When monitoring the performance of Domain Controllers there are certain counters over and above the default ones that will provide you with advanced information to ensure that they are sized and performing correctly. These are the JET Database Performance Counters.
Jeremy Saunders
AppDNA Tech Tip – Importing apps when there is no installer
Citrix has recently introduced me to an advanced component of AppDNA that allows the import of apps when a real installer is unavailable. This component is called the AppDNA MSI Generator.
The MSI Generator should only be used in the follow two scenarios:
- Applications that are known to be just flat files/folders with no real installers.
- Applications sitting on a file share with just a shortcut or simply copied on the local drive with no other action than that.
AppDNA is now included with XenDesktop 7 Platinum, or is it just a tease?
I was excited by the recent announcement during the Citrix Synergy 2013 keynote that an AppDNA license will be included with the upcoming release of XenDesktop 7 Platinum edition. Yes! Now one of my favourite tools, so needed in this space, gets to shine alongside the flagship products. This sparked so much excitement and conversation during the week of Synergy and thereafter.
There are, however, a couple of gotchas, that if not understood up front, will lead to disappointment. So let me explain.
Script to set the Adobe Print As Image option
Having deployed a new printing solution in a large University environment, we were faced with all sorts of printing errors, slow printing, and out of memory errors on the printers themselves; specifically when printing PDFs. This is related to how the PDFs are processed, which becomes a challenge in a higher education environment where the PDFs can be considerably complex. This was not only providing a poor user experience, it was becoming a support nightmare to manage when you have thousands of Students and Academics creating and printing PDFs. After some advice, research and testing we found that setting the Adobe “Print As Image” (cPrintAsImage) option made a big difference to the quality and stability of the solution, clearing up most of the printing errors previously experienced. This option changes the way Adobe works by sending the output to the printer as an image file rather than a combination of different elements.
PaperCut Client Launch or Logon Script for Windows
Having deployed PaperCut print management software in a large University environment, we were faced with the challenge of how to ensure that the client (pc-client-local-cache.exe) launched successfully and consistently at every logon to meet all the use cases. We also had to consider how we were going to specify the different types of command line parameters. So I wrote a script 🙂
What does the NetApp ONTAP cifs access share -m command do?
I recently had a Software Vendor tell me that we needed to run the “cifs access share -m” command on the NetApp Filers/vFilers in order to integrate their product correctly. According to the NetApp documentation it “specifies that access is being modified for Windows machine accounts”. Okay…fair enough. But wouldn’t you typically have this access enabled for machine startup scripts and software delivery policies that run from network shares? Anyway, I needed to document this for a change record. So we logged onto our test vFiler and ran the “cifs shares” command, to give us a reference for a before and after comparison.
An improved and enhanced version of the famous LaunchApp.wsf
Have you ever wondered why your logon script fails to map network drives when an Administrative user logs onto a computer with User Account Control (UAC) enabled; even though the drive mapping process completes successfully?
To understand this you need to read the section from “Group Policy Scripts can fail due to User Account Control” here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766208(WS.10).aspx
Finding Orphaned Group Policy Objects
Group Policy Objects (GPOs) are stored in two parts:
- GPC (Group Policy Container). The GPC is where the GPO stores all the AD-related configuration under the CN=Policies,CN=System,DC=… container, which is replicated via AD replication.
- GPT (Group Policy Templates). The GPT is where the GPO stores the actual settings located within SYSVOL area under the Policies folder, which is replicated by either File Replication Services (FRS) or Distributed File System (DFS).
This script will help find GPOs that are missing one of the parts, which therefore makes it an orphaned GPO.
NetApp Filers and vFilers generating Netlogon Event ID 5722 errors on Windows 2008 R2 Domain Controllers
I have a customer where the NetApp Filers and vFilers are generating Netlogon Event ID 5722 in the System event log on the Windows 2008 R2 Domain Controllers.
Example:
Log Name: System
Source: NETLOGON
Date: 18/07/2012 11:32:22 AM
Event ID: 5722
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: dc1.mydomain.com
Description:
The session setup from the computer vfiler1 failed to authenticate. The name(s) of the account(s) referenced in the security database is vfiler1$. The following error occurred:
The system detected a possible attempt to compromise security. Please ensure that you can contact the server that authenticated you.
Citrix Community Featured Web Page
I was stoked to find out that my web site has been listed on the Citrix Featured Community Sites Web Page 🙂 How cool is that?