Netexceed blog by Jason Mohan» Netexceed by Jason Mohan

Create ICA files with Citrix Quick Launch Tool

Jason Mohan — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:18:19 +0000

Creating ICA files is usually pretty easy, but not all the time. I had an instance where I couldn’t create an ICA file with the access management console. So I used the ICA file creator from citrix, however it kept throwing up errors, and generic errors at that. I was fed up trying to find a solution. Then I found this Citrix Quick Launch tool, which allows you to directly connect to a published application on a citrix server, and creates and ICA file. So for my purposes bascially it did the same thing create an ICA file, but this one actually tells you what the error actually is instead of throwing something generic at you. Low and behold once I found out what the error was, the fix was to remove all my Citrix clients off of my machine and download the latest version (the one with the agent and the web). Then the ICA file creator worked and so did the Citrix Quick Launch tool.

Citrix Quick Launch Tool: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX122536

Citrix ICA file Creator: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX113472

Use the Quick Launch, it looks and works better at least in my opinion.

Apply Citrix Password Manager per application or per AD group only

Jason Mohan — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:59:08 +0000

Most people like me don’t see the benefits of running Citrix password manager on the whole farm. I want only have it run based on a published application, or based on a AD group. Citrix password manager it’s a love hate relationship for me. I hate it most of the time, except for like one application in our whole Citrix farm. I have like 50 out of 3000 users that could only benefit from Citrix password manager, the rest don’t need it. So how do I apply Citrix password manager to a subset of users, or application. Below is the step by step. Bascially what you are doing is removing it from startup, and only applying it to startup based on an application, or AD group (via VB logon script). I’ve given you two ways to launch Citrix password manager, based on a published application or via a AD group on logon.

Run Citrix password manager based on a published application

1. Regedit, and go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\AppSetup

2. Modify it, and remove only just this (nothing else). C:\Program Files\Citrix\MetaFrame Password Manager\wts\ssolauncher.exe /nossoshutdown

3. Close regedit

4. Now you can apply it to a published app like notepad with the following command. “C:\Program Files\Citrix\MetaFrame Password Manager\wts\ssolauncher.exe” /application “C:\Windows\notepad.exe”. The working doesn’t change either, in this case it would be C:\Windows\notepad.exe.

Run Citrix password manager based on a AD group at logon using a VBScript.

Here’s the logon vbscript I used, use at your discretion. If a user was in the Citrix Password Manager AD Group (I created this security group in AD, it’s not a standard group that comes with Citrix or anything) then the Citrix password manager would run.

For Each strGroup in objUser.MemberOf
strGroupPath = “LDAP://” & strGroup
Set objGroup = GetObject(strGroupPath)
strGroupName = objGroup.CN

Select Case strGroupName

Case “Citrix Password Manager”

Dim aWshShell
Set aWshShell = WScript.CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
Return = aWshShell.Run(“c:\progra~1\citrix\metafr~1\wts\ssoLauncher.exe /nossoshutdown”, 1, true)
Set aWshShell = Nothing

End Select

How to reset Citrix Password Manager for a user

Jason Mohan — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:07:35 +0000

What do you do when a user doesn’t remember the answers to the security questions that they registered with in citrix password manager? But their is another option just enter your previous password? Oh they don’t remember that either. Great! So what do you do. Just reset their registration of password manager. I dunno why, but I had the hardest time trying to find this option. So in hopes this could help someone else I’ve described the steps below.

1. Logon to the citrix password manager server.

2. Go to the password manager console

3. Make sure the user is logged off from all citrix sessions

4. Go to the password manager section in the console and then go to user configurations

5. Choose Reset User Data in the middle column.

6. Now have the user log back in.

Tada!

Running commands on remote servers

Jason Mohan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:08:27 +0000

We have many citrix servers, but whenever I need to run one simple command I hate to go to all my citrix servers to run on. I wish I could just connect to one server, and access the command line for all the other server. Well you can, as I soon learned with psexec. It’s a Microsoft tool (formerly sysinternals), and you can download it here. Below is how you use it.

psexec \\RemoteComputer cmd.exe

Now your at the command line of the remote computer. This requires the admin$ to be on (which it usually is).

Repairing file associations

Jason Mohan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:02:39 +0000

Have two versions of the same software that open the same file extension? Having trouble getting windows to open the right one. We had this same problem with Crystal reports (.rpt extension), but setting it in the file types options in windows did not work. However the bottom command worked in our citrix farm. Don’t put this is a batch file because the %1 doesn’t flow correctly.

change user /install
assoc .rpt=rpt_auto_type
ftype rpt_auto_type=”C:\Program Files\Business Objects\Crystal Reports Viewer 2008\CrystalReportsViewer.exe” “%1″
change user /execute

Citrix session stays open with Symantec

Jason Mohan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:24:26 +0000

Symantec Endpoint Protection doesn’t allow citrix sessions to close. I had this problem when we installed symantec corporate edition to our citrix servers. All the citrix applications were closed, but the session would stay open because symantec was running in the session. Below is the fix. The application name maybe different for you, so find the .exe that’s running the symantec icon on your server.

