Parsing Remote User Access via PowerFuse and Citrix

Here is a new technote, kindly provided by one of the cool folks over at RES. This technote explains how you can configure an application for the PowerFuse Desktop. What’s special in this scenario is that the application will be made available to all users logging onto the network internally, however only certain managers will be able to access the application remotely via Citrix Web Interface. This could come in quite handy.

Have a look at the document here:  

Building a kickass Workspace Extender demo!

A new technote has been added to the library. This one takes you through how to set up the RES Workspace Extender, so you can play around with it in you own test/lab environment. The article offers usefull info into how the technology works and takes you step-by-step through setting up a really cool demo on either Terminal Services or citrix, using either a videoclip or an application.

The net result is that you now can run heavy, graphic-intensive apps as part of a centrally managed remote desktop, regardles of the underlying delivery technology.

A buildingblock is available at the end of the article so you can get started quickly using the RES Workspace extender. Read all about it here

Enjoy! /TRG

Switching off – Still a good idea!

Remember a little while back, we looked into how much money can be saved by turning off computers? An article was posted last month on how and how much money you can save if you can turn off selected computers and servers for a few hours every week. In case you missed it, the article can be read here. 

To make  the point that we here at RESguru.com are not completely bonkers (that is besides the point :), here’s a newspaper clip from the Reading Post (in the UK) of Febuary 11th. Click on it to view full-size.

Wisdom BuildingBlock: Mandatory Profile Path

Here is another Wisdom BuildingBlock for your consideration. This one will help you correctly set an environment variable across all your different computers in your organization, which will point to the local path of a mandatory profile, which should be used for the given operating system.

This may at first sound like utter nonsense, but think of it like this: Let’s say that you want to enable users to have the same profile across different systems, say Vista, XP and Terminal Services 2003. Impossible you say? Nope, this can be done.  There is a nifty whitepaper from RES, available here which describes the entire procedure:  

To sum up the whitepaper, you can:

• Create a mandatory profile for each of the operating systems which require it
• Upload these profiles to PowerFuse Custom Resources, which will automagically replicate them out locally to the %programfiles%\res powerfuse\data\dbcache \resources\customresources folder on all machines running PowerFuse. Make a structure in PowerFuse Custom Ressources as seen here on the right (note you do not have to create all the folders etc. just point to the root folder of an existing mandatory profile and the RES console will import it with all subdirectories)
• Run the module on all target machines where users will be logging in.
• Configure User Preferences to grab the stuff which you want to store for the users uppon logout.
• Modify the User records in AD, change the user profile path of the users to the variable, say %manprofile% (remember, this can be done in Wisdom too! – perhaps a subject for another buildingblock)

This result is quite spectacular:  All users share one singular profile path (which is dynamic).  The user session will be loading the right mandator profile, as it will be specified by the variable. The path will be local, resulting in zero network traffic as result of loading the profile locally.

The Wisdom module has been designed with module parameters, so you can customize your own paths etc, making it quite easy to use.

Click here to download the module: 

Wisdom BuildingBlock: Repair NTFRS

On Windows Server 2000 and 2003, sometimes you might get a ton of Reds in the eventlog having to do with NTFRS as a Source. This is a nifty BuildingBlock for Wisdom which will repair the NTFRS (NT File Replication Service), according to Q290762 in the MS Knowledgebase. The buildingblock will allow you to perform both a Non-Authorative restore and an Authoriative restore.

Click the rarfile here to download it: 

Wisdom EasterEggs

Okay, so it’s not exactly Easter yet…  Anyway, once in a while you come across an EasterEgg in software which is really fun to use.  This is the case with RES Wisdom. Hidden in the console of RES Wisdom, you have two clandestine tasks at your disposal, respectively for playing audio on the target machine and opening/closing the CD tray. While there may be a 101 good uses for these tasks, there is obviously a wide margin for mischief ;-)

Btw, these tasks are most likely not supported by RES. Click here to read the article.