Master Image mode.

  1. On the master VDA, go to C:\Program Files\Citrix\PvsVm\TargetOSOptimizer and run TargetOSOptimizer.exe.
  2. Then click OK. Notice that it disables Windows Update.

RDSH

Citrix CTX131577 XenApp 6.x (Windows 2008 R2) – Optimization Guide is a document with several registry modifications that are supposed to improve server performance. Ignore the XenApp 6 content and instead focus on the Windows content.

Citrix CTX131995 User Cannot Launch Application in Seamless Mode in a Provisioning Services Server when XenApp Optimization Best Practices are Applied. Do not enable NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation

Norskale has Windows 2008 R2 Remote Desktop and XenApp 6 Tuning Tips Update.

Windows 7

Microsoft has compiled a list of links to various optimization guides.

It’s a common practice to optimize a Windows 7 virtual machine (VM) template (or image) specifically for VDI use. Usually such customizations include the following.

  • Minimize the footprint, e.g. disable some features and services that are not required when the OS is used in “stateless” or “non-persistent” fashion. This is especially true for disk-intensive workloads since disk I/O is a common bottleneck for VDI deployment. (Especially if there are multiple VMs with the same I/O patterns that are timely aligned).
  • Lock down user interface (e.g. optimize for specific task workers).

With that said the certain practices are quite debatable and vary between actual real-world deployments. Exact choices whether to disable this or that particular component depend on customer requirements and VDI usage patterns. E.g. in personalized virtual desktop scenario there’s much less things to disable since the machine is not completely “stateless”. Some customers rely heavily on particular UI functions and other can relatively easily trade them off for the sake of performance or standardization (thus enhance supportability and potentially security). This is one of the primary reasons why Microsoft doesn’t publish any “VDI Tuning” guide officially.

Though there are a number of such papers and even tools published either by the community or third parties. This Wiki page is aimed to serve as a consolidated and comprehensive list of such resources.

Daniel Ruiz XenDesktop Windows 7 Optimization and GPO’s Settings –

Microsoft Whitepaper Performance Optimization Guidelines for Windows 7 Desktop Virtualization

Windows 10 / Windows 8.1 / Windows 2012 R2

Optimization Notes:

  • If this machine is provisioned using Provisioning Services, do not disable the Shadow Copy services.
  • Windows 8 detects VDI and automatically disables SuperFetch. No need to disable it yourself.
  • Windows 8 automatically disables RSS and TaskOffload if not supported by the NIC.

Seal and Shut Down

If this session host will be a master image in a Machine Creation Services or Provisioning Services catalog, after the master is fully prepared (including applications), do the following:

  1. Go to the properties of the C: drive and run Disk Cleanup.
  2. On the Tools tab, click Optimize to defrag the drive.
    `
  3. Run slmgr.vbs /dlv and make sure it is licensed with KMS and has at least one rearm remaining. It is no longer necessary to manually rearm licensing. XenDesktop will do it automatically.
  4. Run Delprof2 to clean up local profiles. Get it from http://helgeklein.com/download/.
  5. Machine Creation Services and Provisioning Services require DHCP.

Session hosts commonly have DHCP reservations.

  • Shut down the master image. You can now use Studio or Provisioning Services to create a catalog of linked clones.

Troubleshooting – Graphics

If Windows 7 on vSphere, don’t install the VMware SVGA driver. For more details, see CTX201804 Intermittent Connection Failures/Black Screen Issues When Connecting from Multi-Monitor Client Machines to Windows 7 VDA with VDA 7.x on vSphere/ESXi.

For an explanation of Citrix’s graphics policy settings, see A graphical deep dive into XenDesktop 7 and What’s new with HDX display in XenDesktop & XenApp 7.x?

Citrix Knowledgebase article CTX200370 – How to Determine HDX Display Mode: Use wmic or HDX Monitor as described in the article to determine which of the following display mode options is being used:

  • DCR (Desktop Composition Redirection)
  • H.264 / H.264 Compatibility Mode
  • Legacy Graphics Mode

Citrix Blog Post – Site Wide View of HDX Graphics Modes; PowerShell script to display graphics mode of currently connected sessions.

Citrix Blog post – Optimising the performance of HDX 3D Pro – Lessons from the field

From Citrix Tips – Black Screen Issues with 7.x VDA: Users would make a successful ICA connection but the screen would stay totally black.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\vbdenum]

  • “Start”=dword:00000001
  • “MaxVideoMemoryBytes”=dword:06000000
  • “Group”= “EMS”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\vd3d]

  • “MaxVideoMemoryBytes”=dword:00000000

From Citrix Knowledgebase article CTX200257 – Screen Issues Connecting to 4K Resolution Monitors in DCR Mode:

  1. Calculate the video memory that is required for 4K monitor using the following formula:
    Sum of total monitors (Width * height * 4 * X) where width and height are resolution of the monitor.
    X = 2 if VDA is Windows 7 OR X = 3 if VDA is Windows 88.110
    Example: Suppose a Windows 7 VDA is connecting to a client that has dual 4K monitors (3840×2160), then video buffer should be: (3840×160 x 4 x 2) + (3840 x 2160 x 4 x 2) = ~115MB
  2. Open the registry (regedit) and navigate to:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\vd3d
  3. Increase the value of “MaxVideoMemoryBytes” REG_DWORD value to the above calculated memory.
  4. Reboot the VDA

From Citrix Discussions: To exclude applications from Citrix 3D rendering, create a REG_DWORD registry value “app.exe” with value 0 or a registry value “*” with value 0.

  • XD 7.1 and XD 7.5:
    • x86: reg add hklm\software\citrix\vd3d\compatibility /v * /t REG_DWORD /f /d 0
    • x64: reg add hklm\software\Wow6432Node\citrix\vd3d\compatibility /v * /t REG_DWORD /f /d 0
  • XD 7.6/7.7 both x86 and x64:
    • reg add hklm\software\citrix\vd3d\compatibility /v * /t REG_DWORD /f /d 0

Wildcards are not supported. The asterisk * here has a special meaning “all apps” but is not a traditional wildcard. To blacklist multiple apps e.g. both appa.exe and appb.exe must be done by creating a registry value for each app individually.

This is most problematic in Remote PC since most physical PCs have GPUs. I recently had to blacklist Internet Explorer to prevent lockup issues when switching back to physical.

Uninstall VDA

Uninstall the VDA from Programs and Features.

Then see CTX209255 VDA Cleanup Utility.

Related Pages

Delivery Controller 7.7

Last Modified: Nov 7, 2020 @ 6:35 am

27 Comments

Navigation

Preparation

Citrix Licensing – If you are going to use an existing Citrix Licensing Server, upgrade it to 11.13.1.2 build 16002. This is newer than what’s on the XenApp/XenDesktop 7.7 ISO.

SQL Databases

  • Citrix blog post Database Sizing Tool for XenDesktop 7 and Bugfix for Database Sizing Tool
  • Citrix article CTX114501 – Supported Databases for Citrix Products
  • There are typically three databases: one for the Site (aka farm), one for Logging (audit log) and one for Monitoring (Director).
    • The monitoring database name must not have any spaces in it. See CTX200325 Database Naming Limitation when Citrix Director Accesses Monitoring Data Using OData APIs
    • If you want Citrix Studio to create the SQL databases automatically, then the person running Studio must be a sysadmin on the SQL instances. No lesser role will work.
    • As an alternative, you can use Citrix Studio to create SQL scripts and then run those scripts on the SQL server. In that case you only need the dbcreator and securityadmin roles.
    • It is possible to create the databases in advance. However, you must use the non-default Latin1_General_100_CI_AS_KS collation. Then use Citrix Studio to configure the database tables.
  • Citrix recommends SQL Mirroring because it has the fastest failover.
    • SQL Mirroring requires two SQL Standard Edition servers and one SQL Express for the witness server.
    • You can setup SQL Mirroring either before installing XenDesktop or after installing XenDesktop. If after, then see Citrix CTX140319 to manually change XenDesktop’s database connection strings How to Migrate XenDesktop Database to New SQL Server.
    • To setup SQL Mirroring, see Rob Cartwright: Configure SQL Mirroring For Use With XenDesktop, XenApp, and PVS Databases.
    • If you try to stretch the mirror across datacenters, the SQL witness must be placed in a third datacenter that has connectivity to the other two datacenters. However, stretching a single XenApp/XenDesktop site/farm and corresponding SQL mirror across datacenters is not recommended.
  • AlwaysOn Availability Groups and SQL Clustering are also supported. However, these features require the much more expensive SQL Enterprise Edition.

Windows Features

  • Installing Group Policy Management on the Delivery Controller lets you edit GPOs and have access to the Citrix Policies node in the GPO Editor. Or you can install Studio on a different machine that has GPMC installed.
  • vSphere Web Client – if you will connect to vSphere Web Client from the Controller machine, Flash Player is only available for IE if you install the Desktop Experience feature. Or you can use Google Chrome.

vSphere

Delivery Controller Install

  1. A typical size for the Controller VMs is 2-4 vCPU and 8 GB of RAM.
  2. On two Delivery Controllers, install the Delivery Controller software from the XenApp/XenDesktop 7.7 media. Download it from XenApp Enterprise, XenApp Platinum, XenDesktop Enterprise, or XenDesktop Platinum, depending on your license. Go to the downloaded XenDesktop 7.7 ISO and run AutoSelect.exe.
  3. Click Start next to either XenApp or XenDesktop. The only difference is the product name displayed in the installation wizard.
  4. On the left, click Delivery Controller.
  5. You can install all components on one server or on separate servers. Splitting them out is only necessary in large environments or if you want to share the components (e.g. Licensing, StoreFront, Director) across multiple farms.
  6. In the Features page, uncheck the box next to Install Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 Express and click Next.
  7. In the Summary page, click Install.
  8. In the Installation Successful page, click Finish. Studio will automatically launch.
  9. Ensure the two Controller VMs do not run on the same hypervisor host. Create an anti-affinity rule.

Citrix Studio 7.7 Hotfix 1

Without this fix, you can’t enter quotes in the command line arguments field of published apps.

  1. Go to the downloaded Citrix Studio 7.7 Hotfix 1 (DStudio770WX64001) and run DesktopStudio_x64.msi.
  2. In the Please read the Citrix Studio License Agreement page, check the box next to I accept the terms and click Install.
  3. In the Completed the Citrix Studio Setup Wizard page, click Finish.
  4. Programs and Features shows the updated version.

Create Site

There are several methods of creating the databases for XenApp/XenDesktop:

  • If you have sysadmin permissions to SQL, let Citrix Studio create the databases automatically.
  • If you don’t have sysadmin permissions to SQL then use Citrix Studio to generate SQL scripts and send them to a DBA.

Database Mirroring

If you are not using database mirroring then skip to the next section.

You can setup SQL Mirroring either before configuring XenDesktop or after configuring XenDesktop.

  • If before, then the empty databases (Site, Logging, Monitoring) must use the Latin1_General_100_CI_AS_KS collation, which is not the default.
  • If SQL Mirroring is already setup then XenDesktop will detect it and set the database connection strings accordingly. Or you can manually change the database connection strings later as detailed at Citrix CTX140319 How to Migrate XenDesktop Database to New SQL Server.
  • If you use Citrix Studio to create SQL scripts that populate the databases, then there will be separate SQL scripts for the Primary and Partner.

To verify mirroring after the XenDesktop configuration has completed, run the PowerShell cmdlet get-configdbconnection and ensure that the Failover Partner has been set in the connection string to the mirror.

 

Use Studio to Create Database Scripts

  1. Launch Citrix Studio. After it loads, click Deliver applications and desktops to your users.
  2. In the Introduction page, select An empty, unconfigured site. This reduces the number of pages in this Setup wizard. The other pages will be configured later.
  3. Enter a Site Name (aka farm name) and click Next. Only administrators see the farm name.
  4. In the Databases page, change the selection to Generate scripts to manually set up databases on the database server.
  5. Change the database names if desired.
  6. If you are building two Controllers, click Select near the bottom of the same page.
  7. Click Add.
  8. Enter the FQDN of the second Controller and click OK. Note: the Delivery Controller software must already be installed on that machine.
  9. Then click Save.
  10. If you hover your mouse over 2 selected, it will show both Controllers. Click Next.
  11. In the Summary page, click Generate scripts.
  12. A folder will open with six scripts. Edit each of the scripts.
  13. Near the top of each script are two lines to create the database. Uncomment both lines (including the go line). Then save and close the file.

  14. Once all of the scripts are edited you can send them to your DBA.
  15. On the Principal SQL Server, open the file Site_Principal.sql.

  16. Open the Query menu and click SQLCMD Mode.
  17. Then execute the script.
  18. If SQLCMD mode was enabled properly then the output should look something like this:
  19. If you have a mirrored database, run the second script on the mirror SQL instance. Make sure SQLCMD mode is enabled.


  20. Repeat for the Logging_Pricipal.sql script.
  21. You’ll have to enable SQLCMD Mode for each script you open.


  22. Repeat for the Monitoring_Principal.sql script.
  23. Once again enable SQLCMD Mode.


  24. The person running Citrix Studio must be added to the SQL Server as a SQL Login and granted the public server role.

  25. Back in Citrix Studio, click the Continue database configuration and Site setup button.
  26. In the Database page, enter the SQL server name and instance name and click Next.

  27. On the Licensing page, enter the name of the Citrix License Server and click Connect.
  28. XenApp/XenDesktop 7.7 requires the newest Licensing Server. If your server isn’t compatible, leave it set to localhost and fix it later.
  29. If the Certificate Authentication appears, select Connect me and click Confirm.
  30. Then select your license and click Next.
  31. In the Summary page, make your selection for Customer Experience Improvement Program and click Finish.
  32. It will take some time for the site to be created.

Verify Database Mirroring

If your database is mirrored, when you run get-brokerdbconnection, you’ll see the Failover Partner in the database connection string.

Second Controller

There are several methods of adding a second Controller to the databases for XenApp/XenDesktop:

  • If you have sysadmin permissions to SQL, let Citrix Studio modify the databases automatically.
  • If you don’t have sysadmin permissions to SQL then do use Citrix Studio to generate SQL scripts and send them to a DBA.

To use Citrix Studio to create the SQL Scripts:

  1. On the 1st Delivery Controller, if StoreFront is installed, delete the default StoreFront store (/Citrix/Store) and recreate it with your desired Store name (e.g. /Citrix/CompanyStore).
  2. On the 2nd Delivery Controller, install XenDesktop as detailed earlier.
  3. After running Studio, click Connect this Delivery Controller to an existing Site.
  4. Enter the name of the first Delivery Controller and click OK.
  5. If you don’t have elevated SQL permissions, click No when asked if you want to update the database automatically.
  6. Click Generate scripts.
  7. A folder will open with six scripts. If not mirroring, then the top three scripts need to be sent to a DBA. If mirroring, send all six.
  8. On the SQL Server, open open one of the .sql files.

  9. Open the Query menu and click SQLCMD Mode.
  10. Then execute the XenDesktop script.
  11. If SQLCMD mode was enabled properly then the output should look something like this:
  12. Back in Citrix Studio, click OK.
  13. In the Studio, under Configuration > Controllers, you should see both controllers.
  14. You can also test the site again if desired.

Studio – Slow Launch

From B.J.M. Groenhout at Citrix Discussions: The following adjustments can be made if Desktop Studio (and other Citrix management Consoles) will start slowly:

  • Within Internet Explorer, go to Tools – Internet Options – Tab Advanced – Section Security and uncheck the option Check for publisher’s certificate revocation

After adjustment Desktop Studio (MMC) will be started immediately. Without adjustment it may take some time before Desktop Studio (MMC) is started.

Registry setting (can be deployed using Group Policy Preferences):

  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinTrust\Trust Providers\Software Publishing
    • “State“=dword:00023e00

Database Maintenance

View Logging Database

To view the contents of the Logging Database, in Studio, click the Logging node. On the right is Create Custom Report. See Citrix article CTX138132 Viewing Configuration Logging Data Not Shown for more info.

Enable Read-Committed Snapshot

The XenDesktop Database can become heavily utilized under load in a large environment. Therefore Citrix recommends enabling the Read_Committed_Snapshot option on the XenDesktop databases to remove contention on the database from read queries. This can improve the interactivity of Studio and Director. It should be noted that this option may increase the load on the tempdb files. See Citrix article CTX137161 How to Enable Read-Committed Snapshot in XenDesktop for configuration instructions.

Change Database Connection Strings

Sometimes the database connection strings need to be modified:

  • When moving the SQL databases to a different SQL server
  • When enabling mirroring after the databases have already been configured in Studio.

CTX140319 How to Migrate XenDesktop Database to New SQL Server has the correctly ordered list of PowerShell commands to change the database connection strings. Make sure PowerShell is running as administrator before running these commands.

Step 5 assumes Site, Monitoring, and Logging are one database so you’ll need to adjust the commands if those databases are split. In particular, change $cs in Set-LogDBConnection -DataStore Logging -DBConnection $cs to the Logging database. And change $cs in Set-MonitorDBConnection -DataStore Monitor -DBConnection $cs to the Monitoring database. The other commands don’t need to be changed.

Director Grooming

If XenDesktop is not Platinum Edition then all historical Director data is groomed at 7 days.

For XenDesktop/XenApp Platinum Edition, by default, most of the historical Director data is groomed at 90 days. This can be adjusted up to 367 days by running a PowerShell applet.

  1. On a Delivery Controller, run PowerShell and run asnp Citrix.*

  2. Run Get-MonitorConfiguration to see the current grooming settings.
  3. Run Set-MonitorConfiguration to change the grooming settings.

Studio Administrators

Full Administrators

  1. In the Studio, under Configuration, click the Administrators node. The first time you access the node you’ll see a Welcome page. Feel free to check the box and then click Close.
  2. On the Administrators tab, right-click and click Create Administrator.
  3. In the Administrator and Scope page, specify a group (e.g. Citrix Admins or Help Desk) that will have permissions to Studio and Director. Click Next.
  4. On the Role page, select a role and then click Next. For example:
    • Full Administrator for the Citrix Admins group
    • Help Desk Administrator for the Help Desk group
    • Machine Catalog Administrator for the desktop team
  5. In the Summary page, click Finish.