1. Regedit on the server

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\wfshell\TWI

3. Find this key: LogoffCheckSysModules

4. Modify the key and add the below to it (comma as separator).

Value: SymCorpUI.exe,SmcGui.exe,Smc.exe

Citrix IMA Error 2147483649

Jason Mohan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:44:47 +0000

The Citrix IMA service doesn’t start, and you get 2147483649 in the error log. Try the following.

Run “dsmaint verifylhc” at the command line on the server having the problem. If it finds corruption it will ask to repair. Try starting the service after the repair.

Launch.ica doesnt launch in internet explorer

Jason Mohan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:08:09 +0000

I had this weird problem on a machine, whenever I logged into my citrix web interface, and clicked on a application icon it won’t launch. It shows downloading the file, but it would not do anything with the file it would just sit there. I check the file assoication for .ica and it was set correctly, but won’t launch still. Then I found that you may need to re-register the wfica32.exe again. Of course after that it worked. Hopefully anyone else who every encounters this issue just follow the steps below.

1. Drop to a command line prompt

2. Navigate to c:\program files\citrix\ica client

3. Type in the following command: wfica32 /setup

If you had any IE windows open close it all and open it back up. Then navigate to your citrix web interface and magically it’s fixed.

Copying Citrix licenses to another server

Jason Mohan — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:14:04 +0000

What happens if your citrix license server is unstable, or you need to create a citrix farm for testing purposes, or your license server dies? I had a citrix license server crash on a consulting job, and I had to figure out how to bring their environment back up. Luckily I had the data files on the dead server. Below are the instructions on how to make another server a citrix licensing server.

1. Make sure the new server has the same name as the old server, the licenses were on (domain doesn’t matter, just the name). Caps make a difference.

2. Install the Citrix licensing service on the new server from the cd, update it to the same version of citrix licensing as was on the old server.

3. Copy the license_xxxx.lic file from C:\Program Files\Citrix\Licensing\MyFiles from the old server (or in my case pull it from backup), and place in it the same path on the new server.

4. Now go to regedit on the new server HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters.

5. Edit the Hostname and NV Hostname key to the old servers name (exactly, caps matters).

6. Reboot the new server and you should see the licenses.

Printers missing in citrix?

Jason Mohan — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:57:06 +0000

Are you getting calls from users saying their printers are missing in citrix? It’s probably a problem with a or a few print drivers interacting with citrix. First off you can’t blame citrix as I was initially doing. It’s really not a citrix problem (I’ll prove that below showing that the print server has no citrix software on it), it’s more related to the print driver and the ways it acts with terminal services. If your spooler keeps crashing, or you hear your users complaining saying all my printers are missing in citrix then it might be a print driver acting up crashing your spooler. Well the problem is how do you narrow down the printer driver causing the issue. We had this same problem across the board, with different users all the time until I talked to a citrix engineer. So I’ve described the steps from what I learned from him below, so you don’t need to waste a support call or your time. Hopefully this will help you out.

Problem: Printers are missing when user logs on to citrix.

1. Create a another print server for testing purposes. I used a virtual machine for testing. If you don’t want to do this skip to step 6 (but I highly recommend you do this as you’ll be crashing your spooler most likely on your live print server).

2. Go to the live print server and lets migrate all the printers and the drivers to test print server we created in the above step using the Microsoft Printer Migrator 3.1 tool, which you can download here.

3. Now you’ll need to install the tool on the live print server and the test print server.

4. Backup the printer and drivers on the live print server to a file (it’ll create a .cab), then restore the printers and drivers on the test print server using the .cab file you created when you backed it up.

5. Now that’s all you need to do with the live print server, lets focus on the test print server.

6. Download the stress print tool from citrix and read the article on their website explaining the instructions on how to use it http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX109374.

7. Run the stress tool, and also run a perfmon (performance monitor) on the spooler thread and how it interacts with the processor.

8. Now test one driver (check off the driver and highlight it). You really don’t need to change any of the default options, except for the add events use 5, and 5 times to repeat the test (according to what a citrix engineer told me).

9. Now run the test, watch how the driver interacts with the spooler and processor, and also check for any warning in the stress tool.

If it crashes the spooler that’s a bad driver

Now what the citrix engineer told me was that if you get 0 errors, and the spooler didn’t crash that’s a good driver. If you get 1or 2 warning errors from the stress tool it’s ok, anything more than that you need to look into getting another driver for that printer.

10. Now restart the print spooler test and repeat.

Hope that helps some of you, remember you need to check print driver with the tool before installing drivers, saves a lot of headache later.