Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with the support of our products. One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues for finding answers and resolving problems. A key area that the Support teams focus on is development a series of How To videos covering the most common questions asked in support.

To date there are over 40 How To videos covering 11 products available from Citrix TV. Over the coming weeks and months lots more will be added.

If you have a How To video suggestion or feedback on the current videos, contact us via one of the following channels:

• email AskSupport@citrix.com
• Tweet us @citrixsupport and @citrixreadiness
• Leave a message on our Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/CitrixSupport

Current video series available on Citrix TV are:

• Citrix XenServer - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/137
• Citrix XenApp - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/131
• Citrix XenDesktop - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/135
• Citrix NetScaler - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/133
• Citrix Provisioning Services - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/136
• Citrix Web Interface - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/129
• Citrix Merchandising Server - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/124
• Citrix Password Manager - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/126
• Citrix EdgeSight - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/132
• Citrix Workflow Studio - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/130
• Citrix Access Gateway Standard Edition - http://www.citrix.com/tv/#series/134

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with the support of our products. One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues for finding answers and resolving problems. A key area that the Support teams focus on is development of troubleshooting and health checking tools.

Following on from my last post about the Citrix Printing Tool another recently released tool from Citrix Support is the Citrix Quick Launch Tool.

This tool offers a simplified and easy to user interface to connect to any XenApp server or its published applications over the ICA protocol.

You can download the Citrix Printing Tool here.

Also find below a video by the tools developer Frederic Serriere, providing an overview and demo of the Citrix Quick Launch Tool.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with the support of our products. One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues for finding answers and resolving problems. A key area that the Support teams focus on is development of troubleshooting and health checking tools.

One of the most recent tools to come out of Citrix Support is the Citrix Printing Tool.

The Citrix Printing Tool helps configuring and troubleshooting the Citrix Printing subsystem on XenApp, XenApp Online Plugin, and XenDesktop products.

You can download the Citrix Printing Tool here.

Also find below a video by the tools developer Frederic Serriere, providing an overview and demo of the Citrix Printing Tool.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

I am pleased to announce that Access Gateway 4.6.1, Standard Edition was released today. This release of Access Gateway Standard Edition supports the following:

• Access Gateway Plug-in support for Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Access Gateway Plug-in support for Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit
• Access Gateway Plug-in for Mac OS X
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 8

The following new features are included in 4.6.1:

Access Gateway Plug-in and Citrix Receiver Integraton
Access Gateway Standard Edition supports Citrix Receiver, Citrix Merchandising Server, and Dazzle, which are components of the Citrix Delivery Center. Citrix Receiver, Citrix Merchandising Server, and Dazzle streamline the installation and management of application delivery to user desktops. For more information, see Integrating the Access Gateway Plug-in with Citrix Receiver.

Secure Ticket Authority redundancy
You can configure multiple redundant Secure Ticket Authorities (STAs) for users accessing their resources through the Access Gateway. This enables you to mitigate against the possibility of the STA becoming unavailable midway through a user's session, preventing reconnection to the session. When redundancy is enabled, the Web Interface attempts to obtain and deliver to the Access Gateway two tickets from two different STAs. If one of the STAs cannot be contacted during a user session, the session continues uninterrupted using the second STA. To configure the STA for redundancy, you must be using Web Interface 5.2 and Access Gateway Standard Edition, Version 4.6.1. For more information about configuring the Web Interface, see Configuring Access Gateway Settings in Web Interface 5.2.

A list of fixed issues is available from this article.

Installation
In Access Gateway 4.6, Standard Edition, the operating system on the Access Gateway is updated. With this update, upgrading from earlier versions of the Access Gateway is not supported. You must perform a clean installation of Version 4.6 or 4.6.1 on the Access Gateway appliance if it is running an earlier version of the software. If Version 4.6 is installed on the appliance, you can upgrade to Version 4.6.1.

For more information about installing 4.6.1, see this helpful article.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Over the last couple of months there has been lots of communication around the XenApp 5 FP2 release.

One of the components of XenApp that was updated with FP2 which hasen't received much publicity is the Web Interface 5.2 update.

I would like to take sometime to share with you what is new in this release.

For those of you who haven't had a chance to review the new features, see the list below, then watch my video for an overview of each feature and basic use case.

New features in Web Interface 5.2

• XenApp VM Hosted Apps
• XenDesktop User Roaming
• Disaster Recovery
• New Management Console
• Secure Ticket Authority Redundancy

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

The last few months we have seen lots of communication around the XenApp 5 FP2 and XenDesktop 4 product releases. Looking into the components released with XenApp 5 FP2 you may (or may not ) have noticed a new Secure Gateway hotfix - 3.1.2.