Help Desk

  1. In the Studio, under Configuration, click the Administrators node. On the Administrators tab, right-click and click Create Administrator.
  2. In the Administrator and Scope page, specify a Help Desk group that will have permissions to Studio and Director. Click Next.
  3. On the Role page, select the Help Desk Administrator role and then click Next.
  4. In the Summary page, click Finish.
  5. When administrators in the Help Desk role log into Director, all they see is this.

    To jazz it up a little, add the Help Desk group to the read-only role.
  6. Right-click the Help Desk Administrator and click Edit Administrator.
  7. Click Add.
  8. In the Scope page, select a scope and click Next.
  9. In the Role page, select Read Only Administrator and click Next.
  10. In the Summary page, click Finish.
  11. Then click OK. Now Director will display the dashboard.

Provisioning Services w/Personal vDisk

From Citrix docs.citrix.com: The Provisioning Services Soap Service account must be added to the Administrator node of Studio and must have the Machine Administrator or higher role. This ensures that the PvD desktops are put into the Preparing state when the Provisioning Services (PVS) vDisk is promoted to production.

vCenter Connection

XenDesktop uses an Active Directory service account to log into vCenter. This account needs specific permissions in vCenter. To facilitate assigning these permissions, create a new vCenter role and assign it to the XenDesktop service account. The permissions should be applied at the datacenter or higher level. CTX214389 How to Define VMware vSphere User Privileges for XenApp and XenDesktop defines the minimum permissions needed for various activities in XenDesktop: MCS, PvS, Power Management, and AppDisks.  💡

Import vCenter Certificate

If you replaced the certificates on your vCenter server, then skip this section.

If vCenter is using a self-signed certificate, in order for Delivery Controller to trust the vCenter certificate, you must import the vCenter certificate on both Delivery Controllers.

  1. Open a browser and connect to your vCenter Server.
  2. Click the padlock and then view the certificate.
  3. On the Details tab, click Copy to File.
  4. Save the certificate in any format.

  5. On each Delivery Controller, run mmc.exe. Open the File menu and click Add/Remove Snap-in. If your server is Windows Server 2012 R2 or newer, you can skip a few steps by running certlm.msc.
  6. Move the Certificates snap-in to the right by highlighting it and clicking Add.
  7. Select Computer account and click Next.
  8. Select Local computer and click Finish.
  9. Click OK.
  10. After adding the snap-in, right-click the Trusted People node, expand All Tasks and click Import.
  11. In the Welcome to the Certificate Import Wizard page, click Next.
  12. In the File to Import page, browse to the certificate file you exported earlier. Click Next.
  13. In the Certificate Store page, click Next.
  14. In the Completing the Certificate Import Wizard page, click Finish.
  15. Click OK to acknowledge that the import was successful.
  16. Repeat these steps on the second Controller. It is important that you do both Controllers before adding the vCenter connection.

Hosting Resources

A Hosting Resource = vCenter + Cluster (Resource Pool) + Storage + Network. When you create a machine catalog, you select a previously defined Hosting Resource and the Cluster, Storage, and Network defined in the Hosting Resource object are automatically selected. If you need some desktops on a different Cluster+Storage+Network then you’ll need to define more Hosting Resources in Studio.

  1. In Studio, expand Configuration and click Hosting. Right-click it and click Add Connection and Resources.
  2. In the Connection page, select VMware vSphere as the Host type.
  3. Enter https://vcenter01.corp.local/sdk as the vCenter URL. The URL must contain the FQDN of the vCenter server. If the vCenter certificate is self-signed, ensure it is added to the Trusted People certificate store on all Delivery Controllers. Ensure the entered URL has /sdk on the end.
  4. Enter credentials of a service account. Click Next.
  5. Enter a name for the hosting resource. Since each hosting resource is a combination of vCenter, Cluster, Network, and Datastore, include those names in this field (e.g. vCenter01-Cluster01-Network01-Datastore01).
  6. In the Cluster page, click Browse and select a cluster or resource pool.
  7. Select a network and click Next.
  8. On the Storage page, select a datastore for the virtual machines. Maximum flexibility is achievable if you only select one datastore per hosting resource. Create additional hosting resources for each datastore.
  9. If desired, change the selection for personal vDisk to use a different storage. Click Next.
  10. In the Summary page, click Finish.

Citrix Director

Director on Standalone Server

If you are installing Director 7.7 on a standalone server, see Citrix CTX142260 Installing or Upgrading to Citrix Director 7.6.200

  1. If you intend to install Director on a standalone server, start with running AutoSelect.exe from the XenApp/XenDesktop 7.7 media.
  2. On the right, click Citrix Director.
  3. It will ask you for the location of one Controller in the farm. Then finish the installation wizard.
  4. In IIS Manager, go to Default Web Site > Director > Application Settings, find Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses and make sure it points to a Controller and not to localhost.

  5. If you built multiple Director servers, then use NetScaler to load balance them.

Director Single Sign-on

You can configure Director 7.7 to support Integrated Windows Authentication (Single Sign-on). Note: there seem to be issues when not connecting from the local machine or when connecting through a load balancer.

  1. Run IIS Manager. You can launch it from Server Manager (Tools menu) or from the Start Menu or by running inetmgr.
  2. On the left, expand Sites, expand Default Web Site, and click Director.
  3. In the middle, double-click Authentication in the IIS section. 
  4. Right-click Windows Authentication and Enable it.
  5. Right-click Anonymous Authentication and Disable it.
  6. Pass-through auth won’t work from another computer until you set the http SPN for the Director server. See Director 7.7 Windows Authentication not working with NS LB at discussions.citrix.com.
  7. If Director is not installed on a Controller then you’ll need to configure Kerberos delegation.
  8. If you are load balancing Director then additional config is required. See Director 7.7 Windows Authentication not working with NS LB at discussions.citrix.com for more info.
    1. Create an AD service account that will be used as the Director’s ApplicationPoolIdentity.
    2. Create SPN and link it to the service account. 
      setspn -S http/loadbalanced_URL domain\user
    3. Trust the user account for delegation to any service (Kerberos only) (trust the Director servers for delegation is not necessary in this case). You have to create the SPN before you can do this step.
    4. In IIS manager, on the Application Pools (Director), specify the Identity as user we have created in step 1.
    5. In IIS manager, select Default Web Site and open the Configuration Editor.
    6. Use the drop-down to navigate to the following section:

      system.webServer/security/authentication/windowsAuthentication
    7. Set useAppPoolCredentials = True and useKernelMode = False. Click Apply on the top right.

  9. When you connect to Director you will be automatically logged in. You can change the login account by first logging off.
  10. Then change the drop-down to User credentials.

Director – Multiple XenDesktop Sites

  1. Run IIS Manager. You can launch it from Server Manager (Tools menu) or from the Start Menu or by running inetmgr.
  2. On the left, expand Sites, expand Default Web Site, and click Director.
  3. In the middle pane, double-click Application Settings.
  4. Find the entry for Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses and double-click it.
  5. If Director is installed on a Controller, localhost should already be entered.
  6. Add a comma and the NetBIOS name of one of the controllers in the 2nd XenDesktop Site (farm). Only enter one Controller name. If you have multiple Director servers, you can point each Director server to a different Controller in the 2nd XenDesktop Site (farm).
  7. According to Citrix CTX200543 Desktop Director Access Fails After XenDesktop 7.5 is Upgraded to 7.6, the addresses should be NetBIOS names, not FQDN. Click OK.

Director Alerts and Notifications

Director 7.7 supports alert conditions and email notifications. This feature requires XenApp/XenDesktop to be licensed with Platinum Edition. See Citrix Blog Post Configuring & Managing Alerts and Notifications Using Director for more information.

  1. While logged into Director, at the top of the page click the Alerts button.
  2. Switch to the Email Server Configuration tab.
  3. Enter your SMTP information and click Send Test Message. Then click Save.

  4. Switch to the Citrix Alerts Policy tab.
  5. There are three high-level categories of alerts: Site Policy, Delivery Group Policy, and Server OS Policy. Click whichever one you want to configure.
  6. Then click Create.
  7. Give the alert a name.
  8. On the bottom left, select a condition and enter thresholds.
  9. On the bottom right, in the Notifications preferences section, click Add.
  10. Enter an email address and click Add.
  11. Click Save when done. Feel free to create more alerts and notifications.
  12. Citrix has an experimental Desktop Notification Tool. See Citrix Blog Post Desktop Notification Tool For Citrix XenDesktop. 💡
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Director – SCOM Integration

Director 7.7 can display alerts from System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2. This feature requires XenApp/XenDesktop Platinum Edition.

  1. See Configure SCOM integration at docs.citrix.com for detailed configuration instructions. Also see Marius Sandbu Integrating Citrix XenDesktop 7.7 and System Center Operations Manager.
  2. If Director server or System Center Operations Manager server is 2008 R2, then login to the 2008 R2 server, open PowerShell and run Enable-PSRemoting. Yes to everything. This is not needed on Windows Server 2012 R2 servers.
  3. On Director 7.7 server, run C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Director\tools\DirectorConfig.exe /configscom
  4. FYI, the DirectorConfig.exe /configscom command enables the following features on the Director server: /FeatureName:IIS-NetFxExtensibility45 /FeatureName:IIS-ASPNET45 /FeatureName:WCF-HTTP-Activation45
  5. FYI, the System Center Operations Manager server is listed in IIS Manager at Default Web Site > Director > Application Settings (middle pane) > Connector.SCOM.ManagementServer.
  6. On the System Center Operations Manager server, edit Remote Management Users local group and add Citrix Admins and other Director users.
  7. In System Center Operations Manager Console, go to Administration > User Roles and edit Operations Manager Operators. Add the Citrix Admins and other Director users.
  8. See Citrix Blog Post SCOM Alerts in Citrix Director for information on how to view System Center Operations Manager alerts in Director.

Director Tweaks

Prepopulate the domain field

From http://www.xenblog.dk/?p=33: On the Controllers having the Director role installed, locate and edit the ‘LogOn.aspx’ file. By default you can find it at “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Director\Logon.aspx”

In line 450 you will have the following. To find the line, search for ID=”Domain”. Note: onblur and onfocus attributes were added in newer versions of Director.

<asp:TextBox ID="Domain" runat="server" CssClass="text-box" onfocus="showIndicator(this);" onblur="hideIndicator(this);"></asp:TextBox>

In the ID=”Domain” element, insert a Text attribute and set it to your domain name. Don’t change or add any other attributes. Save the file.

<asp:TextBox ID="Domain" runat="server" Text="Corp" CssClass="text-box" onfocus="showIndicator(this);" onblur="hideIndicator(this);"></asp:TextBox>

This will prepopulate the domain field text box with your domain name and still allow the user to change it, if that should be required. Note: this only seems to work if Single Sign-on is disabled.

Session timeout

By default the idle time session limit of the Director is 245 min. If you wish to change the timeout, here is how to do it.

  1. Log on to the Director Server as an administrator
  2. Open the ‘IIS Manager’
  3. Browse to ‘SitesDefault Web SiteDirector’ in the left hand pane.
  4. Open ‘Session State’ in the right hand pane
  5. Change the ‘Time-out (in minutes)’ value under ‘Cookie Settings’
  6. Click ‘Apply’ in the Actions list

SSL Check

From http://euc.consulting/blog/citrix-desktop-director-2-1: If you are not securing Director with an SSL certificate you will get this error at the logon screen.

To stop this:

  1. Log on to the Director Server as an administrator
  2. Open the ‘IIS Manager’
  3. Browse to ‘SitesDefault Web SiteDirector’ in the left hand pane.
  4. Open ‘Application Settings’ in the right hand pane
  5. Set EnableSslCheck to false.

Disable Activity Manager

From docs.citrix.com: By default, the Activity Manager in Director displays a list of all the running applications and the Windows description in the title bars of any open applications for the user’s session. This information can be viewed by all administrators that have access to the Activity Manager feature in Director. For Delegated Administrator roles, this includes Full administrator, Delivery Group administrator, and Help Desk Administrator.

To protect the privacy of users and the applications they are running, you can disable the Applications tab from listing running applications.

  • On the VDA, modify the registry key located at HKLM\Software\Citrix\Director\TaskManagerDataDisplayed. By default, the key is set to 1. Change the value to 0, which means the information will not be displayed in the Activity Manager.
  • On the server with Director installed, modify the setting that controls the visibility of running applications. By default, the value is true, which allows visibility of running applications in the Applications Change the value to false, which disables visibility. This option affects only the Activity Manager in Director, not the VDA. Modify the value of the following setting:
    UI.TaskManager.EnableApplications = false

Large Active Directory

From CTX133013 Desktop Director User Account Search Process is Slow or Fails: By default, all the Global Catalogs for the Active Directory Forest are searched using Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). In a large Active Directory environment, this query can take some time or even time out.

  1. In Information Server (IIS) Management, under the Desktop Director site, select Application Settings and add a new value called ActiveDirectory.ForestSearch. Set it to False. This disables searching any domain except the user’s domain and the server’s domain.
  2. To search more domains, add the searchable domain or domains in the ActiveDirectory.Domains field.

Site Groups

From Citrix Blog Post Citrix Director 7.6 Deep-Dive Part 4: Troubleshooting Machines:

If there are a large number of machines, the Director administrator can now configure site groups to perform machine search so that they can narrow down searching for the machine inside a site group. The site groups can be created on the Director server by running the configuration tool via command line by running the command:

C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Director\tools\DirectorConfig.exe /createsitegroups

Then provide a site group name and IP address of the delivery controller of the site to create the site group.

Director – Saved Filters

From Scott Osborne and Jarian Gibson at Citrix Discussions: In Director, you can create a filter and save it.

The saved filter is then accessible from the Filters menu structure.

The saved filters are stored on each Director server at C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Director\UserData. Observations:

  • Each user has their own saved filters.
  • The saved filters are not replicated across Director servers. You can schedule a robocopy script to do this automatically.
  • When upgrading Director, the saved filters are deleted?

Director – Custom and Scheduled Reports

The Monitoring database contains more data than is exposed in Director. To view this data, the Monitoring service has an OData Data Feed that can be queried.

You can use Excel to pull data from the OData Data feed. See Citrix Blog Post – Citrix Director – Analyzing the Monitoring Data by Means of Custom Reports. This particular blog post shows how to use an Excel PivotChart to display the connected Receiver versions.

Or for Linqpad, see Citrix Blog Post – Creating Director Custom reports for Monitoring XenDesktop using Linqpad

Go to Citrix Blog Post Obtain XenDesktop Custom report through Citrix Director and download the tool. Once installed you can create custom reports from within Director.

Citrix Licensing Server

Upgrade

Upgrade Citrix Licensing to 11.13.1.2. This is newer than what’s on the XenApp/XenDesktop 7.7 ISO.  💡

  1. Go to the downloaded Citrix Licensing 11.13.1.2 build 16002 and run CitrixLicensing.exe.
  2. Click Upgrade.
  3. Click Finish.
  4. If you go to Programs and Features, it should now show version 11.1.0.16002.
  5. If you login to the license server web console, on the Administration tab, it shows it as version 11.13.1 build 16002.
  6. You can also view the version in the registry at HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Citrix\LicenseServer\Install.

Licensing Server HA using GSLB

From Dane Young – Creating a Bulletproof Citrix Licensing Server Infrastructure using NetScaler Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) and CtxLicChk.ps1 PowerShell Scripts. Here is a summary of the configuration steps. See the blog post for detailed configuration instructions.

  1. Build two License Servers in each datacenter with identical server names. Since server names are identical, they can’t be domain-joined.
  2. Install identical licenses on all License Servers.
  3. Set the DisableStrictNameChecking registry key on all Citrix Licensing servers.
  4. Synchronize the certificate files located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\Licensing\WebServicesForLicensing\Apache\conf. They must be identical on all Licensing Servers.
  5. Download CtxLicChk.exe from http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123935 and place on all Licensing Servers.
  6. Schedule the PowerShell script CtxLicChk.ps1 on all Licensing Servers. Get this script from the blog post linked above.
  7. Configure NetScaler:
    1. Configure GSLB ADNS services.
    2. Add wildcard Load Balancing service for each Citrix Licensing Server.
    3. Configure service TCP monitoring for ports 27000, 7279, 8082, and 8083.
    4. Create Load Balancing Virtual Server for each Licensing Server.
    5. Set one Load Balancing Virtual Server as backup for the other.
    6. Repeat in second datacenter.
    7. Configure GSLB Services and GSLB Monitoring.
    8. Configure GSLB Virtual Servers. Set one GSLB Virtual Server as backup for the other.
  8. Delegate the Citrix Licensing DNS name to the ADNS services on the NetScaler appliances.
  9. Configure Citrix Studio to point to the GSLB-enabled DNS name for Citrix Licensing.

Citrix License Server Monitoring

Citrix Licensing 11.13.1 and newer has historical usage reporting:  💡

  1. Run Citrix Licensing Manager from the Start Menu. Or use a browser to connect to https://MyLicenseServer:8083
  2. Use the drop-down menus to select a license type, select dates, and export to a .csv file.
  3. On the top right is a gear icon where you can set the historical retention period.

http://www.jonathanmedd.net/2011/01/monitor-citrix-license-usage-with-powershell.html.

Lal Mohan – Citrix License Usage Monitoring Using Powershell

Jaroslaw Sobel – Monitoring Citrix Licenses usage – Graphs using WMI, Powershell and RRDtool. This script generates a graph similar to the following:

CtxLicUsage-1d_

Remote Desktop Licensing Server

Install Remote Desktop Licensing Server

Do the following on your XenDesktop Controllers:

  1. In Server Manager, open the Manage menu and click Add Roles and Features.
  2. Click Next until you get to the Server Roles page. Check the box next to Remote Desktop Services and click Next.
  3. Click Next until you get to the Role Services page. Check the box next to Remote Desktop Licensing and click Next.
  4. Click Add Features if prompted.
  5. Then finish the wizard to install the role service.

