Disable the Windows Key

Disable the Windows Key

you can disable windows key on keyboard.

For this navigate the following key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]

Name: Scancode Map

Type: REG_BINARY (Binary Value)

Value: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0 00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00

To enable just delete the name and value.

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Clear Internet Browser Cache

I often have to clear internet browser cache as I work on websites and cannot see the updates I have made until I clear the cache.If you are needing to clear Internet browser cache you must be experiencing some of the annoying problems that it can cause. Browser cache can make you think you are in a time warp or maybe even going crazy. You might experience a sense of deja vu when browsing the internet as you might be shown cached pages that can serve you yesterdays news. This means that if a website is updated you seriously could be viewing an old version.

What is Internet browser cache?

Internet browser cache is really the same as the Temporary Internet Files folder.

It is a collection records form your internet browsing sessions. This includes images, sounds, cookies, webpages,and more. If you inspected these files you would be shocked to see that even a mere favicon from a website you might visit is collected.

Why is the Internet browser cache stored?

You are probably wondering why the hell we need to store all this junk when browsing the internet? I sometimes think this as well, however if these files were not stored you would definitely slow your internet browsing down. These files are stored in your cache to make web browsing faster. The items stored in the temporary internet folder can be accessed quicker than downloading the same thing over and over. For example certain elements of a website that you visit often will be stored to ensure a smoother experience.

Why do you need to clear internet browser cache?

• Viewing old versions of websites
• Your internet browsing is struggling
• Your cache is full

Clear Internet Browser Cache in Google Chrome

1.  Open Google Chrome.

2.  Go to the right corner and looker for the spanner.

3.  Click on it to see the menu. Choose options from the menu. See the screen shot below.

4.  The Google chrome options will appear. Click on the button that says Clear browsing data.

5.  A Clear browsing data box will appear.

6.  Tick the boxes that you want to delete.

Your choices include: Clear browsing history, Clear download history, Empty the cache, Delete cookies and other site data, Clear saved passwords, Clear saved form data.

Clear Internet Browser Cache in Mozilla Firefox

1.  Open Firefox and go to the tools menu.

2.  From the menu choose Clear recent History. See the screen shot below.

3. The clear Recent history box will appear.

4.  Tick the box next to cache to clear internet browser cache.

Clear Internet Browser Cache in Internet Explorer

Here’s how to clear Internet browser cache in Internet Explorer.

1.  Press on the wired thing in the right corner. The menu will appear.

2.  Choose Internet options.

3.  On the General tab, under the browsing history section, press on the delete button.

4.  Again you can choose what to delete. I always try to not delete my saved passwords as I hate typing them in all the time..I am too lazy to get roboform.

If I have not covered the instructions for your particular browser, as you can see they are all very similar. Let us know how often you clear internet browser cache?

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Configure Offline Access in Citrix

Administrators can configure applications that are published to stream to desktops for offline access. This feature allows users to disconnect from the company network and continue to run their applications in offline mode for a specified length of time. No additional configuration is needed while profiling the application to create application profiles or targets that can be accessed offline.
After you configure the offline application policy settings and configure a streamed application for offline access, the next time the user device connects to XenApp, the offline plug-in downloads the application and caches it on the user device.

Important: Before you configure offline access, refer to System Requirements for Application Streaming for the supported platforms and system prerequisites for user devices.

• Step 1: Configure policy settings for offline access
• Step 2: Install the online and offline plug-ins on user devices
• Step 3: Publish the application for offline access

You can complete these steps in any order, but users cannot run applications in offline mode until all steps are completed.


Step 1: Configure Policy Settings for Offline Applications

Configure these Citrix policy settings for Offline Applications:

• Offline app users (required). Create a list of users or groups who have offline access permission and add that list both when creating the policy for Offline app users and when publishing the application. Users or groups listed in the offline app users policy setting and who are also configured for the application have permission to run offline-enabled applications in online and offline mode. Users who are configured for the application, but who are not added to the policy list can access the application online, but not offline.Users or groups on this list use an offline license to launch applications regardless of whether they are connected to the network or disconnected.
  