Secure Gateway 3.1.2 hotfix is available from MyCitrix or via the Citrix Knowledge Center article CTX122212.

So what's fixed in this release?

1. Under certain circumstances, the Citrix XTE Service does not properly disconnect a Terminal Services session. Specifically, the issue occurs when the network connection between the XTE Service and the client is interrupted and servers stop sending ICA KeepAlives to check the network connection status.

2. The Citrix XTE Service can exit unexpectedly at random, disconnecting all users.

3. After upgrading to Version 3.1.1. of the Secure Gateway, the Secure Gateway process can consume extensive memory, eventually using up all available memory.

In addition, all fixes from the previous 3.1.1 hotfix are included.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with our products.
One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues via our Knowledge Center.

Our Licensing team in Citrix Support receive lots of questions everyday around How to retrieve licenses for XenApp Platinum or How to license XenServer, etc...

The most common questions asked are documented in the Citrix Knowledge Center.

Below you will find a list of the most common questions asked.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Planning is done, content is ready, now we are in the middle of rolling out the XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 training to the support teams worldwide.

By Sept 29th, the date in which XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 will be available for download as mentioned in the Official Press Release, we plan to have a majority of Support engineers trained.

The 2 1/2 day XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 comprehensive training course covers all new features as outlined by Vinny Sosa in his What's new in XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 in plain English blog. A majority of the course is spent "hands on" installing, configuring, break/fixing and troubleshooting the various new features.

Then 3-5 months post release we plan to deliver a follow up "Advanced" session on common issues encountered.
The agenda for the Advanced session will be based on common/troublesome support issue logged in our CRM, Support Forums and Tech Support Twitter accounts, here and here.

Learn more about Citrix XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2

■Official Press Release - http://citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1857726
■XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 release Web Site - http://citrix.com/xenapp/featurepack2
■XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Executive Video - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/video
■XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Release Webinar - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/techtalk
■XenApp Expert Series videos for this release - http://citrix.com/xenapp/fp2/expertseries
■XenApp 5 Feature Pack 2 Blogs- http://community.citrix.com/blogs/tag/xa5fp2
■Download XenApp technology previews - http://citrix.com/xenapp/techpreviews
■XenApp Product Page - http://citrix.com/xenapp/

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

I came across this issue the other day while preparing for a Lunch & Learn for our support guys on Smart Access with Access Gateway. While I was clearing out some configurations in the AMC, this error popped up while trying to delete a web resourse. Not very informative.

The web resource was of type Citrix Web Interface 4.2 or later.

Running AAC 4.5 AAC450W004 (latest verion/patch), so thought I'd be ok.
After looking at my policies, filters to see if there was any references I found that the resource was still tied to the
XenApp farm at the AAC farm level.

AAC Farm -> Presentation Server Farms -> Web Interface

Once I unassociated the web resource from the XenApp farm I was able to delete it.
Knowledge Center article on the way...

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with our products. One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues via our Knowledge Center.

I will be writing a series of blog entries detailing recently released Citrix Knowledge Center technotes and hotfixes for Citrix products. The technotes are either newly authored or updated articles.

This blog entry will concentrate on Provisioning Server.

Technotes

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Over the past several days I have been assisting one of my colleagues with troubleshooting a Web Interface for SharePoint (WISP) 2007 "Unknown Error" issue.

The problem we initially had was that the error as stated was... Unknown!

Installing, deploying and activating the WISP Solutions and Features was successful. Its when you try to access any of the Citrix Administration links in Central Administration was where we had problems.

So we had to figure out a way to reveal the true error. After trawling through the Citrix Forums for several hours we came across a post which described the steps to turn on error reporting. Once we were able to see the true error, fixing the issue was easy.

Here are the steps we took to turn on error reporting in SharePoint 2007:

Locate the web.config file for the web application associated with your site.