Activate Remote Desktop Licensing

  1. After RD Licensing is installed, in Server Manager, open the Tool menu, expand Terminal Services and click Remote Desktop Licensing Manager.
  2. The tool should find the local server. If it does not, right-click All servers, click Connect and type in the name of the local server. Once the local server can be seen in the list, right-click the server and click Activate Server.
  3. In the Welcome to the Activate Server Wizard page, click Next.
  4. In the Connection Method page, click Next.
  5. In the Company Information page, enter the required information and click Next.
  6. All of the fields on the Company Information page are optional so you do not have to enter anything. Click Next.
  7. In the Completing the Activate Server Wizard page, uncheck the box next to Start Install Licenses Wizard now and click Finish. Since the session hosts will be configured to pull Per User licenses, there is no need to install licenses on the RD Licensing Server.
  8. In RD Licensing Manager, right-click the server and click Review Configuration.
  9. Ensure you have green check marks. If the person installing Remote Desktop Licensing does not have permissions to add the server to the Terminal Server License Servers group in Active Directory, ask a domain admin to do it manually. If you have the proper permissions, click Add to Group.
  10. Click Continue when prompted that you must have Domain Admins privileges.
  11. Click OK when prompted that the computer account has been added.
  12. Click OK to close the window.

Health Check

Andrew Morgan – New Free Tool: Citrix Director Notification Service: The Citrix Director Notification service sits on an edge server as a service (or local to the delivery controller) and periodically checks the health of:

  • Citrix Licensing.
  • Database Connections.
  • Broker Service.
  • Core Services.
  • Hypervisor Connections.

And if any of these items fall out of bounds, an SMTP alert is sent to the mailbox of your choice for action. The tool will also send “All Clear” emails when these items are resolved, ensuring you are aware when the service has resumed a healthy state.

Related Pages

Windows Server 2008 R2 Post-SP1 Hotfixes

Last Modified: Sep 2, 2018 @ 7:47 am

20 Comments

Convenience Rollup

On May 17, 2016, Microsoft released a Convenience Rollup for Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7. This Rollup includes almost all fixes released after SP1 through April 2016. See the article for the list of excluded hotfixes.

  1. If you have not yet run Windows Updates, download and install 3020369.
  2. Then install the Convenience Rollup hotfix by running AMD64-all-windows6.1-kb3125574-v4-x64.msu. This hotfix is 476 MB.
  3. Click Yes to install the software update.

Individual Hotfixes

Alternatively, you can install individual hotfixes. These hotfixes are specific to Remote Desktop Session Host, group policies, printing, and SMB redirector and are not included in the normal Windows Update process. To get the hotfix go to the Microsoft KB article’s webpage. There is a link at the top of the page that takes you to a form where you can request the hotfix.

Available Updates for Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services) on Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 – https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2601888.

Citrix CTX129229 Recommended Hotfixes for XenApp 6.x on Windows Server 2008 R2. Scroll down to the Microsoft Hotfixes section.

Here is the list of hotfixes:

XenApp 6.5 Updates

Last Modified: Sep 2, 2018 @ 7:53 am

59 Comments

This page contains a list of available XenApp 6.5 updates. It it not meant to be a comprehensive build procedure. Many of the updates are Limited Release and thus are only accessible to Citrix Partners and Citrix Support.

Navigation

💡 = Recently Updated

XenApp 6.5 Hotfix Rollup Pack 7

From CTX120842 Best Practices for Citrix XenApp Hotfix Rollup Pack Installation and Deployment: Citrix recommends the following order of deployment:

  • Zone data collector
  • Backup zone data collectors
  • Database connection server (Applies only to Resource Manager for XenApp 5 for Microsoft Windows Server 2003)
  • Primary farm metric server (Applies only to Resource Manager for XenApp 5 for Microsoft Windows Server 2003)
  • Backup farm metric server (Applies only to Resource Manager for XenApp 5 for Microsoft Windows Server 2003)
  • Member servers

To install a Hotfix Rollup Pack, do the following:

  1. Go to the downloaded Hotfix Rollup Pack 7, shift+right-click XA650W2K8R2X64R07.msp and click Copy as path.
  2. Run cmd.exe elevated.
  3. Right-click the command prompt and paste the path. Then press <Enter> to run it.

  4. In the Welcome to the Citrix XenApp 6.5 Hotfix Rollup Pack 7 Installation Wizard page, click Next.
  5. In the Citrix XenApp has been successfully configured page, click Close.
  6. Click OK when prompted to reboot.

XenApp 6.5 Hotfixes

Download post-R07 hotfixes from support.citrix.com by searching for XA650R07*. For example, Hotfix 11 contains a fix for the Citrix Print Management Service.  💡

Citrix CTX129229 Recommended Hotfixes for XenApp 6.x on Windows Server 2008 R2.

If you have several hotfixes to install, create a script similar to the following to install the hotfixes automatically.

for /f %%i in ('dir /b "%~dp0*650W2K8R2R07*.msp"') do (
start /wait msiexec /p "%~dp0%%i" /passive /norestart /l*v "%temp%\%%i.log"
timeout /t 3 /NOBREAK
)
pause

Then run the script elevated.

AppCenter 6.5.13

  1. Go to the downloaded Citrix AppCenter 6.5 Hotfix 13 (DSCXAMx650W013) and run XenAppMx.msi.
  2. If you see this message, click OK.
  3. After installation, in Programs and Features, Citrix XenApp Management will be shown as version 6.5.13.0.

XenApp Commands Hotfix 4

  1. Go to the downloaded XenApp Commands Hotfix 4 (DSCXACmd650WX64004) and run XenApp.Commands.Install_x64.msi.
  2. In the Please read the Citrix XenApp Commands License Agreement page, check the box next to I accept and click Install.
  3. If you see a Files in Use page, click OK.
  4. In the Completed the Citrix XenApp Commands Setup Wizard page, click Finish.
  5. Programs and Features lists Citrix XenApp Commands as version 6.5.4.1.

Citrix Group Policy Management 1.7.11

  1. Go to the downloaded Citrix Group Policy Management 1.7.11 (GPMx170WX64011) and run CitrixGroupPolicyManagement_x64.msi. It installs automatically.  Note: this hotfix might break AD GPOs.
  2. Programs and Features shows it as version 1.7.11.0.
  3. This update adds a new Citrix Policy setting at Computer > Server Settings > Graceful session logoff: ignore process. This is equivalent to LogoffCheckSysModules.

Uninstall Citrix Single Sign-on Console

If you have no desire to implement Citrix Single Sign-on then uninstall the console.

  1. Go to Programs and Features, right-click Citrix Single Sign-on Console and click Change.
  2. On the Application Maintenance page, select Remove and click Next.
  3. On the Citrix Single Sign-On Console Uninstall page, click Next.
  4. On the Citrix Single Sign-on Console 5.0 has been successfully uninstalled page, click Finish.

HDX WMI Provider Update 1

  1. Run Programs and Features, right-click Citrix HDX WMI Provider and click Uninstall. Notice that the version is currently 2.0.0.0
  2. Go to the downloaded Citrix HDX WMI Provider Update 1 (HDXWMIPROV620W2K8R2X64001) and run CitrixHDXWMIProvider-x64.msi. It installs automatically.
  3. Programs and Features will now show it as version 2.0.1.0.

HDX MediaStream for Flash 2.0 Hotfix 9

  1. Run Programs and Features, right-click Citrix HDX MediaStream for Flash – Server and click Uninstall. Notice that the version is currently 2.0.0.0
  2. Go to the downloaded HDXFlash200WX64009 and run CitrixHDXMediaStreamForFlash-ServerInstall-x64.msi.
  3. If you refresh Programs and Features, it now shows the version as 2.0.9.0.
  4. The article details a registry key that needs to be configured.

Server Configuration Tool 1.2 Hotfix 3

  1. Go to the downloaded Server Configuration Tool 120.003 and run ServerConfigurationInstall.msi. It installs automatically without prompting.
  2. You can verify installation by looking in Programs and Features. Citrix XenApp Server Configuration Tool should be version 1.2.3.0.

Service Provider Automation Tools

  1. Run the downloaded CitrixAppDeliverySetupTools.exe.
  2. Click OK once installation is complete.
  3. Programs and Features lists Citrix App Delivery Setup Tools as version 1.0.2.300.

Citrix Receiver Enterprise 3.4 Update 5

  1. Run the downloaded Citrix Receiver Enterprise 3.4 Cumulative Update 5 (CitrixReceiverEnterprise.exe).
  2. On the Welcome to Citrix Receiver Setup page, click Install.
  3. Click Yes to reboot when prompted.
  4. Programs and Features lists Citrix Receiver (Enterprise) as version 13.4.500.4.

Offline Plug-in 6.7.6

  1. Go to the downloaded Offline Plug-in 6.7.6 and run CitrixOfflinePlugin.exe.
  2. In the Welcome to the Citrix Offline plug-in Setup page, click Next.
  3. In the License Agreement page, select I accept the license agreement and click Next.
  4. In the Client Upgrade Options page, click Next.
  5. Click OK if prompted that a reboot is required.
  6. In the Citrix Offline plug-in has been successfully installed page, click Finish.
  7. Click Yes when prompted to restart.
  8. Programs and Features lists Citrix Offline Plug-in as version 6.7.6.1.

Citrix Profile Management 5.7

  1. Download Profile Management 5.7. Expand Components that are on the product ISO but also packaged separately to find it.
  2. Run profilemgt_x64.msi.
  3. In the Welcome to the Citrix Profile management Setup Wizard page, click Next.
  4. In the End-User License Agreement page, check the box next to I accept the terms in the License Agreement and click Next.
  5. In the Destination Folder page, click Next.
  6. In the Ready to install Citrix Profile management page, click Install.
  7. In the Completed the Citrix Profile management Setup Wizard page, click Finish.
  8. Click Yes when prompted to restart.
  9. Programs and Features lists Citrix Profile Management as version 5.7.0.13003.

Universal Print Server Client 7.6 Hotfix 1

  1. Go to the downloaded Universal Print Server Client 7.6 Hotfix 1 and run UpsClient760WX64001.exe.
  2. In the License agreement page, check the box next to I accept the terms and click Install.
  3. In the Completed the Citrix Universal Print Client Setup Wizard page, click Finish.
  4. Programs and Features lists Citrix Universal Print Client as version 7.6.1.0.

Citrix Group Policy Client Side Extension 1.7 Hotfix 9

  1. Go to the downloaded Citrix Group Policy Client Side Extension 1.7 Hotfix 9 (GPCSExt170W28KR2X64009) and run CitrixCse_x64.msi. It installs without prompting.
  2. If you look in Programs and Features, it should show version 1.7.9.0.

EdgeSight 5.4 Agent Hotfix 7 for XenApp 6

  1. Make sure EdgeSight 5.4 Server Hotfix 5 (ES540ServerWX64005) is installed on the EdgeSight Server.
  2. Go to the downloaded EdgeSight 5.4 Agent Hotfix 7 for XenApp 6 and run EdgeSightXA6Agentx64.msi.
  3. In the Welcome to the EdgeSight for XenApp x64 Setup page, click Next.
  4. In the End-User License Agreement page, select I accept the terms in the License Agreement and click Next.
  5. In the Product Information page, enter the company name specified on the EdgeSight web server and click Next.
  6. The Agent Location page appears. If you are installing the EdgeSight Agent on a XenApp server that will be converted to a Provisioning Server vDisk, change the path for the data files so they reside on the cache disk (D:). If this is a normal XenApp server that boots from the C: drive, leave the data files in their default path. Click Next when done.
  7. In the Network Settings page, enter the name of your EdgeSight server and click Next.
  8. In the Ready to Install page, click Install.
  9. In the EdgeSight for XenApp x64 Setup Complete page, click Finish.
  10. Click Yes when prompted to reboot.
  11. Programs and Features displays the version as 5.4.21.3.
  12. Check out article http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx111062 for information on how to configure antivirus for the EdgeSight Agent. Do not skip this step.

Web Interface 5.4 Hotfix 2

Only run this on your Web Interface servers.

  1. Run the downloaded Web Interface 5.4 Hotfix 2 WebInterface.exe from WI540MSI002.
  2. In the Select Language page, click OK.
  3. In the Welcome to the Web Interface Installation Wizard page, click Next.
  4. In the License Agreement page, select I accept and click Next.
  5. In the Installation Location page, click Next.
  6. In the Location of Clients page, change the selection to Copy the clients to this computer. Then browse to the Citrix Receiver and Plug-ins folder on the XenApp 6.5 DVD and click Next.
  7. In the Ready to Install page, click Next.
  8. In the Web Interface Was Successfully Install page, click Finish.

Citrix AppDNA 7.18

Last Modified: Sep 2, 2018 @ 7:53 am

86 Comments

Navigation

This article applies to all versions, including 7.18, and 7.15

Change Log

Planning

Your Citrix License Server must have XenApp or XenDesktop Platinum Edition licenses. If you don’t have Platinum Edition licenses, then work with a Citrix Partner to perform AppDNA analysis.

AppDNA server should have the following:

  • 12 GB of RAM
  • 80 GB free disk space for up to 200 applications. 150 GB if more applications.
  • Cannot be installed on a Delivery Controller. Must be a separate machine.

SQL Server:

  • SQL 2008 R2, 2012, 2014, or 2016. SQL Express is not supported.
  • AppDNA generates load on SQL during install (duration = few hours) and during import and analysis.
  • See Optimize AppDNA > Optimize SQL Server at Citrix Docs.
  • Disk space could easily be 20+ GB.

AppDNA can directly import and analyze .msi installers. For non-.msi installers, you’ll need a machine to capture the install process. The machine(s) should be the same operating system as what you are migrating from. The machine can either be directly accessible through a hypervisor, which means AppDNA can automate the capture process. Or it can be any machine where a user can perform Self Provisioning.

Server Prerequisites

  1. On the AppDNA Server, open Computer Management. Edit the Administrators group, and add the service account.
  2. In Server Manager, start the Add Roles and Features Wizard.
  3. In the Select features page, select .NET Framework 3.5. Click Next.
  4. In the Confirm installation selections page, click Specify an alternate source path.
  5. Browse to the sources folder on the Windows Server 2012 R2 or newer DVD, and click OK.
  6. Click Install.

Server Installation/Upgrade

The same installation process is used for both new installs and upgrades.

  1. On the AppDNA server, run the downloaded AppDNA 7.18 (Citrix-AppDNA.msi).

  2. It takes a few minutes to launch.
  3. In the Welcome to the Installation Wizard for Citrix AppDNA 7.18 page, click Next.
  4. In the License agreement page, select I accept the terms, and click Next.
  5. In the Citrix AppDNA Installation Type page, select Complete, and click Next.
  6. In the Citrix AppDNA installation locations page, click Next.
  7. In the Ready to install Citrix AppDNA page, click Install.
  8. In the Installation Wizard Completed page, click Finish.

SQL Database

Instructions from CTP Eric Haavarstein Configure Citrix AppDNA 7.11 in Minutes instead of Hours:

  1. If you are upgrading an existing installation, then skip to the Configuration Wizard.
  2. If this is a new installation, on the AppDNA server, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\AppDNA\Server\Bin, and extract the AppDNA.bz2 file.
  3. Rename the extracted file with a .bak extension.
  4. Copy the file to the backup folder on the SQL server.
  5. In SQL Studio, right-click Databases, and click Restore Database.
  6. Change the Source to Device, and click the ellipsis.
  7. Click Add.
  8. Select the AppDNA.bak file, and click OK twice.
  9. Change the destination database name as desired, and click OK to begin the restore.

  10. Add a service account to SQL logins.
  11. On the Server Roles page, add the service account to the bulkadmin role.
  12. Give the service account db_owner permission to the AppDNA database.

Configuration Wizard

  1. The Configuration wizard launches. Or you can launch Configure AppDNA from the Start Menu.
  2. In the Prerequisites page, click Enable.
  3. In the Configure AppDNA page, if you are upgrading, select the Upgrade installation option, and click Next. The remaining wizard screens will be different but similar.

    1. Or leave it set to Configure new installation, and click Next.
  4. If you are upgrading, on the Choose database page, after selecting your database and clicking Next, if you see a message about Subscription Advantage expiration, click OK, and go back a couple pages.

    1. Back on the Configure AppDNA page, change the selection to Licensing, and click Next.
    2. In the License management page, leave the selection set to Activate, and click Next.
    3. In the Choose database page, click Next.
    4. In the License database page, enter your license server name, and click Next.
    5. In the System check page, click Activate.
    6. In the Progress page, click Close, which closes the wizard.
    7. Relaunch the Configure AppDNA wizard and attempt the upgrade again.
  5. If this is a new installation, in the Create database page, enter the SQL server name, enter the database name, and click Next. Note: in order for the Configure AppDNA wizard to create the database, the person running the wizard must have sysadmin permissions on the SQL Server.
  6. In the Connect to database page, enter the credentials of your service account, and click Next. AppDNA will use this service account to connect to the database.
  7. If this is a new installation, in the License database page, enter the address of a Citrix License server that has XenApp/XenDesktop Platinum Licenses, and click Next.
  8. In the CEIP page, make a selection, and click Next.
  9. In the Firewall page, click Next.
  10. In the System check page, click Fix next to any errors it finds. Then click Next, Configure, or Upgrade.

  11. It will take several minutes to update the database.
  12. Click Close when done.
  13. See Optimize AppDNA > Optimize IIS at Citrix Docs.

Note: Database and License Configuration can also be run from the command line: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\AppDNA\Server\Bin\AppDNAConfig.exe”

Logging

CTX219766 Understanding Logging in AppDNA explains how to enable the various logs, and where to find the logs.

