When I started with C# in my spare time I needed a goal, something to build. I have several PowerShell scripts and wanted to add a GUI and so CtxToolbox was born! So what to implement first? I started with the basics and worked up from there, and added the Drain functionality. The idea behind this functionality was born in an 24/7 hospital environment. At that time I was building a new XenDesktop 7.x infra for this customer. And when it went to production they needed a way to gradually get machines into maintenance mode to do maintenance without troubling the users. I created a PowerShell script where you could select the machine catalogs (we had a machine catalog per hyper-visor host) and “drain” them into maintenance mode
In this article I will make a short description how to make a remote PowerShell connection. I needed this for a job once, tried to make a remote PowerShell connection from a Non Domain Joined machine to a Domain Joined server. I needed to re-configure the server first before making a connection. With the following code you can try and test the connection:
The following was tested om 3.10+ versions, not sure if it works on older or 2.x versions.
Hide the default text # You can hide the default text “domain\user or username@domain.com” in the storefront username field. This can be done by simply editing the “custom style.css” file. This file is located in “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\Store>Web\custom”. Replace “<Store>” with your own store name. You need to edit each store separately. Add the following to hide the text (1):
For a while now it’s possible to use Let’s Encrypt certificates, they are trusted (cross signed), secure and most of all FREE! There are already a lot of tools available to generate these certificates. I haven’t come across a tool or script to generate these certificates and upload them to a Citrix NetScaler. So I thought why not build it myself. I already tried it in a previous attempt, but I wanted more automation and thus I created this version. To learn more about the Let’s Encrypt, check how it works.. What my script does in very basic steps (for example you want a certificate for www.domain.com): Ask LE (Let’s Encrypt) to validate “www.domain.com” (1) LE returns data (2) among them:
I’ve created a PowerShell script that can be used to generate an (offline) backup of a Citrix NetScaler. If you want you can use the supplied batchfile for example to schedule the backup in Scheduled Tasks to run everyday. Some more information about the parameters used:
Yesterday I was at a Customers location and they had an issue with their printers on the XenDesktop VDI environment. Some users are using Exact to print all kinds of labels, in this case a Zebra label printer. And while they were printing labels, the label printer was set automagically as default. They started noticing this because when they wanted to print other (A4) reports, the layout was wrong and some information fell of the report. They could change the default printer back to the MFP, but when they printed labels again, you’ll get it right? I recently helped them move from Windows 10 LTSB 2015 (1507) to Windows 10 LTSB 2016 (1607) and they started noticing this issue after the switch to the new Windows version. So what could it be? Turned out to be a setting in Windows… After changing this, the issue was gone. You can change it in “Settings”, “Devices”, “Printers & Scanners” and change the setting “Let Windows manage my Default printer” to off. Or you can set the following registry key:
Recently I upgraded a couple of MPX NetScalers to a recent 11.1 build at a customers location. During the following day the customer experienced a lot of disconnecting citrix sessions. I did not experience this issue on a VPX appliance. Turned out to be an issue with the “TLS1.2-ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384” cypher. And because I want to strive for an A+ rating at ssllabs (Scoring an A+ at SSLlabs.com with Citrix NetScaler – 2016 update) this one is in the list. After removing this cypher from the cypher group the customer didn’t experience any disconnects. So I thought to share this one as you may experience it for your self. Please also note this Citrix article: https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX220994
While testing with the latest Windows 10 LTSB 2016 version I found out in 9 of 10 logins failed, it was stuck on the message “Welcome other user”… I used the same deployment steps as with LTSB 2015 and not working, what was wrong? After reading the Citrix forum I found out that more users were experiencing this issue. After some testing I found out that my issue was caused by a disabled Service named “Device Association Service”. This is one of the optimizations in the “Technical Note – Optimize Windows 10” guide from Citrix. Don’t disable this service but leave it on Automatic. Since I found out I haven’t seen this issue since.
I’ts possible to convert your Server 2016 evaluation version to a production version using one of the following commands depending on your version: Standard:
DISM /online /Set-Edition:Serverstandard /ProductKey:WC2BQ-8NRM3-FDDYY-2BFGV-KHKQY /AcceptEula /Norestart Datacenter:
For a while now Windows 10 is supported with RES ONE Workspace 2015 and up. More and more companies are switching from their old versions (Yes, some of them are still using Windows XP) to Windows 10. I’ve done a couple of implementation now and thought to share some of the knowledge I found during these implementations.