If this is the default web application, this will be at:
C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80\web.config

If this is for the Central Administration site then the location will be:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS

Open web.config and make the following changes:

1. Locate the <customErrors> tag and change it to:
<customErrors mode="Off" />

2. Set callstack="true" as shown below:

<configuration>
<SharePoint>
<SafeMode MaxControls="200" CallStack="true" DirectFileDependencies="10" TotalFileDependencies="50" AllowPageLevelTrace="false">
</SafeMode>
</SharePoint>
</configuration>

This will cause the actual error to be displayed, for example:

The expression prefix 'WISP' was not recognized. Please correct the prefix or register the prefix in the <expressionBuilders> section of configuration. at System.Web.Compilation.ExpressionBuilder.GetExpressionBuilder(String expressionPrefix, VirtualPath virtualPath, IDesignerHost host)
at System.Web.UI.ControlBuilder.AddBoundProperty(String filter, String name, String expressionPrefix, String expression, ExpressionBuilder expressionBuilder, Object parsedExpressionData, Boolean generated, String fieldName, String formatString, Boolean twoWayBound) 
at System.Web.UI.ControlBuilder.PreprocessAttribute(String filter, String attribname, String attribvalue, Boolean mainDirectiveMode) 
at System.Web.UI.ControlBuilder.PreprocessAttributes(ParsedAttributeCollection attribs) 
at System.Web.UI.ControlBuilder.Init(TemplateParser parser, ControlBuilder parentBuilder, Type type, String tagName, String id, IDictionary attribs) 
at System.Web.UI.ControlBuilder.CreateChildBuilder(String filter, String tagName, IDictionary attribs, TemplateParser parser, ControlBuilder parentBuilder, String id, Int32 line, VirtualPath virtualPath, Type& childType, Boolean defaultProperty) 
at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ProcessBeginTag(Match match, String inputText) 
at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseStringInternal(String text, Encoding fileEncoding)

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with our products. One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues via our Knowledge Center.

I will be writing a series of blog entries detailing recently released Citrix Knowledge Center technotes and hotfixes for Citrix products. The technotes are either newly authored or updated articles.

This blog entry will concentrate on NetScaler.

Technotes

Maintenance Releases

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Tech Support often get asked about how to import/export a site's configuration since the release of Web Interface 5.1. As the SME for Web Interface in my team these questions often come my way, so I've been meaning to write this blog entry for some time

Since the release of Web Interface 5.1 earlier this year it is no longer possible to import/export a site's configuration via the Access Management Console (AMC).

Lets take a step back
In Web Interface 5.0.1, centrally configured sites were deprecated. In later releases (5.1.x), all support for centralized configuration has been removed. As a replacement for centralized configuration, Web
Interface for IIS allows you to specify a "master" site that shares its configuration file over the network. Other sites can then be configured to use the master site's configuration rather than a local file.

So in Web Interface 5.0 the AMC had the following options to import/export a sites configuration:

But in Web Interface 5.1.x those options were removed:

The reason for this is because of the removal of the centralized configuration feature.

In order to make a backup of a site's configuration in 5.1.x you simply grab the Webinterface.conf which is stored in the file system of the Web Interface server located at \inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\<site path>\conf\

HTH

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with our products. One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues via our Knowledge Center.

I will be writing a series of blog entries detailing recently released Citrix Knowledge Center technotes and hotfixes for Citrix products. The technotes are either newly authored or updated articles.

This blog entry will concentrate on XenApp.

Technotes

Hotfixes

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Citrix Support is focused on ensuring Customer and Partner satisfaction with our products. One of our initiatives is to increase the ability of our Partners and Customers to leverage self-service avenues via our Knowledge Center.

I will be writing a series of blog entries detailing recently released Citrix Knowledge Center technotes and hotfixes for Citrix products. The technotes are either newly authored or updated articles.

The first product I will write about is Citrix XenServer.

Technotes

Hotfixes

Let me know if this information is useful or suggestions to improve. Thanks.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

Recently, name changes were announced in the Branch Repeater product line. However Technical Support has received several queries from customers confused about what has changed, what hasn't, etc...

So I am writing this blog to help explain the changes that were announced. See the table below for the naming conventions.

There was also some maintenance releases for the Branch Repeater product line recently, see below for more details.

The Citrix Branch Repeater Maintenance Release 5.0.34, Repeater Maintenance Release 5.0.34 and Citrix Branch Repeater for Windows Server Maintenance Release 1.5.34 is now available on MyCitrix

A number of issues were fixed in this release, see the release notes on the MyCitrix downloads page for more information.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

I have come across many queries on the Citrix Forums, Twitter and other web sites discussing the most recent release of Web Interface - 5.1.2. So let me explain what's new in this relesae.

In Web Interface 5.1 we introduced the following features:

Smart Card Support with XenDesktop - XenDesktop users with Windows endpoint devices can use smart cards to authenticate to XenApp Web and XenApp Services sites hosted on Microsoft Internet Information Services.
Virtual Desktop Restart - XenDesktop users can restart virtual desktops running on virtual machines using a control on their XenApp Web sites or through the Desktop Receiver.
Simplified Plugin Detection and Deployment Process - The number of steps in the plugin detection and deployment process is reduced for the most common user scenarios, improving the experience of downloading and deploying an appropriate Citrix plugin.
Discontinued Support for Centrally Configured Sites - All support for centralized configuration, which was deprecated in the previous version of the Web Interface, is removed in the current release.