  • Verbose logs
    • On the client
    • On the server, including Configuration Wizard
  • QueueProcessor Verbose logs
  • Event logs
  • Application Import logs
  • Other miscellaneous logs

SSL/TLS

See Citrix CTX222781 Configuring AppDNA for SSL/TLS:

  1. "%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe" set config -section:system.webServer/serverRuntime /uploadReadAheadSize:"104857600" /commit:apphost
  2. Import a certificate, and in IIS, bind it to the Default Web Site.
  3. Edit the file C:\Program Files\Citrix\AppDNA\Server\web.config. Adjust ReportBaseUrl to https and port 443.
  4. Configure the AppDNA Client to connect using https.

 Launch and Login

  1. Launch AppDNA from the Start Menu.
  2. Login as administrator and apps3cur3.

Configure Modules Wizard

  1. In the Welcome page, click Next.
  2. This wizard lets you select which modules to enable. The more modules you enable, the longer it takes to analyze an application. Go through each page and make your selections.
  3. AppDNA 7.11 and newer support analysis of Windows Server 2016.


  4. Then click Configure.
  5. And click Close.
  6. AppDNA 7.9 adds a new Compliance Manager module. The module was enhanced in AppDNA 7.14 to check for FIPS compliance, NTLM, and Credential Guard.

  7. You can use the Module Manager (Configure > Modules > Management) to see what each module is checking for.
  8. Click Groups next to one of the modules.
  9. Notice that not every analysis rule is enabled.

Customer Experience Improvement Program

Do the following to disable CEIP:

  1. Open the Edit menu, and click Settings.
  2. On the CEIP page, uncheck both boxes next to Continue participating. Click Save. Google Analytics was added in AppDNA 7.16.
  3. See https://www.carlstalhood.com/delivery-controller-7-16-and-licensing/#ceip for additional places where CEIP is enabled.

Users

  1. Open the Administration menu, expand User Management, and click Users.
  2. In the toolbar, click Add from AD.
  3. Select your Citrix Admins group, and click OK.
  4. On the right, notice that Administrators role is selected by default.
  5. Open the File menu and click Exit.
  6. Launch AppDNA again.
  7. On the login page, click Options.
  8. You can check the box next to Integrated Login and click Log On.
  9. Note: if you enable Auto Login and want to disable it, edit the registry.
  10. Go back to Administration > User Management > Users.
  11. Edit the administrator account.
  12. And change its password.
  13. Then click Save.

Direct Import

  1. Switch to the Import workspace.
  2. On the left, under Import, click Applications.
  3. On the right, switch to the Direct Import tab.
  4. Click Browse in the toolbar. Then browse to an .MSI file.
  5. The .msi files are shown in the list. Select one or more, right-click, and click Import to begin analysis.
  6. You can select one or more modules for analysis. Note: it might take a few seconds for the list to appear. Click Import.
  7. The Server Queue is displayed. If needed, you can cancel a task in the Server Queue.
  8. If you close the Server Queue, you can reopen it by clicking the View Server Queue link on the bottom right.
  9. Analysis is performed against the modules you selected.
  10. After analysis is complete, switch to the Reports: Applications workspace.
  11. On the left, select a report you want to view.
  12. You might be prompted to select applications. If you want to change this selection later, there’s a Change Selection button on the toolbar.

  13. The report displays a list of applications with color coding. Click the colored boxes to view more details.

Install Capture

Install Capture lets you import application installers that are not available as MSI files. AppDNA uses a hypervisor connection to automate the Install Capture process. Alternatively, you can do a manual capture using the Self Provisioning process.

Prepare Install Capture Machine

  1. Create a share on the AppDNA machine. The captured data is stored in this share.


  2. The operating system of the Install Capture machine should match the operating system version you are migrating from.
  3. On the Install Capture machine, make sure Remote Desktop is enabled.
  4. On the Install Capture machine, browse to the AppDNA server in the \\AppDNAServer\C$\Program Files\Citrix\AppDNA\Tools folder, and run Citrix AppDNA VM Configuration.msi.
  5. In the Welcome to the Installation Wizard for Citrix AppDNA VM Configuration page, click Next.
  6. In the License Agreement page, select I accept the terms and click Next.
  7. In the Ready to Install the Program page, click Install.
  8. In the Installation Wizard Completed page, click Finish.
  9. Click Yes when prompted to reboot.
  10. Citrix Blog Post How to Speed Up AppDNA Install Capture by Using a Pre-captured Before Snapshot details how to take an Install Capture Snapshot manually, store it in the Install Capture machine, and then configure the Install Capture profile to skip taking an Install Capture snapshot. This Install Capture snapshot process is separate from hypervisor snapshot. 
    "C:\Program Files\Citrix\AppDNA\VM Configuration\ossnapshot.exe" -cfg:"C:\Program Files\Citrix\AppDNA\VM Configuration\cfg.xml" -out:"c:\windows\temp\before.snap" -diff
  11. You can either take a snapshot now, or AppDNA will do it for you.

Configure AppDNA for Install Capture

  1. In the AppDNA Console, open the Edit menu and click Settings.
  2. On the left, switch to the Install Capture page.
  3. On the right, click New.
  4. In the Virtual Machine Configuration Wizard page, click Next.
  5. In the Virtual machine details page, give the configuration a name.
  6. Select vSphere and click Next.
  7. In the vSphere Host Details page, in the Single Sign-on Server field, enter the Platform Services Controller hostname
  8. In the Port field, enter 7443.
  9. In the vCenter Server field, enter the hostname of the vCenter server.
  10. Enter credentials that can snapshot and perform power operations on the Install Capture machine. Click Test and then click Next.
  11. In the vSphere Virtual Machine page, in the list of machines, select the Install Capture machine and click Next.
  12. In the vSphere Snapshot selection page, if there are no snapshots, click Take Snapshot.

  13. Click Test. At least confirm that the machine can be reverted to snapshot. Don’t worry if the console doesn’t open. Click Next.
  14. In the Virtual machine connection page, enter the hostname of the Install Capture machine, and click Test. Note: the RemoteAdmin.exe process only runs while somebody is logged into the machine. Click Next.
  15. In the Capture output location page, enter the UNC path to the file share on the AppDNA server, and click Test. Then click Next.
  16. In the Virtual machine state page, make a selection, and click Next.
  17. In the Virtual machine configuration summary page, click Finish.
  18. Citrix Blog Post How to Speed Up AppDNA Install Capture by Using a Pre-captured Before Snapshot details how to take an Install Capture Snapshot manually, store it in the Install Capture machine, and then configure the Install Capture profile to skip taking an Install Capture snapshot. This Install Capture snapshot process is separate from hypervisor snapshot.
  19. Click Save to close the Settings window.

Perform Install Capture

  1. Switch to the Import workspace.
  2. On the left, under Import, click Applications.
  3. On the right, switch to the Install Capture tab. Click Browse and find an installer you want to import using Install Capture.
  4. If you have more than one Install Capture machine, use the drop-down to select the one you want to use.
  5. Select the apps. Then right-click, and click Import.

  6. Select the modules for analysis. Then click Import.
  7. The Install Capture VM will be started.
  8. Eventually you’ll be prompted to RDP to the Install Capture machine.
  9. The capture process begins with a snapshot of the Install Capture machine.
  10. Then the application is installed. This should happen automatically.
  11. Then a differencing snapshot is taken and uploaded to AppDNA Server.
  12. Analysis is performed against the modules you selected.
  13. After analysis is complete, switch to the Reports: Applications workspace.
  14. On the left, select a report you want to view.

Self Provisioning

Self Provisioning is very similar to Install Capture except there’s no need for direct connectivity between AppDNA server and the hypervisor that hosts the Self Provisioning machine. Once the process is started in the AppDNA console, a different user can complete the snapshot process on the Self Provisioning machine.

Prepare Self Provisioning Machine

  1. Make sure AppDNA VM Configuration is installed first.
  2. On the Self Provisioning machine, browse to the AppDNA server in the C$\Program Files\Citrix\AppDNA\Tools folder, and run Citrix AppDNA Self Provisioning Client.msi.
  3. In the Welcome to the Installation Wizard for Citrix AppDNA Self Provisioning Client page, click Next.
  4. If you see the Pre-Requisites Check page, stop the installer, install the AppDNA VM Configuration Client and then restart this installer.
  5. In the License Agreement page, select I accept the terms, and click Next.
  6. In the Destination Folder page, click Next.
  7. In the Ready to Install the Program page, click Install.
  8. In the Installation Wizard Completed page, click Finish.
  9. Take a snapshot of the Self Provisioning machine.

Perform Self Provisioning Capture

  1. In the AppDNA Console, switch to the Import workspace.
  2. On the left, click Applications.
  3. On the right switch to the Self Provisioning tab.
  4. Then click the Configuration icon in the toolbar.
  5. In the Self Provisioning page, enter the UNC path to a share that both machines (AppDNA server and Self Provisioning machine) can access.
  6. In the toolbar click Browse and browse to the application installer.
  7. Click Publish to push the files to the file share.

  8. Click in the PublishedFile column to access the full path and copy it to the clipboard.
  9. On the Self Provisioning machine, run the Self Provisioning Client from the Start Menu.
  10. Paste in the path and click Start.
  11. After the snapshot is taken, click the Start button and install the application.
  12. Once the install is complete, another snapshot will be taken and the results will be uploaded to the share. Click Close.
  13. Back in the AppDNA console, click Refresh Status and make sure the status changes to Complete.
  14. Make sure the application is selected and then on the right side of the toolbar click Move to Import.
  15. This moves the application to the Direct Import tab where you can select the application and click Import & queue for analysis button to begin analysis.

Solutions

CitrixTV XenApp Upgrades with AppDNA demonstrates the Solutions feature of AppDNA 7.6 including: XenApp upgrades, operating system image upgrades, and application interoperability.

Other links on Solutions:

Here are generic instructions for adding a Solution:

  1. For some of the solutions it is helpful to import operating system images of the machines you are moving from and the machines you are moving to..
  2. In the Import workspace, on the left click Operating Systems.
  3. On the right, click Download Snapshot Manager. Run this on a operating system image that you want to import.
  4. Then click Import from MSI to import the MSI file generated by the Snapshot Manager.
  5. Switch to the Solutions workspace.
  6. On the top left click Add solution.
  7. In the Solutions Templates page, select a solution and click Next.
  8. In the Solution name page, give the solution a name and click Next.
  9. In the Platform name page, choose the platform you are migrating from and click Next.
  10. In the Applications page, select the applications you want to analyze and click Next.
  11. In the Solution platforms page you can change the Target platforms or add more platforms.
  12. Click Build.

Session Recording 7.13

Last Modified: Nov 7, 2020 @ 6:34 am

60 Comments

Navigation

This article applies to Session Recording 7.6 (including LTSR), 7.8, 7.11, 7.12, and 7.13. For 7.14 and newer, there’s a different article.

💡 = Recently Updated

Planning

George Kuruvilla – An Introduction To Session Recording (XA/XD 7.6 Feature Pack 1) – Installation, Configuration and User Experience

Citrix links:

XenApp/XenDesktop Platinum Edition licensing is required.

Remote Desktop Session Host VDAs added in Session Recording 7.6. Virtual desktops added in Session Recording 7.8.

There is no relation between Session Recording and XenApp/XenDesktop farms. You can have Agents from multiple XenApp/XenDesktop farms recording to a common Session Recording server. Or you can split a XenApp/XenDesktop farm so that different Agents point to different Session Recording servers. An Agent can only point to one Session Recording server (Load Balancing is not supported).

The Session Recording server will need a hard drive to store the recordings. Disk access is primarily writes.

Offloaded content (e.g. HDX Flash, Lync webcam, MMR) is not recorded.

Session Recording server needs a certificate. The certificate must be trusted by Agents and Players. Internal Certificate Authority recommended.

SQL:

  • Supported Versions = SQL 2008 R2 Service Pack 3 through SQL 2016.
  • The SQL database is very small.
  • The database name is CitrixSessionRecording. Can be changed in only 7.13 and newer.
  • Temporary sysadmin permissions are needed to create the database and sysadmin can be revoked after installation.
  • SQL Browser Service must be running.
  • As of Session Recording 7.13, SQL Server High Availability (AlwaysOn Availability Groups, Clustering, Mirroring) is supported. See Install Session Recording with database high availability at Citrix Docs. And see Citrix Blog Post Session Recording 7.13 – New HA and Database Options

Download Session Recording 7.13 from XenApp 7.13 / XenDesktop 7.13, Platinum Edition Components:

Session Recording Server Installs

IIS and Message Queuing

  1. If you are installing this on Windows Server 2008 R2 then see the prerequisites list at Citrix Docs.
  2. You also can use scripts to install Windows roles and features prerequisites that are required for Session Recording to work properly. See Scripts to add Windows roles and features prerequisites at Citrix Docs.
  3. In Server Manager, open the Manage menu, and click Add Roles and Features.
  4. Skip to the Server Roles page.
  5. In the Server Roles page, check the box next to Web Server (IIS), and click Next.
  6. In the Features page, expand .NET Framework 4.5 Features, expand WCF services, and select HTTP Activation.
  7. Expand Message Queuing, and expand Message Queuing Services.
  8. Select Message Queuing Server and HTTP Support. Click Next.
  9. In the Web Server Role > Select role services page, expand Security, and click Windows Authentication.
  10. Expand Application Development, and select ASP.NET 4.5/4.6.

  11. Expand IIS 6 Management Compatibility, and select all four boxes. Click Next through the rest of the wizard.
  12. Use MMC Certificates snap-in or IIS, or similar, to request a machine certificate.
  13. In IIS Manager, right-click the Default Web Site, and click Edit Bindings.
  14. On the right, click Add.
  15. Change the Type to https.
  16. Select the certificate, and click OK.

Server Components

  1. If you are installing this on Windows Server 2008 R2 then see the prerequisites list at Citrix Docs.
  2. The person installing Session Recording needs to be a sysadmin on the remote SQL server.
  3. In the SessionRecording7.13.0\Session Recording Administration folder, run Broker_PowerShellSnapIn_x64.msi.
  4. In the Please read the Citrix Broker PowerShell Snap-In License Agreement page, check the box next to I accept the terms, and click Install.
  5. In the Completed the Citrix Broker PowerShell Snap-In Setup Wizard page, click Finish.
  6. Run SessionRecordingAdministrationx64.msi.
  7. In the Welcome to the Citrix Session Recording Administration Installation Wizard page, click Next.
  8. In the License Agreement page, select I accept the license agreement, and click Next.
  9. In the Select Features page, click Next.
  10. If you are installing Session Recording 7.12 or older, in the Database and Server Configuration page, enter the name of the SQL server, and click Test.

  11. If you are installing Session Recording 7.13 or newer, enter the SQL server name, and enter a Database Name. Only 7.13 and newer lets you specify the Database Name.
  12. Enter the name of the Session Recording server in domain\machine-name format, and click Next.
  13. In the Administrator Logging Configuration page, if installing Session Recording 7.13 or newer, enter a name for the Logging Database, and then click Next.
  14. If installing Session Recording 7.12 or older, just click Next.
  15. In the Citrix Customer Experience Improvement Program page, make a choice, and click Next.

  16. In the Citrix Session Recording Administration has been successfully installed page, click Finish.
  17. In SQL Server Management Studio, notice the new CitrixSessionRecording and CitrixSessionRecordingLogging databases.

Upgrade

If you are upgrading from 7.8 or older, the logging feature won’t be installed.

  1. In Server Manager > Add Roles and Features, on the Features page, expand .NET Framework 4.5 Features, expand WCF Services and select HTTP Activation. Finish the wizard.
  2. In Programs and Features, right-click Citrix Session Recording Administration, and click Change.
  3. In the Application Maintenance page, select Modify and click Next.
  4. In the Select Features page, expand Session Recording Server.
  5. Change the selection for Session Recording Administrator Logging to installed and click Next.
  6. If you see a message about HTTP Activation, install the feature and restart the wizard.
  7. In the Administrator Logging Configuration page, if installing Session Recording 7.13 or newer, enter a name for the Logging Database, and then click Next.
  8. If installing Session Recording 7.12 or older, just click Next.
  9. In the Ready to Modify the Application page, click Next.
  10. In the Citrix Session Recording Administration has been successfully installed page, click Finish.

Session Recording Server Configuration

  1. From Start Menu, run Session Recording Server Properties.
  2. In the Storage tab, specify a path that has disk space to hold the recordings. UNC is supported, but strongly discouraged.
  3. In the Signing page, select (Browse) a certificate to sign the recordings.
  4. In the Playback tab, notice that Session Recording files are encrypted before transmit. Also, it’s possible to view live sessions but live sessions are not encrypted.
  5. In the Notifications tab, you can change the message displayed to users before recording begins.

  6. The CEIP tab lets you enable or disable the Customer Experience Improvement Program.
  7. See https://www.carlstalhood.com/delivery-controller-7-13-and-licensing/#ceip for additional places where CEIP is enabled.
  8. The Logging tab lets you configure Logging.
  9. When you click OK you’ll be prompted to restart the service.
  10. Session Recording relies on Message Queuing. In busy environments, it might be necessary to increase the Message Queuing storage limits. See CTX209252 Error: “Data lost while recording file…” on Citrix SmartAuditor.


David Ott Session Recording Cleanup Script: You may notice that the session recording entries/files don’t go away on their own. Here is how to clean them up. Just create a scheduled task to run the code below once per day (as system – elevated). See David’s blog post for details.

C:\Program Files\Citrix\SessionRecording\Server\Bin\icldb.exe remove /RETENTION:7 /DELETEFILES /F /S /L

Also see CTX134777 How to Remove Dormant Files From a SmartAuditor Database.

Authorization

  1. From the Start Menu, run Session Recording Authorization Console.
  2. In the PolicyAdministrator role, add your Citrix Admins group.
  3. If you use Director to configure Session Recording, add the Director users to the PolicyAdministrator role.
  4. In the Player role, add users that can view the recordings.
  5. By default, nobody can see the Administration Log. Add auditing users to the LoggingReader role.
  6. Session Recording 7.11 has a Session Recording Administrator Logging feature, which opens a webpage to https://SR01.corp.local/SessionRecordingLoggingWebApplication/. Only members of the LoggingReader role can see the data.