• Offline app license period (required). Specify the number of days applications can work offline before users have to renew the license (21 days by default, but can range from 2 to 365 days).
•  For versions 1.0 through 5.1 of the plug-in, the license for each application in the profile is activated when the user launches the application the first time, for online or offline use. Beginning with version 5.2 of the plug-in, when the user launches an application in the profile for the first time, for online or offline use, the offline license is activated for all other applications in the profile, as well. This occurs at the farm level. Thus, the offline license for all applications in the profile expires based on the date of the first application launched the first time, regardless of when the other applications are launched.
• To configure licenses, administrators can use the License Management Console or command-line tools. They must also ensure they have a sufficient number of licenses to support the total number of users with offline access permission. Users who run XenApp hosted applications can also stream applications to user devices without requiring a separate license. For general information, in the topics for Licensing Your Product, see Getting Started with Citrix Licensing.
• When users with offline access log on using the online plug-in, they automatically either check out an offline license or renew a license already checked out. If users stay logged on, licenses are renewed automatically each day. If the license is near its expiration date while a user is running the application in offline mode, a notice appears reminding the user to log on (that is, change to online mode). When the user logs on, the offline license is renewed automatically if a license is available.
•  If the license expires and no license is available, the user cannot launch the application offline.Offline app client trust (optional). Use this setting to enable offline application clients that have disconnected to recreate sessions when reconnecting, without authenticating again.
  
• Offline app event logging (optional). Use this setting to enable logging of offline application events to the event log on the server. 

Step 2: Install the Online and Offline Plug-ins on User Devices 

To use the offline access feature, install both the offline and online plug-ins on the user device. The offline plug-in caches each streamed application on the hard drive of the user device. After the application is cached, the user can disconnect from the network or server and continue to run the application in offline mode for the period of time specified in the license.

Step 3: Publish the Application for Offline Access

The offline access feature is available only for applications that you publish as Streamed to client or Streamed if possible, otherwise accessed from a server.

In addition, when publishing an application for offline access, check the application's documentation and Web site to determine whether any special configuration is required on the user device to enable offline access of that application. For example, to stream Microsoft Outlook to the user device for offline access, users must enable the Microsoft Exchange Setting to "Use Cached Exchange Mode."

Configure the application for offline access while publishing the application or later using the application properties: 

• Enable the application for offline access and select the caching preference.
• Create a list of users or groups who have offline access permission and add that list both when creating the policy for Offline app users and when publishing the application.

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If you loose the connectivity to the Data Store and if you are loosing PS 3.0 OR later

* Users can connect to the farm without no issues (no grace period or any time limitation)
* Do not restart the servers (as it will try to contact DS and try to refresh the LHC)
* Do not reset the local host cache (it will not rebuild since DS is down)
* 96 hours grace period only applied to PS & Metaframe versions before PS 3.0.
* There is no way to seize PS/XenApp servers try contacting DS upon a reboot,
* Unless you use Management Console/Delivery console to manage your citrix farm it wont contact DS,
* LHC is there to perform the required functionality. Its by design.

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Points to remember in Citrix

Below points are very useful while attending interviews in citrix. Most of us know these statements, but just to gather all the key points at a single place, I have started this post. I will keep it updated everytime.

• If the data collector fails, existing and incoming sessions connected to other servers in the farm are not affected. The data collector election process begins automatically and a new data collector is elected almost instantaneously.
  
• The data collector election process is not dependent on the data store.
   
•  If the data collector goes down, sessions connected to other servers in the farm are unaffected.
• If a data collector goes down, there is no single point of failure.
   
• A primary domain controller or backup domain controller must not become the data collector for a zone.
   
• If a new MetaFrame server joins the zone or the current data collector is unavailable then an election is triggered to determine a data collector.
   
• Default time that inactive users will be logged off from the web interface is 20 mins in xenapp 5.0

• Individual Presentation Server will continue to function for 30 days after it loses connectivity to a Citrix License Server.
   
• Every five minutes the license server and the products send a heartbeat message to each other to verify that they are mutually communicating. 

• Some Citrix products can operate in a disconnected mode (not connected to the server). These products allow a user to check out a license and operate the product for a preconfigured period of time that is set by the administrator. In this case, heartbeat messages are not exchanged. One example of disconnected mode is when a user checks out a Password Manager license for a laptop, and then uses the laptop when it is not connected to the server.
   
• If for any reason, a Citrix product cannot contact the license server to request a license, the product goes into a grace period. This grace period is set by Citrix and differs depending upon the product.
   
• During a license server connectivity outage, yes, you can reboot your member Presentation Servers, and yes, you can reboot your data collectors. The mps-wsxica_mps-wsxica.ini file will stay put as long as you don’t actively delete it.
   
• If your environment includes a different directory service (such as Novell Directory Services for Windows) or you are a Citrix administrator without permission to manage Group Policy, use the Delivery Services Console to create policies for your farm.
   