In Web Interface 5.1.2 the only change is the expanded langague support:

Expanded Language Support - The Web Interface end-user experience is localized for Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Korean.

To download Web Interface 5.1.2 click here and login using your MyCitrix account.

David
Twitter - http://twitter.com/citrixreadiness
Citrix Support on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/citrixsupport

I'm pleased to announce that we have just released a new version of the Brief Troubleshooting Guide (BTG) via the Knowledge Center.
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx106727

For those of you unaware, the Brief Troubleshooting Guide is intended as the first resource for Citrix Administrators/Engineers to troubleshooting technical issues for all Citrix products/technologies. The BTG gives guidance on where to start if a Citrix Administrator/Engineer is not very familiar with the product. The BTG is not in any way supposed to be comprehensive, but will help you gather the right information quickly, allowing YOU and Citrix Technical Support to resolve your issue promptly.

This release of the BTG is Bigger, Better and Bursting with new ways to help you troubleshoot all Citrix products.
All sections of the BTG were completely overhauled and lots of new products were added, for example:

• Citrix Offline App Plug-in
• Citrix Receiver for Windows
• Citrix XenServer
• Citrix Repeater Client
• Command Center
• EdgeSight for NetScaler
• EdgeSight for Load Testing
• Citrix User Profile Manager
• Citrix EasyCall
• Provisioning Services for Datacenters and Desktops
• Workflow Studio

Please download the latest BTG from http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx106727
For feedback, suggestions, corrections - BTG@citrix.com

David
Twitter: citrixreadiness

I'm sure you are all familiar with the iPhone commercials and the ubiquitous "there is an app for that" phrase that has seemingly become the catch phrase of this decade. Previous catch phrases include --but not limited to -- The 70s-"Heeeey" , The 80s-"Where's the Beef?" The 90s-"Doh!".

All kidding aside, "there's an app for it" reflects the current state of consumerization and customization that is becoming commonplace in today's on-line experience. It is no longer acceptable to have generic applications and content. We all know what we need/want for our apps and we need them now!

Citrix Community Updates

In that same spirit, today I have the pleasure of sharing some of the upgrades we have made to the Citrix community sites. Need a community for discussing Citrix and Microsoft products, "there's a community for that", need a community for the latest and greatest on Citrix and Oracle, "there's a community for that", need a community for finding cool communities "there's a community for that" , need a community where you can geek out (both online and local), "there are 2 communities for that" (gotta spice it up a bit , the first is here and the second is here)... well, I think you get the idea. You should check out the Citrix Community home page and in particular the new partner community module.

My team and I are continually looking for ways to connect with the Citrix community of customers, partners, Citrites and anyone interested in the latest in virtualization of applications, desktops and servers. We are continually soliciting feedback and update the site based on direct comments and industry trends.

Now it's your turn....

Let us know what types of communities you need and (you guessed it) "there will be a community for that", we are open to all types of ideas... here's a few to get the ball rolling (and maybe a peek at the future )... How about a Citrix and Windows 7 community? Or a Citrix and Desktop Virtualization community? Or (heaven forbid!) a Citrix and VMware community?

Also, let us know what type of content you are looking for in your communities. Check out the partner communities or even XenServerCentral for our real time multi-media feeds. Let us know how we can make them better for you...

Now I need to get back to my favorite iPhone App (an oldie but a goodie) ....

john

Please join Citrix Technical Support as we present a TechTalk on demand webinar that was given at TechEdge 2009:

Troubleshooting Tools and Methodology for Citrix XenApp 5.0 Environments

Check it out today!

Because XenApp interacts with other applications and components, technically complex problems can arise depending on the health of these components. These can include connection failures, server hangs, CPU spikes and slow logons. This session will cover real-world issues and the methodology used by the Citrix Escalation Services Team to resolve them. It will also illustrate tools used to troubleshoot XenApp 5 environments, such as CDFControl, MedEvac, ProcessExplorer and WinDbg.

In this session, you will learn:

• About key components of the XenApp and XenDesktop logon process and typical issues encountered

• Which troubleshooting and debugging techniques the Citrix Escalation Team utilizes

• Best practices for using XenApp troubleshooting tools and debugging techniques

Technical level: intermediate

Presenter: Kapildev Ramlal, Citrix Technical Support, Sr. Escalation Engineer

Learn more about Citrix support services!