Policies

  1. From the Start Menu, run Session Recording Policy Console.
  2. Enter the hostname of the Session Recording server, and click OK.
  3. Only one policy can be enabled at a time. By default, no recording occurs. To enable recording, right-click one of the other two built-in policies and click Activate Policy.
  4. Or you can create your own policy by right-clicking Recording Policies, and clicking Add New Policy.

  5. After the policy is created, right-click it, and click Add Rule.
  6. Decide if you want notification or not, and click Next.
  7. Click OK to acknowledge this message.
  8. Choose the rule criteria. You can select more than one. Session Recording 7.12 and newer have an IP Address or IP Range rule.
  9. Then click the links on the bottom specify the groups, applications, servers, and/or IP range for the rule. Click Next.

  10. Give the rule a name, and click Finish.
  11.  Continue adding rules.
  12. When done creating rules, right-click the policy, and click Activate Policy.
  13. You can also rename the policy you created.

Session Recording Agent

Install the Agent on the VDAs. Platinum Licensing is required.

  1. Install Message Queuing Server with HTTP Support. If RDSH, in Server Manager, open the Manage window, and click Add Roles and Features.

    1. Skip to the Features page.
    2. In the Features page, expand Message Queuing. Expand Message Queuing Services.
    3. Check the box next to Message Queuing Server. Also check HTTP Support.
    4. Click Add Features. Click Next.
    5. In the Web Server Role > Select role services page, don’t change anything, and click Next.
    6. In the Confirm installation selections page, click Install.
    7. If install fails, try PowerShell instead. 
      Install-WindowsFeature msmq-server,msmq-http-support -IncludeAllSubFeature

  2. If virtual desktop (Session Recording 7.8 and newer), go to Programs and Features.

    1. Click Turn Windows features on or off.
    2. Expand Microsoft Message Queue, expand Microsoft Message Queue, and select MSMQ HTTP Support. Click OK.
  3. If the VDA is Windows 7, or Windows 2008 R2, install Microsoft hotfix 2554746 MSMQ service might not send or receive messages after you restart a computer. Or install the Convenience Rollup.
  4. In the SessionRecording7.13.0\Session Recording Agent folder, run SessionRecordingAgentx64.msi.
  5. In the Welcome to the Citrix Session Recording Agent Installation Wizard page, click Next.
  6. In the License Agreement page, select I accept the license agreement and click Next.
  7. In the Session Recording Agent Configuration page, enter the FQDN of the Session Recording Server, and click Test.
  8. Click OK and then click Next.
  9. In the Destination Folder page, click Next.
  10. In the Ready to Install the Application page, click Next.
  11. In the Citrix Session Recording Agent has been successfully installed page, click Finish.
  12. Agent Installation can also be automated. See Automating installations at Citrix Docs.
  13. In the Start Menu is Session Recording Agent Properties.
  14. You can enable or disable session recording on this Agent.
  15. For MCS and PVS VDAs, see the GenRandomQMID.ps1 script at XenApp/XenDesktop 7.13 Known Issues at Citrix Docs.
  16. Session Recording Agent might cause MCS Image Prep to fail. To work around this, set the Citrix Session Recording Agent service to Automatic (Delayed Start). Source = Todd Dunwoodie at Session Recording causes Image preparation finalization Failed error at Citrix Discussions.

Session Recording Player

Install the Player on any Windows 7 through Windows 10 desktop machine. 32-bit color depth is required. Because of the graphics requirements, don’t run the Player as a published application.

  1. In the SessionRecording7.13.0\Session Recording Player folder, run SessionRecordingPlayer.msi.
  2. In the Welcome to the Citrix Session Recording Player Installation Wizard page, click Next.
  3. In the License Agreement page, select I accept the license agreement, and click Next.
  4. In the Destination Folder page, click Next.
  5. In the Ready to Install the Application page, click Next.
  6. In the Citrix Session Recording Player has been successfully installed page, click Finish.
  7. From the Start Menu, run the Session Recording Player.
  8. Open the Tools menu, and click Options.
  9. On the Connections tab, click Add.
  10. Enter the FQDN of the Session Recording server.
  11. On the Cache tab you can adjust the client-side cache size. Click OK.
  12. Use the Search box to find recordings.
  13. Or you can go to Tools > Advanced Search.

  14. Once you find a recording, double-click it to play it.
  15. If you see a message about Citrix Client version incompatibility, see CTX206145 Error: “The Session Recording Player Cannot Play Back This File” to edit the Player’s SsRecPlayer.exe.config file to accept the newer version.
  16. To skip spaces where no action occurred, open the Play menu, and click Fast Review Mode.
  17. You can add bookmarks by right-clicking in the viewer pane. Then you can skip to a bookmark by clicking the bookmark in the Events and Bookmarks
    pane.

Director Integration

  1. On the Director server, run command prompt elevated (as Administrator).
  2. Run C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Director\tools\DirectorConfig.exe /configsessionrecording
  3. Enter the Session Recording FQDN when prompted.
  4. Enter 1 for HTTPS.
  5. Enter 443 as the port.
  6. In Director, when you view users or machines, you can change the Session Recording policy. These policy changes don’t apply until a new session is launched.
  7. If the Session Recording menu says N/A then the Director user needs to be authorized in the Session Recording Authorization Console.

  8. If you use Director to enable or disable recording for a user or machine, rules are added to the active policy on the Session Recording server. They only take effect at next logon.

Remote PC

Last Modified: Aug 20, 2024 @ 8:53 am

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Remote PC Catalog

  1. In Citrix Studio, create a Machine Catalog.
  2. In the Introduction page, click Next.
  3. In the Operating System page, select Remote PC Access, and click Next.
  4. In the Machine Accounts page, click Add OUs.
  5. Browse to an OU containing office PCs. Check the box next to Include subfolders, and click OK.
  6. Then click Next.
  7. Name the catalog Remote PC or similar, and then click Finish.
  8. After the Catalog is created, you can Edit Machine Catalog to add more OUs.

  9. Or explicitly add individual machines to the Catalog.

Remote PC Delivery Group

  1. Create a Delivery Group.
  2. In the Introduction page, click Next.
  3. In the Machines page, highlight the Remote PC catalog, and click Next.
  4. Add users that can access the Remote PCs, and then click Next.
  5. In the Desktop Assignment Rules page, adding an entry here will let users connect to unassigned machines. If you don’t add anything here, then users can only connect to machines to which they’ve been explicitly assigned. Click Next.
  6. In the Summary page, enter a name for the Delivery Group, and then click Finish.
  7. Click Yes when prompted that there are no desktops to deliver.

Remote PC Citrix Policy

  • Citrix Policy 2106 and newer have a User Setting (user half of GPO) named Disconnected session timer for Remote PC Access.

    • Make sure you also configure the Disconnected session timer interval.

Multiple Users per PC

Citrix CTX137805 How to Switch Off Remote PC Access Multiple User Assignment in XenDesktop 7.x: By default, when using Remote PC Access in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD), anybody that logs into the console session of the physical PC is automatically assigned to the Catalog machine in Citrix Studio. This can result in multiple users assigned to the same machine. For IT desktop support staff that routinely log into multiple PCs to support them, the IT staff could see many more machines in StoreFront than they intend.

To stop this, on every Delivery Controller, configure the following registry value so only the first user to log on to the machine after it has registered with the Citrix Broker service gets assigned to the machine. You can still manually assign users to machines using Studio or Director.

  • HKLM\Software\Citrix\DesktopServer\
    • AllowMultipleRemotePCAssignments (DWORD) = 0

Wake On LAN

As of CVAD 2012, this SCCM integration feature has been deprecated. The replacement Wake on LAN feature in CVAD 2009 and newer no longer needs SCCM and is configured using PowerShell as detailed at Configure Wake on LAN at Citrix Docs.

If you have SCCM configured for Wake On LAN, you can connect Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) to SCCM to power manage the Remote PC machines.

  1. In Citrix Studio, go to Configuration, right-click Hosting, and click Add Connection and Resources.
  2. In the Connection page, change the selection to Create a new connection.
  3. Change the Connection type to Microsoft Configuration Manager Wake on LAN.
  4. Enter the SCCM server’s FQDN.
  5. Enter SCCM credentials. The SCCM credentials you specify must include collections in the scope, and the Remote Tools Operator role.
  6. Give the Connection a name, and click Next.
  7. In the Summary page, click Finish.
  8. Edit the Remote PC Machine Catalog.
  9. In the Power Management page, change the selection to Yes, and click OK

Install VDA on PC

  1. On the PC, install .NET Framework 4.8 (or newer).
  2. Disable power saving options (e.g. Hibernate, Sleep, etc.)
  3. If Wake on LAN is desired, configure the PC’s BIOS and NIC to enable Wake on LAN.
  4. Download Standalone Single-session OS (aka Desktop OS) installers for Virtual Delivery Agent 2407, Virtual Delivery Agent 2402 LTSR CU1, Virtual Delivery Agent 2203 LTSR CU5, or Virtual Delivery Agent 1912 LTSR CU9.
    1. The standalone VDA installers are in the Components that are on the product ISO but also packaged separately section.
    2. The Single-session OS Core Services VDA is designed specifically for Remote PC and is the smallest installer available.  However, the Core Services installer does not include Profile Management, which means Director cannot show you logon durations.
  5. Remote PC is typically installed on many distributed PCs. Use a software deployment tool to install the VDA package using CLI parameters. See Use the standalone VDA installer at Citrix Docs for more information.
  6. For Teams Redirection and Browser Content Redirection (BCR) in VDA 1912 and older, use the full VDA installer with the /remotepc switch: 
    VDAWorkstationSetup_1912.exe /quiet /remotepc /controllers "xdc01.corp.local xdc02.corp.local" /enable_hdx_ports /noreboot
  7. VDA 2003 and newer support Teams Redirection and Browser Content Redirection (BCR) in the Core Services installer: 
    VDAWorkstationCoreSetup_2407.exe /quiet /controllers "xdc01.corp.local xdc02.corp.local" /enable_hdx_ports /enable_hdx_tls_dtls /noresume /noreboot
    • If you instead use the full VDA installer (VDAWorkstationSetup_2407.exe) in VDA 2206 and newer, see Citrix Docs for the syntax. For example, VDA 2206 and newer require the /remotepc and /physicalmachine switches.
    • /enable_hdx_tls_dtls is for HDX Direct in CVAD 2311 and newer.
  8. CTX256820 When a user connects to his physical VDA using Remote PC Access, the monitor layout order changes.
    1. On the Remote PC machine, in regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\Graphics
    2. Create a DWORD named  UseSDCForLocalModes and set it to 1.
  9. Vrajesh Subrahari at Remote PC Solution Issue – The virtual machine ‘Unknown’ cannot accept additional sessions at Citrix Discussions recommends disabling Fast Boot.
    1. On the Remote PC machine, in regedit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power\.
    2. Set HiberbootEnabled to 0.
  10. After the machine is rebooted, if the machine is in one of the OUs assigned to the Remote PC Catalog, then the machine will be automatically added to the Catalog and the Delivery Group.
  11. When somebody logs into the console of the machine, that user will be automatically assigned to the machine. You can use the Change User link on the right to change or add users. Multiple users can be assigned to one machine.

  12. When the user logs into StoreFront, the user will see the actual machine name.
  13. In CVAD 2407 and newer, the Machine Allocation page lets you change the machine Display name shown to the user.

    • Or the name displayed in StoreFront can be changed by running Set-BrokerPrivateDesktop MyMachine -PublishedName MyDisplayName.
  14. When viewing machines in Studio or Director, there’s a new column for Desktop Display Name.

Remote PC Maintenance

Assign/Un-assign users – There are four methods of assigning users to desktops:

  • Let Remote PC do it automatically. The first user that logs into the physical machine will be assigned to the desktop. If single user mode is not enabled then all other users that log into the machine will also be assigned to the desktop.
  • In Citrix Studio, find the machine, right-click it, and click Change User.
  • In Director, go to machine details and click Manage Users.
  • Use PowerShell: 
    asnp citrix.*
Remove-BrokerUser -Machine 'CORP\WIN1002' -Name 'CORP\user01'
Add-BrokerUser -Machine 'CORP\WIN1002' -Name 'CORP\user01'

Rename desktop icon – For Remote PC, the icon displayed to the user is the actual machine name. This sometimes is not very intuitive. The name displayed to the user can be changed by running a PowerShell command.

asnp citrix.*
Set-BrokerPrivateDesktop CORP\WIN10002 -PublishedName "Users Desktop"

Display last login time for the machines – Use the following PowerShell to display desktops sorted by when they were last used. Adjust the date filter as desired. You can manually remove the older machines or pipe the results to Remove-BrokerMachine.

asnp citrix.*

Get-BrokerDesktop -CatalogName "Remote PC" -filter {LastConnectionTime -le "2015-02-28"} 
-property AssociatedUserNames,MachineName,LastConnectionTime | Sort-Object LastConnectionTime

The above PowerShell command uses the -filter and -property switches. These switches process the filtering on the server-side, which improves performance.

Citrix Policy Settings

Last Modified: Aug 20, 2024 @ 8:57 am

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Citrix Policy Settings – GPO Method

Citrix offers two methods of delivering Citrix Policy settings:

  • Citrix Studio – also known as FMA policies
  • Group Policy Object – the Citrix Group Policy Management Plugin installer (included with Studio) adds a Citrix Policy node to the regular Group Policy Editor.

For this page, Citrix Policy refers to policy settings that are provided by Citrix for VDAs. It does not include settings that are native to Microsoft group policies. See the VDA Group Policies articles for more information on the recommended Microsoft group policy settings for a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops environment.

Citrix Policies can be easily configured in Citrix Studio and stored in the site database. In CVAD 2402 and newer, you can use Citrix Automated Configuration to export policies from one site/farm and import to another.

GPOs linked to an Active Directory OU can apply to VDAs in multiple Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops sites/farms. If you use the GPO method, make sure the GPOs are linked to OUs that contain VDAs.

Citrix Web Studio > Policies has the new single-pane Policy configuration interface. Group Policy > Citrix Policies has the older Policy configuration interface as detailed in the rest of this article.

In Web Studio 2407 and newer, on the Settings page, you can enable Policy sets, which contain multiple policies. Then assign a policy Set to Delivery Groups. Administrator scopes can include Policy Sets. See Citrix Docs.



 

If you ever want to copy the Studio policies to a GPO, run the following PowerShell commands as mentioned at Citrix Discussions:

New-PSDrive -PSProvider CitrixGroupPolicy -Name LocalFarmGpo -Root \ -Controller "MyController"

New-PSDrive -PSProvider CitrixGroupPOlicy -Name TargetGPO -Root \ -DomainGpo "MyGPO"

cd LocalFarmGpo:\User

copy * TargetGPO:\User 

cd LocalFarmGpo:\Computer

copy * TargetGPO:\Computer

Citrix Group Policy Management Plug-in

To configure and deliver Citrix Policy Settings using a group policy object, you must install the Citrix Group Policy Management Plug-in on your group policy editing machine. This plug-in adds the Citrix Policies node to the Group Policy Editor.

Do the following to install the plug-in.

  1. Login to a machine that has the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) Windows Feature installed.
  2. If this machine doesn’t have Citrix Studio installed, then install the Citrix Group Policy component from the \x64\Citrix Policy folder on the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops ISO. Make sure all Group Policy consoles are closed first.

  3. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 2407 comes with Citrix Group Policy Management 7.42.100.

    1. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 2402 LTSR CU1 comes with Citrix Group Policy Management 7.41.1100.34.
    2. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 2203 LTSR CU5 comes with Citrix Group Policy Management 7.33.5000.10.
    3. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 1912 LTSR CU8 comes with Citrix Group Policy Management 7.24.8000.0.
    4. XenApp/XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR Cumulative Update 9 comes with Citrix Group Policy Management 3.1.9000.0.
  4. Click Finish to finish the wizard.
  5. Citrix releases quarterly updates for this component, so whenever you update your Delivery Controllers, also update your Group Policy editing machines (machines with Group Policy Management Console installed).
  6. Citrix Policies let you use Delivery Groups as a filter. To see the list of Delivery Groups, install the Broker SDK plug-in.

    1. On the CVAD ISO, go to \x64\Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller and run Broker_PowerShellSnapIn_x64.
    2. Check the box next to I accept and click Install.
    3. Close the Group Policy Editor and re-open it. Now you can see the list of Delivery Groups.

Computer Settings

  1. Run Group Policy Management Console.
  2. Edit a GPO that applies computer settings to the VDA machines.
  3. In the GPO, expand Computer Configuration, expand Policies, and click Citrix Policies.
  4. On the right, on the Templates tab, you can create a new policy based on a built-in template. Note: Citrix (Daniel Feller XenDesktop 7.7 and Windows 7) has found that the High Server Scalability template can increase user density by 30%.
  5. On the right, on the Policies tab, you can either edit the Unfiltered policy, or you can create a new policy that is filtered.
  6. Switch to the Settings tab.
  7. Citrix Policies in the Computer Half of the GPO only shows Computer Settings. Later, we’ll configure Citrix Policies in the User Half of the GPO, which has different settings (User Settings).
  8. Some of the setting detailed in this post require newer versions of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.
  9. As you edit the policy settings, make note of the Applies to field. Some of the Citrix Policy settings do not apply to Virtual Delivery Agent 7.x.
  10. Also notice that some settings apply to Desktop OS (virtual desktop) or Server OS (Remote Desktop Session Host) but not necessarily both. Read the Applies to section to verify.
  11. Change the Categories drop-down to ICA.
  12. Scroll down and add the setting Virtual channel allow list.