• In Active Directory environments, the farm GPO takes precedence over the local GPO on the server in the event policy settings conflict.However, Active Directory GPOs take precedence over the farm GPO.
   
• If you are not seeing all the file types for your application this is because they may not yet be in the datastore. To pull the information from a server’s registry, right-click the server in the console select Other Tasks–>Update file types from registry. To pull FTA from all your servers right-click on the root of the farm and select Other Tasks –> Update file types. Bear in mind this is going to pull from all your server in the farm so if you have a large farm it may take a while.
   
• Remember you must also configure Client Drive Mapping for Client to Server content redirection to work.

• client to server redirection: update file types from registry.
   
• server to client redirection: u can set it in policy.

• If the license server is behind a firewall, you must assign a static port to the Citrix vendor daemon. 

• MS Access and SQL Express databases can only be accessed indirectly where you have the option when using MS SQL, IBM DB2 or Oracle.
   
• The Farm Metric Server gets its information from the zone data collector, which is updated every 15 seconds by each MetaFrame XP server

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Which Applications can't be virtualized in Citrix

While most applications can be successfully virtualized for use with SoftGrid, some applications may have certain characteristics that would prevent them from being completely virtualized using the current version of Microsoft SoftGrid.  This includes:

1. Applications that install and rely on a system-level driver, i.e. an application that installs a print driver or a USB device driver. Some applications may allow for the drivers to be installed independent of the other components of the application. As a work around for this scenario, the driver portion of this application could be installed locally on the client system, allowing the other components of the application to be virtualized.

2. Applications that install boot-time services (like RES PowerFuse)

3. Applications that use COM+.

4. MAPI virtualization. For information on SoftGrid and Microsoft Office, see the following article:939796 Prescriptive guidance for sequencing 2007 Office programs in Microsoft SoftGrid http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;939796.

5. COM DLL surrogate virtualization, i.e. DLL’s that run in Dllhost.exe.

6. Applications with licensing enforcement tied to machine, e.g. the license is tied to the system’s MAC address. (Due to sequencing issues; this just wouldn't make any sense)
7. Anti-Virus!

Some of the applications that fall into these categories can possibly still be run in Microsoft SoftGrid as long as the component that cannot be virtualized is installed locally on the same machine as the SoftGrid client. This solution may solve the issue but is not a guarantee the applications will properly function. We recommend you test the applications thoroughly to ensure they meet the expected level of functionality.

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Working with Citrix Policies

To control user access or session environments, configure a Citrix policy. Citrix policies are the most efficient method of controlling connection, security, and bandwidth settings.

You can create policies for specific groups of users, devices, or connection types. Each policy can contain multiple settings. For example, you can configure settings to:

• Configure farm settings such as Virtual IP, Health Monitoring and Recovery, and multimedia acceleration
• Control sound quality for client devices
• Allow users to access the Documents folder on their local client device
• Allow or prevent remote users from being able to save to their hard drives from a session
• Allow or prevent users from accessing the Windows clipboard
• Set a required encryption level for Citrix plug-ins
• Set the session importance level, which, along with the application importance level, determines resource allotment for Preferential Load Balancing

You can work with policies through the Group Policy Editor in Windows or the Delivery Services Console in XenApp. The console or tool you use to do this depends on whether or not your network environment includes Microsoft Active Directory and whether or not you have the appropriate permissions to manage Group Policy Objects (GPOs).

Using the Group Policy Editor

If your network environment includes Active Directory and you have the appropriate permissions to manage Group Policy, use the Group Policy Editor to create policies for your farm. The settings you configure affect the GPOs you specify through the Group Policy Management console.

Using the Delivery Services Console

If your environment includes a different directory service (such as Novell Directory Services for Windows) or you are a Citrix administrator without permission to manage Group Policy, use the Delivery Services Console to create policies for your farm. The settings you configure are stored in a farm GPO in the data store.

 

Note: In Active Directory environments, the farm GPO takes precedence over the local GPO on the server in the event policy settings conflict. However, Active Directory GPOs take precedence over the farm GPO.

 

Tips for Working with Policies

 

If you create more than one policy in your environment, make sure that you prioritize the policies so that it is clear which policy should take precedence in the event of a conflict.
The process for configuring policies is:

1. Create and name the policy.
2. Configure policy settings.
3. Apply the policy to connections by adding filters.
4. Prioritize the policy.

In general, Citrix policies override similar settings configured for the entire server farm, for specific servers, or on the client. However, the highest encryption setting and the most restrictive shadowing setting always override other settings.

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