    • In VDA 2109 and newer, the setting Virtual channel allow list is enabled by default, which means that non-Citrix virtual channels, like Zoom and WebEx, won’t work. One option is to disable this setting. Another option is to find the name of the third-party virtual channel and add it to this list as detailed in Citrix Docs. See Citrix Blog Post Virtual channel allow list now enabled by default for a list of virtual channels to add.
    • CVAD 2206 and newer let you enter wildcards in the Virtual channel allow list setting. See Citrix Docs.
    • New Teams VDI Plug-in (SlimCore) requires three custom virtual channels.
  13. CVAD 2311 and newer support HDX Direct for both internal and external connections. HDX Direct automatically installs self-signed certificates on the VDAs. Workspace apps then connect directly to the VDAs without going through ICA Proxy (NetScaler Gateway). For external users, the connections use STUN to traverse NAT. Use Citrix Policy to enable HDX Direct and set the mode to Internal and external. See HDX Direct at Citrix Docs.
  14. Change the Categories drop-down to Auto Client Reconnect.
  15. Click Add next to the setting Auto client reconnect logging.

    • Change the Value to Log auto-reconnect events, and click OK.
  16. Change the Categories drop-down to End User Monitoring.
  17. Click Add next to the setting ICA round trip calculations for idle connections.

    • Change the selection to Enabled and click OK.
  18. Change the Categories drop-down to Graphics.
  19. CVAD 2402 and newer let you enable Allow windows screen lock on Desktop OS.

  20. Change the Categories drop-down to Local App Access.
  21. Click Add next to the setting Allow Local App Access.

  22. Change the Categories drop-down to Printing.
  23. Click Add next to the setting Universal Print Server enable. See Citrix Universal Print Server at Citrix Docs for more info.

    • Change the Value to Enabled with fallback to Windows’ native remote printing. Click OK.
  24. Change the Categories drop-down to Virtual Delivery Agent Settings > Monitoring.
  25. Click Add next to the setting Enable monitoring of application failures.

    • You can optionally change the Value drop-down to Both application errors and faults. Click OK.
  26. Click Add next to the setting Enable monitoring of application failures on Desktop OS VDAs.

  27. Click Add next to the setting Enable process monitoring.  Note: this setting could significantly increase the size of the Monitoring database. See Citrix Blog Post Citrix Director: CPU, Memory Usage and Process Information.

    • Change the setting to Allowed, and click OK. This is the last Computer setting.

User Settings

  1. With the GPO method of configuring Citrix Policies, Citrix Policy settings are split between Computer and User. The remaining settings are User settings. Edit a GPO that applies to Users.
  2. Expand User Configuration, expand Policies, and click Citrix Policies.
  3. On the right, select the Unfiltered policy, and edit it. Or you can create a new policy that is filtered. You can also use the Templates tab to create a policy based on a template.
  4. In CVAD 2012 and newer, in the Search Box, enter Drag and Drop and click Add Value.

    • Drag and Drop is enabled by default. Decide if this is acceptable to your security policies.
  5. In CVAD 2012 and newer, in the Search Box, enter WIA and click Add Value.

    • WIA Redirection is disabled by default. You can enable it if you have applications that use Windows Image Acquisition.
  6. On the Settings tab, change the Categories drop-down to Audio.
  7. Click Add next to the setting Audio quality.

    • Workspace app 2109 and newer connecting to CVAD 2109 and newer support Adaptive Audio and no longer need this Audio quality setting.
    • For all older versions of Citrix, change the Value of Audio quality to Medium – optimized for speech, and click OK.
  8. CVAD 2402 and newer support Loss tolerant mode for audio.
  9. Change the Categories drop-down to Client Sensors.
  10. Click Add next to the Allow applications to use the physical location setting.

    • Change the selection to Allowed and click OK.
  11. Change the Categories drop-down to Graphics.
  12. CVAD 2112 and newer allow users to Screen sharing with each other. This setting requires Graphic status indicator to be enabled.
  13. Change the Categories drop-down to Mobile Experience.
  14. Click Add next to the Automatic keyboard display setting.

    • Change the selection to Allowed, and click OK. Note: this setting might break SAP.
  15. Click Add next to the Remote the combo box setting. Note: this setting might break SAP.

    • Change the selection to Allowed, and click OK.
  16. Change the Category drop-down to Multimedia.
  17. Click Add next to the Use GPU for optimizing Windows Media setting.

    • Change the selection to Allowed, and click OK.
  18. Change the Categories drop-down to Printing.
  19. Click Add next to the setting Auto-create PDF Universal Printer.

    • Change the selection to Enabled and click OK.
    • This setting normally only applies to sessions using HTML5 Receiver or HTML5 Workspace app.
    • In Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 1808 or newer, and Workspace app 1808 or newer, the PDF Universal Printer also applies to regular Workspace app connections and is no longer limited to HTML5 connections.
  20. Click Add next to the setting Automatic installation of in-box printer drivers.

    • Change the selection to Disabled, and click OK.
  21. Click Add next to the setting Direct connections to print servers.

    • Change the selection to Disabled, and click OK.
  22. Click Add next to the setting Printer auto-creation event log preference.

    • Change the Value to Log errors only and click OK.
  23. Click Add next to the setting Universal print driver usage.

    • Change the Value to Use universal printing only.
  24. Workspace app for Mac version 2203 and newer along with VDA 2112 and newer supports PDF printing instead of Postscript printing. With PDF, it’s no longer necessary to install the HP Color LaserJet 2800 Series PS driver on the VDA. Citrix Policy setting Universal driver preference must be adjusted to enable PDF printing as higher priority than PS (postscript) printing. See Citrix Docs for more details.
  25. CVAD 2206 and newer let you set RDSH timers in the user half of a Citrix Policy under the Server Limits category. Citrix Docs says: Timer settings for multi-session machines configured using Citrix policies are expected to override timer settings configured through Microsoft Group Policies. To avoid unexpected behavior, we recommend you configure timer settings using one of the two methods.
  26. Change the Categories drop-down to Session Limits.
  27. If you look at the Applies to text for these settings, notice that they apply to virtual desktops (Desktop OS), but not Remote Desktop Session Hosts (Server OS). Session timeouts for Remote Desktop Session Hosts can be configured in a Microsoft GPO or in the Server Limits section in CVAD 2206 and newer,

  28. Change the Categories drop-down to Time Zone Control.
  29. Click Add next to the setting Use local time of client.

  30. CVAD 1906 has a new policy for Desktop OS only that can revert to the VDA’s original time zone when the user disconnects or logs off. It’s called Restore Desktop OS time zone on session disconnect or logoff.
  31. Change the Categories drop-down to USB Devices.
  32. Click Add next to the setting Client USB device redirection.

    • If your security policies allow it then change the selection to Allowed, and click OK. This is the last generic setting. See the next couple sections for more settings.

Also see:

Citrix Policy Templates

  1. The Citrix Policies node of a GPO (or Citrix Studio) has a Templates tab. Each of these templates has pre-defined settings that you can use as a basis for new policies. Note: Citrix (Daniel Feller XenDesktop 7.7 and Windows 7) has found that the High Server Scalability template can increase user density by 30%.
  2. Citrix Docs Group Policy management template updates for XenApp and XenDesktop contains additional templates that you can download and import.

  3. If you are using a GPO to configure Citrix Policies, be aware that user settings and computer settings are in different parts of the GPO.
  4. If you highlight a template, on the bottom of the window is a Settings tab that lets you see what’s contained in the template.
  5. To use a template, right-click it, and click New Policy.

Framehawk Configuration

As of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 1811, Framehawk is a deprecated feature.

In CVAD 1903 and newer, Framehawk has been completely removed.

  1. Framehawk is disabled by default because it uses more bandwidth and more server resources. Citrix recommends only enabling it for users on lossy connections with high bandwidth. More details in the Framehawk Virtual Channel Administrator Guide at Citrix Docs. Also see Framehawk virtual channel at Citrix Docs.
  2. To enable Framehawk, you edit a Citrix Policy, either in Studio or in a GPO. In either case, you need the updated Group Policy Management 2.4 Hotfix 2 or Group Policy Management 2.5 (aka 7.6.300) or newer (e.g. 7.20 included in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 1811) on the machine where you are editing the policy.

  3. If configuring a GPO, you’ll find the Framehawk settings in User Configuration > Policies > Citrix Policies. Edit one of the Citrix Policies.
  4. Search for Framehawk, add the Framehawk display channel setting, and Enable it.

  5. Framehawk requires the newest Citrix Workspace app / Receiver (4.3.100 or newer).



  6. To use Framehawk through NetScaler Gateway you need NetScaler firmware 11.0 build 62 or newer.
  7. Then enable DTLS on the Gateway vServer. This is the same process as enabling DTLS for UDP Audio.
  8. Note: there are limitations of Framehawk with NetScaler Gateway. For example, HA, AppFlow, and double-hop are not supported. See NetScaler Gateway support for Framehawk at Citrix Docs.
  9. Framehawk defaults to ports UDP 3224-3324. Open these ports between the NetScaler SNIP and the VDAs.
    1. Also make sure these ports are open on the VDA’s Windows Firewall. VDA 7.8 and newer opens these ports automatically. VDA 7.6.300 and VDA 7.7 do not open these ports automatically.

Graphics Settings (EDT, H.264, ThinWire Plus)

Citrix Tech Zone Design Decision: HDX Graphics Overview

CVAD 2402 adds many new HDX features. See Citrix Blog Post What’s new with HDX in the 2402 LTSR. These features include:

  • TLS 1.3 support for HDX
  • Virtual Channel Allow List supports wildcards and environment variables
  • Enhanced EDT congestion control
  • EDT Lossy
  • Audio traffic using loss-tolerant EDT
  • Graphics using loss-tolerant EDT
  • HDX protocol compression algorithm reduces bandwidth required by up to 15 percent
  • Virtual loopback
  • Version 2 of the Rendezvous protocol is the new default
  • AV1 codec support
  • Automatically adapts the session’s refresh rate to frame rate
  • HEVC 4:4:4 visually lossless
  • Virtual display layout per monitor
  • Audio volume is synchronized between the client device and the VDA
  • Multiple audio devices
  • Multiple webcam resolutions
  • Teams app sharing

Citrix Blog Post What graphics policies do I need, and when? says you should not change any Citrix Policy Graphics Settings. The only exception is 3D workloads, which should have the Visual Quality user setting set to Build to Lossless.

Citrix Blog Post HDX Graphics Encoder Configuration Overview: a comprehensive overview of all relevant HDX Graphics Encoder settings. This overview should give you a guidance and allow you to configure an optimal HDX policy set based on your own needs. A Visio chart with an overview of all relevant configurations and their possible combinations. Furthermore, almost every setting has a review box. The review boxes contain, where applicable, the policy name, facts & figures, recommendations, and example use cases.

In 1811 and newer, Graphics Status Indicator replaces the Lossless Indicator.

  • Graphics Status Indicator can be enabled in a Citrix policy in the user half in the Category named Graphics.
  • The graphics status indicator should eventually show up in the system tray.

7.13 and newer: 7.13 adds a UDP version of HDX/ICA known as Enlightened Data Transport (EDT). EDT improves HDX/ICA performance across WAN links, Internet, etc. In 7.12, EDT was Tech Preview. In Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) and XenApp/XenDesktop 7.13 and  and newer, EDT is officially supported.

EDT (Adaptive Transport) is enabled by default in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) and XenApp/XenDesktop 7.16 and newer, but it is not enabled by default in XenApp/XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR.

EDT has several requirements:

  • VDA 7.13 or 1808 or newer.
  • UDP 1494 and UDP 2598 must be opened to every VDA, including from the NetScaler SNIP, if you’re using NetScaler Gateway.
  • Receiver for Windows must be 4.7 or newer. Or upgrade to Workspace app.
  • Receiver for Mac must be 12.5 or newer. Or upgrade to Workspace app.
  • StoreFront must be 3.9 or newer.
  • HDX Insight requires NetScaler ADC 12.1 build 49 and newer
  • NetScaler Gateway 11.1 build 51 and newer supports EDT (DTLS). The following NetScaler features are not supported with EDT at this time:
  • Use a Citrix Policy to enable EDT. The HDX Adaptive Transport setting is in the Computer half of a GPO. See Citrix CTX220732 How to Configure HDX Enlightened Data Transport Protocol. EDT (Adaptive Transport) is enabled by default in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) and XenApp/XenDesktop 7.16 and newer, but it is not enabled by default in XenApp/XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR.
  • Preferred means it will try to use UDP if it can, and TCP if it can’t.
  • EDT MTU Discovery prevents EDT packet fragmentation that might result in performance degradation or failure to establish a session. This feature requires the following:
    • Citrix Workspace app 1911 for Windows or newer
    • Citrix ADC 13.0.52.24 or newer
    • Citrix ADC 12.1.56.22 or newer
    • On VDA 2203 and newer, MtuDiscovery should be enabled by default. In older VDAs, configure it at Key = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\icaw
      • Value (DWORD) = MtuDiscovery = 1
  • From inside a session, you can run ctxsession -v to verify that it’s using UDP and see the detected MTU.
  • Director will also show if EDT (UDP) is active. See CTX220730 How to Confirm HDX Enlightened Data Transport Protocol is Active

In 7.13 and newer, the Policy Setting Use hardware encoding for video codec now supports Intel Iris Pro Hardware. Install the Intel Graphics Drivers before installing the VDA. If VDA is already installed, run C:\Program Files\Citrix\ICAService\GfxDisplayTool.exe -vd enable. See Citrix CTX220731 How to Enable Hardware Encoding of H.264 streams using Intel Iris Pro Hardware. 

7.11 and newer:

  • Use video codec for compression can be configured For actively changing regions, which uses H.264 for actively changing regions, and Thinwire Plus for the rest. Users get the benefit of lower bandwidth use for the video content combined with sharpness of text in applications they are working with elsewhere on their screen(s). Nick Rintalan at CUGC Blog Post Citrix HDX Just Got Smarter…Again explains this new setting.
  • In 7.11 and newer, Use when preferred = Thinwire+ with Selective H264. This is the default selection, so generally there’s no need to change this setting.
  • In 7.18 and newer, Selective H.264 uses H.264 for build to lossless instead of JPEG for build to lossless.
  • Use hardware encoding for video codec is enabled by default.

7.9 and newer:

  • The VDA automatically chooses Thinwire Plus or H.264. The setting: User > Graphics > Use video codec for compression defaults to Use video codec when preferred, which prefers Thinwire Plus. To force Thinwire Plus, set it to Do not use video codec. Citrix Blog Post “Use Video Codec for Compression”: to Use or Not to Use? explains this setting.

7.6.300 and newer:

7.0 – 7.6:

Graphics Tools

Security Settings

CTP Dave Bretty Making Your Citrix Policy Secure – By Default.

To improve security, configure these additional Citrix Policy settings.

  • Computer \ ICA \ Secure HDX = Enabled
  • User \ ICA \ Client clipboard redirection = Prohibit
  • User \ ICA \ Desktop launches = Disabled
  • User \ ICA \ Drag and Drop = Disabled (CVAD 2012 and newer)
  • User \ ICA \ Launching of non-published programs = Disabled
  • User \ ICA \ File Redirection \ Allow file transfer between desktop and client = Prohibited (7.6.300 and newer, for HTML5 Client)
  • User \ ICA \ File Redirection \ Auto connect client drives = Disabled
  • User \ ICA \ File Redirection \ Client drive redirection = Prohibited
  • User \ ICA \ File Redirection \ Fixed drives = Disable
  • User \ ICA \ File Redirection \ Client network drives = Prohibit
  • User \ ICA \ File Redirection \ Client removable drives = Prohibit
  • User \ ICA \ Printing \ Client printer redirection = Prohibit
  • User \ ICA \ SecureICA \ SecureICA minimum encryption level = RC5 128 bit
  • User \ ICA \ Session Limits \ Disconnected session timer = Enabled
  • User \ ICA \ Session Limits \ Disconnected session timer internal = 30 minutes
  • User \ ICA \ TWAIN devices \ Client TWAIN device redirection = Prohibit
  • User \ ICA \ USB devices \ Client USB device redirection = Disable
  • User \ ICA \ USB devices \ Client USB device redirection rules = Prohibit
  • User \ ICA \ USB devices \ Client USB Plug and Play device redirection = Prohibit

Citrix’s Common Criteria documentation includes additional recommended Citrix Policy, Group Policy, and other security settings.

 

XenDesktop 7.17 adds a Session Watermark feature.

Find the settings in the user half of a Citrix Policy under the Session Watermark category.

Citrix Blog Post Receiver for HTML5 and Chrome File Transfer Explained:

  • How to use the toolbar to transfer files
  • Citrix Policy settings to enable/disable file transfer
  • VDA registry settings to control file transfer
  • HTML5Client\Configuration.js settings for client-side configuration
  • View HTML5Client log file

Additional clipboard settings were added in XenApp/XenDesktop 7.6 and newer. To see them, set the middle drop-down to All Settings and then search for clipboard. The setting Readonly clipboard does not apply to 7.6 so skip it. Instead, review the three clipboard settings below it. Or you can turn off clipboard altogether by setting Client clipboard redirection to Prohibit.

Under File Redirection is a setting for Read-only client drive access. This allows client drive mapping but prevents files from being copied to the client device.

For VDAs in Legacy Graphics Mode, the following ICA/HDX protocol tuning options should be evaluated to optimize bandwidth consumption and virtual desktop resource utilization:

  • User \ ICA \ Desktop UI \ Desktop Wallpaper = Disable
  • User \ ICA \ Desktop UI \ Menu animation = Disable
  • User \ ICA \ Desktop UI \ View window contents while dragging = Disable
  • User \ ICA \ Multi Stream Connections \ Multi-Stream = Enable (and QoS)
  • User \ ICA \ Printing \ Direct connection to print servers = Disable
  • User \ ICA \ TWAIN devices \ TWAIN Compression Level = High
  • User \ ICA \ Visual Display \ Target Frames per Second = 15
  • User \ ICA \ Visual Display \ Moving Images \ Minimum Image Quality = Low
  • User \ ICA \ Visual Display \ Still Images \ Extra Color Compression = Enabled in very low bandwidth scenarios. Please note that the “Extra Color Compression Threshold” should be configured to an appropriate value.
  • User \ ICA \ Visual Display \ Still Images \ Lossy compression level = High or “Heavyweight compression” in case image quality loss is not acceptable (more CPU intensive)
  • Enable “Windows Media Redirection”
  • Enable “Flash acceleration” with client side content fetching
  • Enable “Audio over UDP Real-Time Transport”. Please note that this configuration requires audio quality to be set to “Medium – optimized for speech”
  • Set “Progressive compression level” to “Low” or any higher value

For more information, please refer to the Citrix Knowledgebase Article CTX131859 – Best Practices and Recommendations for Citrix Receiver 3 and HDX Technology with XenDesktop 5.5.

Group Policy User Settings for VDAs

Last Modified: Oct 23, 2024 @ 3:28 pm

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User Lockdown

The following is a list of Group Policy Settings recommended by Microsoft to lockdown a Remote Desktop Session Host / Citrix Session. These settings should go in the Citrix VDA Non-Admin Users GPO. All settings are located at User Configuration > Policies.

This page assumes the GPOs have already been created and Loopback Processing has already been enabled.

Some of the settings in this section might require the newer Windows Group Policy Templates.

Control Panel GPO Settings

  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Control Panel
    • Always open All Control Panel Items when opening Control Panel = enabled
    • Show only specified Control Panel items = enabled, canonical names =
      • Microsoft.RegionAndLanguage
      • Microsoft.NotificationAreaIcons
      • MLCFG32.CPL
      • Microsoft.Personalization
      • Microsoft.Mouse
      • Microsoft.DevicesAndPrinters
      • Microsoft.System (lets users see the computer name)
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Control Panel | Programs
    • Hide the Programs Control Panel = enabled

Settings Page Visibility

The September 2018 patches for Windows 2016 and Windows 10 add control of Settings Page Visibility in both the Computer half of the GPO (applies to all users), and now in the User half of the GPO (can apply to non-admin users).

  1. Make sure the Windows 10 and Windows 2016 VDAs are patched to at least the September 2018 Cumulative Update.
    • For Windows 2016, winver should show OS Build 14393.2515 or higher.
    • For Windows 10 1803, winver should show OS Build 17134.320 or higher.
  2. Go to your \\domain.com\sysvol\domain.com\Policies\PolicyDefinitions and find the file ControlPanel.admx. If it is not dated August 30 or later, then you’ll need to copy the updated version.

    1. On one of these newer VDAs, go to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions and copy the file ControlPanel.admx. The September 2018 patch updated this file.
    2. Go to your \\domain.com\sysvol\domain.com\Policies\PolicyDefinitions and paste the .admx file. Overwrite the existing file.
    3. On one of these newer VDAs, go to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US and copy the file ControlPanel.adml.
    4. Go to your \\domain.com\sysvol\domain.com\Policies\PolicyDefinitions\en-US and paste the .adml file. Overwrite the existing file.
  3. Edit the Non-Admin Users GPO.
  4. Go to User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Control Panel.
  5. On the right is Settings Page Visibility.
  6. Winaero How To Hide Settings Pages in Windows 10 describes this new setting. Also see TechNet Hiding pages in Settings with Windows 10 1703. A sample configuration is: showonly:printers;colors. According to Server 2016 & PC Settings/Immersive Control Panel at Citrix Discussions, the maximum length for this field is 255 characters.
  7. When the non-admin user logs into a Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 VDA that has the September update installed, the Settings pages are restricted based on the GPO configuration. Since this GPO setting is in the user half of the Non-admin users GPO, admins can still see all Settings pages.

Desktop GPO Settings

  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Desktop
    • Hide Network Locations icon on desktop = enabled
    • Remove Properties from the Computer icon context menu = enabled
    • Remove Properties from the Recycle Bin icon context menu = enabled

If you prevent access to the Properties of the Computer icon then users might not be able to determine the name of the machine they are connected to.

On Windows Server 2016, screen saver idle time does not work. Arjan Mensch developed a tool to lock the screen after a period of idle time. Launch the tool from a Group Policy login script. Download the tool from Enforcing lock screen after idle time Windows Server 2016 RDS Session Host.

Start Menu and Taskbar GPO Settings

  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates |  Start Menu and Taskbar
    • Clear the recent programs list for new users = enabled
    • Do not allow pinning Store app to the taskbar = enabled
    • Remove and prevent access to Shut Down, Restart, Sleep, and Hibernate commands = enabled
      • In Windows 10 1709, if you want to remove the Power Button, in the VDA, set HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Start\HidePowerButton (DWORD) = 1. Source = Power Button Windows 10 VDI at Citrix Discussions.
    • Remove common program groups from Start Menu = enabled (only if you have some other means for putting shortcuts back on the user’s Start Menu/Desktop. Also, enabling this setting might prevent Outlook desktop alerts. Microsoft 3014833)
    • Remove Help menu from Start Menu = enabled (Windows 7 / 2008 R2 only)
    • Remove links and access to Windows Update = enabled
    • Remove Network icon from Start Menu = enabled (Windows 7 / 2008 R2 only)
    • Remove Run menu from Start Menu = enabled (not recommended)
    • Remove the Action Center icon = enabled (not in Windows 10)
    • Remove the networking icon = enabled
    • Remove the People Bar from the taskbar = enabled (Windows 10 1703 and later)
    • Remove the Security and Maintenance icon = enabled (Windows 10)
    • Remove user folder link from Start Menu = enabled (Windows 7 / 2008 R2 only)

If you hide common program groups, then you will need some other method of creating application shortcuts for each user. Group Policy Preferences Shortcuts is the typical method.

Removing the Run menu prevents users from entering UNC paths or drive letters in Internet Explorer.

Start Menu pinned tiles

  • Configure Start Menu pinned tiles as desired
    • Remove Server Manager
    • Remove PowerShell
    • Etc.
  • Use Export-StartLayout to save to an .xml file.
  • Use Import-StartLayout to import to the Default User profile. All new users (new profiles) will get the customized Start Menu layout.

CTP James Rankin Dynamic Start Menu on Server 2016/2019 and Windows 10 using FSLogix App Masking

CTP James Kindon AppMasking The Windows Start Menu using FSLogix

Kasper Johansen The Windows Server 2019 Start Menu Is Playing Nice:

  • Clean up the default Start Menu
  • Use AppLocker to prevent access to Windows Security

CTP James Kindon Windows 10 Start Menu: declutter the default:

  • To eliminate the Start Menu tiles, remove Store apps, and Edge.

CTP James Rankin Management of Start Menu and Tiles on Windows 10 and Server 2016, part #1 contains the following:

  • LayoutModification.xml in Default User Profile
  • Start Screen Layout Group Policy setting
  • Partially-locked layout
  • FSLogix to apply a custom default layout for different user groups on the same device, and allowing users to customize all of it

CTP Eric Haavarstein Customize Windows 10 Start Screen and Optimize for Higher User Density contains the following:

  • Lock down a section of the Start Menu
  • Configure Citrix Profile Management to roam the Start Menu
  • Remove Provisioned Apps
  • Tune Windows using OS Optimization Tool
  • Disable Telemetry services

Microsoft Technet Customize Windows 10 Start with Group Policy.

System GPO Settings

  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates |  System
    • Prevent access to registry editing tools = enabled, Disable regedit from running silently = No
    • Prevent access to the command prompt = enabled, Disable command prompt script processing = No

Disabling registry editing tools also disables reg.exe. This is true even if silently is set to No.

Explorer GPO Settings

  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates |  Windows Components | File Explorer (Windows 8+) or Windows Explorer (Windows 7)
    • Hide these specified drives in My Computer = enabled, Restrict A, B, C, and D drives only
    • Hides the Manage item on the File Explorer context menu = enabled
    • Prevent access to drives from My Computer = enabled, Restrict A, B, C, and D drives only. If this setting is enabled, you can’t use Start Menu’s search to find programs.
    • Prevent users from adding files to the root of their Users Files folder = enabled
    • Remove “Map Network Drive” and “Disconnect Network Drive” = enabled
    • Remove Hardware tab = enabled
    • Remove Security Tab = enabled
    • Turn off caching of thumbnail pictures = enabled

Borders – Windows Server 2019 File Explorer does not show borders around File Explorer. To add borders, see Geir Dybbugt Microsoft Server 2019: No window border/allwhite issue

To hide specific drive letters:

  1. User Configuration => Preferences => Windows Settings => Drive Maps => New Mapped Drive
  2. Choose Action Update => Drive Letter Existing C => Hide this drive
  3. Common Tab: Run in logged-on users’ Security

Windows Update GPO Settings

  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates |  Windows Components | Windows Update
    • Remove access to use all Windows Update features = enabled, 0 – Do not show any notifications

File Explorer

Hide Favorites, Libraries, Network and redirected local drives

Winhelponline Removing “Quick access” from Windows 10 File Explorer details the following registry value to remove Quick Access from File Explorer in Windows 10, or Windows Server 2016 and newer. (h/t Sean Bolding)

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
    • DWORD value HubMode = 1

Terence Luk Hide Favorites, Libraries, Network and redirected local drives for Citrix and RDS published RemoteApp applications: See the Blog Post for instructions to edit the registry on the VDA to hide these items. Similar instructions are provided by David Wilkinson at Remove Quick Access from File Explorer in Windows Server 2016.



Explorer Notifications

From TenForums How to Hide or Show Sync Provider Notifications within File Explorer in Windows 10: Windows 10 1607 adds notifications inside File Explorer.

To stop these, use Group Policy Preferences to set the following registry value:

  • Key = HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
    • Value = ShowSyncProviderNotifications (DWORD) = 0

Windows Spotlight

Windows 10 1703 and newer shows suggestions, tips and ads on various parts of Windows (Start Menu, lock screen, Action Center, Explorer, etc.). These notifications are configurable at User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Cloud Content. Also see Richard Hay Windows 10 Creators Update: Turn Off Suggestions, Tips, and Ads Throughout the Operating System and Chris Hoffman How to Disable All of Windows 10’s Built-in Advertising.

Explorer Replacement

Instead of locking down Windows File Explorer, you can run a 3rd party Explorer like Tablacus Explorer. The tool is detailed by Marco Hofmann at Tablacus Explorer is an awesome replacement for explorer.exe as a #XenApp published Application!.

Flickering Icons

If you published a desktop on Windows Server 2016, and if you redirected the Desktop folder to a network share, then desktop icons might flicker. Helge Turk at XenApp 7.12/13, Server 2016 desktop icons flickering at Citrix Discussions resolved it be creating the following Registry Key using Group Policy Preferences:

  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}

Chrome

Use Chrome Group Policy to push the Chrome plug-in for Citrix’s Browser Content Redirection feature in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 1808 and newer.

Chrome 77+ Audio Issue

No Audio on Google Chrome version 77.x and newer inside ICA session.

Newer Google Chrome ADMX templates let you disable the audio sandbox. User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Google | Google Chrome | Allow the audio sandbox to run = Disabled.

Another workaround is to use Group Policy Preferences to deploy the following registry value: (source = CTX261992 Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops: No Audio on Google Chrome version 77.x inside ICA session)

If the new Chrome-based Microsoft Edge consumes 100% CPU, then CTP James Kindon Deploying Brave and Microsoft Edge Dev Browsers in Citrix CVAD environments says a similar registry value is needed for the new Edge.

  • Key = HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\CtxUvi
    • Value (String) = UviProcessExcludes = chrome.exe;msedge.exe;

GPO ADMX Templates

  1. Download the Google Chrome ADMX templates from Set Chrome Browser policies on managed PCs.
  2. Extract the .zip file.
  3. Go to the extracted files. In the \policy_templates\windows\admx folder, copy the chrome.admx and google.admx files.
  4. Go to PolicyDefinitions in your SYSVOL (e.g. \\domain.com\sysvol\domain.com\Policies\PolicyDefinitions) and paste the .admx files.
  5. Go back to the extracted Google Chrome templates in the \policy_templates\windows\admx folder and copy the en-US folder.
  6. Go to back to PolicyDefinitions in your SYSVOL and paste the en-US folder. It will add .adml files to the existing en-US folder.

Roam Chrome Settings

You can optionally enable Chrome’s roaming profile support. For details, see Use Chrome Browser with Roaming User Profiles at Google Help.

  1. Edit the Citrix All Users GPO.
  2. Go to User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Google | Google Chrome.
  3. On the right, double-click Enable the creation of roaming copies for Google Chrome profile data and Enable it.

Browser Content Redirection Extension

To force install the Chrome Extension needed for Browser Content Redirection in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) 1808 and newer:

  1. Edit the Citrix All Users GPO.
  2. Go to User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Google | Google Chrome | Extensions.
  3. On the right, double-click Configure the list of force-installed apps and extensions.
  4. Enable the setting and click Show.
  5. In the box, enter the following text and click OK. 
    hdppkjifljbdpckfajcmlblbchhledln; https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx

  6. When a user opens Chrome from inside a VDA, the Citrix Browser Content Redirection Extension is automatically installed.
  7. Configure the Citrix Policy settings detailed at Browser Content Redirection.
  8. Redirection of websites from Chrome requires Workspace app 1809 or newer on the client device.
  9. When you visit a whitelisted (ACL) website, on the client side, you should see HdxBrowserCef.exe processes. These processes come from Workspace app, and does not use Chrome on the client side.

Edge / Internet Explorer Settings

This section assumes the GPOs have already been created.

Edge 

When a new user launches Edge, the first run wizard appears.

To prevent this from occurring, edit the Citrix VDA All Users GPO.

Edge First Run GPO Settings

  • User Config | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Microsoft Edge
    • Hide the First-run experience and splash screen = enabled

Internet Explorer First Run Wizard

When a new user launches Internet Explorer, the first run wizard appears.

To prevent this from occurring, edit the Citrix VDA All Users GPO.

Internet Explorer First Run GPO Settings

  • User Config | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Internet Explorer
    • Prevent managing SmartScreen Filter = enabled, on
    • Prevent running First Run Wizard = enabled, Go directly to home page
    • Specify default behavior for a new tab page = enabled, Home page
    • Turn on Suggested Sites = disabled
  • User Config | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Internet Explorer | Compatibility View
    • Include updated Web site lists from Microsoft  = enabled
  • User Config | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Internet Explorer | Internet Control Panel | Advanced Page
    • Turn on Enhanced Protected Mode  = disabled

Enhanced Protected Mode might disable Internet Explorer add-ons. Read the text to determine if it should be disabled.

Users might see a message that Protected mode is turned off for the Local intranet zone.

To prevent this message, do the following:

  1. Edit the Citrix VDA All Users GPO.
  2. Go to User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry.
  3. Create a new Registry Item.
  4. Set the Hive to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
  5. Set the Key Path to: Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
  6. Set the Value name to: NoProtectedModeBanner
  7. Set the Value type to: REG_DWORD
  8. Set the Value data to: 1
  9. Click OK.

IE 11 in Windows 10 1703 and newer has a new button to open Edge.

  • To hide this button, edit a Group Policy that applies to users, go to User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Internet Explorer | Internet Settings | Advanced Settings | Browsing, and enable the setting Hide the button (next to the New Tab button) that opens Microsoft Edge. Source = René Bigler on Twitter.

4SysOps Disable Welcome to Microsoft Edge page and default browser prompt in Windows 10 1607: registry keys and PowerShell script to disable it.

Published Internet Explorer Settings – Runonce

If a user launches Internet Explorer as a published application, then Internet Explorer might not be fully configured and thus some websites won’t work. By default, Windows runs per-user configuration (ActiveSetup) of Internet Explorer only when the user connects to a full desktop, which doesn’t happen when only launching published apps. To override this behavior so it works with published IE even if the user never connects to a full desktop, do the following:

  1. Edit the Citrix VDA All Users GPO.
  2. Go to User Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Scripts (Logon/Logoff).
  3. Double-click Logon.
  4. Click Add.
  5. In the Script Name field, enter runonce.exe.
  6. In the Script Parameters field, enter /AlternateShellStartup. Click OK.
  7. Note: running runonce.exe /AlternateShellStartup might cause black borders around windows in published applications.
  8. Runonce.exe /AlternateShellStartup also causes the items in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run registry key to be executed when a published app is launched. Consider deleting the items (e.g. VMware Tools icon), or they might keep sessions open after users close their apps. Also see CTX891671 Graceful Logoff from a Published Application Renders the Session in Active State.
  9. An alternative to runonce.exe /AlternateShellStartup is to run the following commands provided by Steve Washburn at Active Receiver connection after app is closed at Citrix Discussions. 
    @echo off
"C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe" "C:\Windows\System32\iesetup.dll",IEHardenUser
"C:\Windows\SysWOW64\rundll32.exe" "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\iesetup.dll",IEHardenUser
start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"
exit

 

Windows 8.1/2012 R2 might not run the script at logon. Configure the following GPO computer settings to enable the script (configure these in the Citrix VDA Computer Settings GPO):

Logon Script GPO Settings

  • Computer Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | System | Group Policy
    • Configure Group Policy Caching = disabled. Windows 8.1/2012 R2 setting
    • Configure Logon Script Delay = enabled, 0 minutes. Windows 8.1/2012 R2 setting.
    • Configure User Group Policy loopback processing mode = Enabled, either Merge or Replace depending on the desired result

Internet Explorer Group Policy Preferences

The Internet Explorer Maintenance settings in group policy (User Configuration > Windows Settings > Internet Explorer Maintenance) have been removed in Internet Explorer 10 and Windows Server 2012.

If you run group policy editor on Windows Server 2008 R2 and try to add an Internet Settings object using Group Policy Preferences, notice there is no option to configure Internet Settings for Internet Explorer 9 or Internet Explorer 10.

If you use group policy editor in Windows 8 or Windows 2012, then Internet Explorer 10 is an option.

If you have access to Windows 8/2012, you can add an Internet Settings object for Internet Explorer 10. When configuring a setting, notice the red or green lines (and red or green circles). Only green settings are applied. To change a setting to green, press F6 on your keyboard. To disable a setting, press F7 on your keyboard.

As you look through the tabs, you’ll see a bunch of green items. These green items will be applied and might not be the behavior you expect. To disable all settings on a particular tab, press F8. To turn them back on, press F5.

On the Common tab you can check the box to Apply once and do not reapply.

Internet Explorer Security Zone Configuration

There is a group policy setting at User Config | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Internet Explorer | Internet Control Panel | Security Page |  Site to Zone Assignment List that can be used to put Internet sites in Internet Explorer security zones. However, users cannot add their own sites (the user interface in Internet Explorer is grayed out).

This section details an alternative procedure for administrator-configured zones while allowing users to add their own Trusted Sites.

Note: Zones can’t be configured using a Group Policy Preferences Internet Settings object so instead you’ll need to configure registry keys as detailed below.

  1. Run Internet Explorer and configure security zones as desired.
  2. If you are using Workspace Control in Receiver for Web or need pass-through authentication, make sure you add StoreFront as a Local Intranet Site.
  3. Run Group Policy Management Console on the same machine where you have security zones configured.
  4. Edit the Citrix VDA All Users GPO.
  5. Go to User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry and create a new Collection Item. Name it IE Zones or similar.
  6. Right-click the collection and click New > Registry Item.
  7. Click the … button next to Key Path.
  8. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains. Click the key corresponding to the FQDN you’re adding. Then select the registry value on the bottom that corresponds to the protocol (e.g. * or https). Click Select. Note: 1 indicates Local Intranet zone.
  9. Then click OK. Note: 1 indicates Local Intranet zone.
  10. Feel free to rename the Registry Item to reflect the actual zone.
  11. Repeat these steps for additional zones.

Internet Explorer Home Page

If you don’t have access to Windows 8/2012 group policy editor, configure the default home page using a registry key.

  1. Run Internet Explorer and configure home page as desired.
  2. Run Group Policy Management Console on the same machine where you have the home page configured.
  3. Edit the Citrix VDA All Users GPO.
  4. Go to User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry and create a new Registry Item.
  5. Click the … button next to Key Path.
  6. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main. On the bottom, select Start Page. Then click Select.
  7. On the Common tab, you can select Apply once and do not reapply. Then click OK.

Proxy Settings

If you don’t have access to Windows 8/2012 group policy editor, configure Proxy Settings using registry keys. Proxy Settings are stored under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings. Use Group Policy Preferences or similar to distribute the registry keys.

To prevent users from changing proxy settings, also configure the following group policy setting.

  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Internet Explorer | Internet Control Panel
    • Disable the Connections page = enabled

Internet Explorer Performance

Julian Mooren at XenApp & Internet Explorer – Improving User Experience details how to enable Tracking Protection in Internet Explorer to reduce XenApp CPU. The procedure uses Group Policy Preferences to set registry keys, and adds a folder to Citrix Profile Management synchronization.

Microsoft 365 Apps / Office 365 / Office 2021 / Office 2019 / Office 2016

Microsoft 365 Apps (aka Office 365) Planning

Microsoft 365 Apps ProPlus is supported on Windows Server 2019.

Microsoft FSLogix can roam Office cache files (e.g. Outlook .ost file) and Search Index. FSLogix is free for most customers.

CTP Marius Sandbu Guide to Deploying Office 365 in RDSH and VDI Enviroment contains:

  • Common best-practices and guidelines
  • Identity Federation and sync
  • Licensing and Roaming
  • Deployment and managing updates
  • Vendors and Office 365 Optimization
  • Skype for Business
  • Teams
  • Outlook
  • OneDrive
  • Group Policy
  • Troubleshooting and general tips for tuning
  • Remote display protocols and when to use when.
  • Server 2019 and Office 365
  • Office 2019 / Office 365 ProPlus

Citrix Implementation Guide Microsoft Office 365 for Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.x contains:

  • Considerations for Outlook Cached Mode
  • Group Policy settings for Outlook Cached Mode
  • For Lync Audio/Video – various options for delivering the Lync client
  • Caveats for OneDrive for Business
  • Licensing – shared computer activation

VMware Best Practices for Delivering Microsoft Office 365 in VMware Horizon 7 contains:

  • Requirements for Using Nonpersistent VDI and RDS with Office 365 ProPlus
  • Using the Office 2016 Deployment Tool to download and install Office
  • Enabling Shared Computer Activation on Nonpersistent VDI and RDS
  • Considerations for Deploying Office 365 ProPlus to a Horizon Environment – OneDrive, Outlook
  • Office Group Policy Settings

Office 2021 / 2019

Office 2021 and Office 2019 are Perpetual version of Office, which means no new features until the next Office LTSC is released.

  • By contrast, Microsoft 365 Apps ProPlus receives new features periodically (every few weeks).

Office 2021 and Office 2019 require volume licenses. See Microsoft Office 2019 Volume License Pack for KMS server or Active Directory activation.

There is no MSI installer for Office 2021 or Office 2019. Instead, you use Office Deployment Tool to download and install the Click-to-run version of Office 2021/2019 Volume License. See Deploy Office LTSC 2021 or Deploy Office 2019 (for IT Pros).

The Office 2021/2019 icons/shortcuts do not say 2021 or 2019 on the end. There’s no year designation.

File > Account shows the version info. As does Apps and Features.

Office Group Policy Templates

Download the Microsoft 365 Apps / Office LTSC 2021 / Office 2019 / Office 2016 group policy templates. The same templates are used for all Office versions 2016 and newer.

Microsoft renamed Office 365 to Microsoft 365 Apps.

Choose the bitness that you installed. The default for Microsoft 365 Apps is x64.

Microsoft 365 Apps, Office 365, Office 2021, Office 2019, Office 2016

  1. Go to the downloaded Microsoft 365 Apps / Office 365 / Office 2021 / Office 2019 / Office 2016 group policy templates and run admintemplates_x64_5077-1000_en-us.exe.
    Note: Office 2016, Office 2019, Office 2021, and Office 365 use the same group policy templates.

  2. Check the box next to Click here to accept and click Continue.
  3. Specify a folder to place the extracted templates in.
  4. Click OK to acknowledge that files extracted successfully.
  5. Go to the folder where you extracted the files, and open the ADMX folder.
  6. Copy all .admx files, and the en-us folder, to the clipboard.
  7. Go to \\domain.com\sysvol\domain.com\Policies\PolicyDefinitions and paste the files.

    • If you do not have PolicyDefinitions in your Sysvol, then instead go to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions and paste the files.

Group Policy and Tweaks

This section assumes the Group Policy Objects have already been created.

For Teams, edit the Citrix VDA Computer Settings GPO and enable the Group Policy settings shown below.

Prevent the per-user version of Teams from installing with Office 365 (aka Microsoft 365 apps). Configure this GPO setting before installing Office. Then you can later install the machine-wide version of Teams. More details at Microsoft Docs.

  • Updates – Computer Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Office 2016 (Machine) | Updates
    • Don’t install Microsoft Teams with new installations or updates of Office = enabled
    • Update Channel – for Microsoft 365 Apps (aka Office 365) only

Edit the Citrix VDA All Users GPO and enable the Group Policy settings shown below. All are located under User Configuration > Policies.

Office 2013 group policy settings are different than the group policy settings for Office 2016, Office 2019, Office 365, and Microsoft 365 Apps. If you want to copy Office 2013 settings to Office 365 / 2019 / 2016 settings, see Microsoft’s Copy-OfficeGPOSettings PowerShell script.

Microsoft 365 Apps, Office 365, Office 2019, and Office 2016 are all version 16.0, thus the same GPO settings work for all of these versions. In Group Policy Editor, the GPO settings are under the Office 2016 folders.

  • Disable Office Telemetry
    • Key = HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\ClientTelemetry
      • Value (DWORD) DisableTelemetry = 0xffffffff
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Office 2016 | First Run
    • Disable First Run Movie = enabled
    • Disable Office First Run on application boot = enabled
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Office 2016 | Global Options |Customize
    • Allow roaming of all user customizations = enabled
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Office 2016 | Miscellaneous
    • Block signing into office = enabled, Org ID only  Source = Microsoft Answers
    • Disable Office Animations = enabled
    • Do not use hardware graphics acceleration = enabled (if no GPU)
    • Hide file locations when opening or saving files = enabled, Hide OneDrive Personal
    • Suppress recommended settings dialog = enabled
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Office 2016 | Privacy | Trust Center
    • Automatically receive small updates to improve reliability = disabled
    • Disable Opt-in Wizard on first run = enabled
    • Enable Customer Experience Improvement Program = disabled
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Office 2016 | Tools | Options | General | Service Options… | Online Content
    • Online Content Options = enabled, Allow Office to connect to the Internet
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Outlook 2016 | Account Settings | Exchange
    • Automatically configure profile based on Active Directory Primary SMTP address = enabled
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Outlook 2016 | Account Settings | Exchange | Cached Exchange Mode
    • Use Cached Exchange Mode for new and existing Outlook profiles = disabled
    • If you prefer to use Cached Exchange Mode, set the above setting to enabled, and add below: Source = Citrix’s Office 365 Implementation Guide
      • Cached Exchange Mode Sync Settings = enabled, time-window of downloaded content
      • Install FSLogix to assist with roaming of the OST file.
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Outlook 2016 | Miscellaneous | PST Settings
    • Default location for PST files = enabled, user’s home directory
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Outlook 2016 | Outlook Options | Other | AutoArchive
    • AutoArchive Settings = enabled, uncheck box next to Turn on AutoArchive
  • User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | Microsoft Outlook 2016 | Outlook Options | Preferences | Search Options
    • Prevent installation prompts when Windows Desktop Search component is not present = enabled
  • Computer Config | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Search |
    • Prevent indexing Microsoft Office Outlook = enabled (see below)

Office Click-to-Run Accept EULA Window

To get rid of the Accept Office License Agreement button/window…

Use Group Policy Preferences to set the following registry values:

  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Registration
    • AcceptAllEulas (DWORD) = 1
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Registration
    • AcceptAllEulas (DWORD) = 1

Office temp file errors

To prevent Office temp file errors:

  • User Configuration | Preferences | Window Settings | Folders | New Folder
    • Action = Create
    • Path = %Localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache

Outlook and Windows Search

When launching Outlook, you might see the message “Please wait while Windows configures Microsoft Office 64-bit Components”.

To fix the Outlook search problem, you can either install Windows Search Service (Windows Feature).

Or enable the GPO setting: Computer Config | Policies | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Search | Prevent indexing Microsoft Office Outlook.

Office VL Activation not working

If Office 2016+ Volume License is not activating correctly, set the following registry value as detailed at Microsoft Office can’t find your license for this application at Citrix Discussions:

  • Key = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\CtxUvi
    • Value = UviProcessExcludes (REG_SZ) = sppsvc.exe

Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader Group Policy

  1. Download the Adobe Reader XI Policy Templates from Reader XI Administrative Template
  2. Copy the .admx file and the en-us folder.
  3. Go to \\domain.com\SYSVOL\domain.com\Policies\PolicyDefinitions and paste the files. If this folder doesn’t exist, go to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions instead.
  4. Click Yes when asked to replace files.
  5. Now open a group policy that applies to all Citrix users.
  6. Go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Adobe Reader > Preferences > General.
  7. Open the setting Accept EULA and Enable it.
  8. Then open the Display splash screen at launch setting and Disable it.

Disable Repair

In Adobe Reader, users can open the Help menu and click Repair Adobe Reader Installation.

Then users are prompted to reboot. Obviously this is not good. Even non-admins can reboot.

  1. In regedit, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\Installer.
  2. Add the DWORD DisableMaintenance and set it to 1.
  3. Now the Repair option is grayed out on the Help menu.

Disable Updates

For Acrobat Reader DC, you must edit the registry to disable Updates. This also works for Adobe Reader XI.

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe ARM\Legacy\Reader\{AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-AC0F074E4100}
    • Mode = 0 (disables updates)

 

In Adobe Reader XI, there is a GUI method of disabling updates:

  1. Run Adobe Reader from the Start Menu.
  2. Open the Edit menu and click Preferences.
  3. On the Updater page, change the selection to Do not download or install updates automatically and click OK.

Other Optimizations

Rick van Soest Removing “The Cloud” from Adobe Acrobat Reader DC:

  • To remove tools, delete them from C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroApp\ENU
  • To remove the welcome screen, add the following registry dword value: HKLM\Software\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\FeatureLockDown
    • bUsageMeasurement (REG_DWORD) = 0
  • To remove the “add account” button, HKLM\Software\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\FeatureLockDown\cSharePoint
    • BDisableSharePointFeatures (REG_WORD) = 1
  • To remove the “Check for update” button, HKLM\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\Installer
    • DisableMaintenance (REG_DWORD) = 1

 

Adobe.com – Citrix Deployments: Before deployment, the product should be configured as needed. In particular, you will want to disable features and behaviors that should not be accessible to end users in an IT-managed environment. For example:

  • The Updater should be disabled as described in this guide and the Preference Reference.
  • Accept the EULA on behalf of all users by setting the appropriate registry key.
  • For multilanguage installations (MUI), set the preferred language for all users via the SUPPRESSLANGSELECTION property or registry settings described in the Preference Reference.
  • Deploy enterprise files to the product’s directories (rather than per-user directories) so they are available to all users.
  • There are over 500 documented settings. Refer to the Preference Reference for complete registry and plist details.

 

Scrolling performance

If scrolling performance is poor in graphic intensive documents, try the following:

  • Go toEdit > Preferences > Rendering.
  • UncheckSmooth line art and Smooth images. Alternatively, you can set these preferences during pre-deployment configuration:
    • HKCU\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\Originals\bAntialiasGraphics: 0x00000000
    • HKCU\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\Originals\bAntialiasImages: 0x00000000

 

Distiller performance

  • In some environments, Distiller performance may suffer if the messages.log file becomes too large after a number of Distiller operations. Delete this file periodically. It is located at \Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\Distiller<version>\messages.log.
  • Remove unused fonts from the Windows installation.

Citrix Files

Citrix Files allows you to access your files in ShareFile directly through a mapped drive providing a native Windows Explorer experience. Citrix FIles replaces ShareFile Drive Mapper.

Citrix Files instructions:

To install Citrix Files:

  1. If Citrix ShareFile Drive Mapper is installed, uninstall it. Also see CTX238202 Upgrading from ShareFile Drive Mapper to Citrix Files for Windows.
  2. In VDA 1808 and newer, Citrix Files is bundled with the VDA installer.
  3. Or, download Citrix Files. The downloaded version might be newer than the version included with the VDA installer.
  4. On a VDA, run CitrixFilesForWindows-v.exe.
  5. Check the box next to I agree to the license terms, and click Install.
  6. In the Setup Successful page, click Close.

Session Lingering:

  • Citrix recommends editing your Delivery Group and enabling Application Lingering for a couple minutes so Citrix Files has time to upload files.

To configure Citrix Files:

  1. Go to C:\Program Files\Citrix\Citrix Files\PolicyDefinitions, and copy the file and folder.
  2. Go to \\domain.com\SYSVOL\domain.com\Policies\PolicyDefinitions and paste the files and folder. If this path doesn’t exist, then paste the files in C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions on your Group Policy editing machines instead.
  3. Edit a GPO that applies to all users.

    1. Go to User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Citrix Files.
    2. Citrix Files is enabled by default. If you only want some users to use Citrix Files, then you can configure a GPO to disable Citrix Files, and then configure a different GPO that re-enables it. The GPO that enables Citrix Files would be targeted to an AD group, and the GPO would be higher priority than the GPO that disables it. The setting to disable and enable Citrix Files is called Enable Application.
    3. Edit the Account setting.
    4. Enable the setting, and enter your ShareFile URL. Click OK.
    5. The Mount Point settings let you map different parts of Citrix Files to different drive letters.
  4. Edit a GPO that applies to the computers that have Citrix Files installed.

    1. Go to Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Citrix Files.
    2. The default Cache Location is AppData\Local\Citrix\Citrix Files\PartCache.
    3. Default Cache Size is 256 MB.
    4. Delete Cache on Exit is not needed on non-persistent machines, and not needed if the roaming profile cache is deleted on logoff. Make sure the Citrix Files cache is excluded from roaming profiles as detailed later.
    5. Auto Check-out of Office files can be enabled here.
    6. Auto-Update does not apply to Remote Desktop Session Host, so you’ll have to update those machines manually.
    7. Offline Access is enabled (allowed) by default.
    8. Personal Cloud Connectors (e.g. OneDrive) and On-Premises Connectors can be enabled from here.
  5. Edit your Citrix Profile Management GPO.
    1. Go to Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Citrix > Profile Management > File system.
    2. Edit the setting Exclusion list – directories.
    3. Add AppData\Local\Citrix\Citrix Files\ to the list.
  6. If you have on-premises StorageZones Controllers, you can enable Single Sign-on by enabling Windows Authentication. On the StorageZones Controllers, run IIS Manager.

    1. Navigate to Default Web Site > cifs.
    2. In the middle, double-click Authentication.
    3. Right-click Windows Authentication and Enable it. If you don’t see Windows Authentication in your list, you might have to install it using the Roles and Features wizard.
  7. After logging into Citrix and logging into Citrix Files, when you launch File Explorer, you’ll see Citrix Files on the left.
  8. If the Login Window doesn’t appear, the look for the icon in the system tray.

File Type Association

For the official Microsoft method of handling file type associations in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, see Windows 10 – How to configure file associations for IT Pros? at TechNet Blogs. This article details DISM, XML, and Group Policy.

Christoph Kolbicz at SetUserFTA: UserChoice Hash defeated – Set File Type Associations per User or Group on Windows 10 and 2016 developed a tool to set specific File Type Associations. No DISM or XML needed.

Also see the following:

Next Steps