XenApp

Priming a Non-persistent Windows Image using an Autologon Process with an Auto Logoff Timer

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Several years ago, and inspired by an article written by George Spiers to reduce login times, where “the second logon is quicker”, together with some code from Maurice Daly, I created a methodology and scripts that is designed to Autologon a non-persistent Session Host (both VDI and RDS), and then log it off again before another script will Start the Citrix Desktop Service (BrokerAgent).

It has been working flawlessly for years. However, I was never 100% happy with it because the process was using a domain (service) account for the Autologon process. The main challenge here was trying to change the password on a regular basis to stay compliant when managing multiple images. You cannot realistically do it without an outage. And in a 24×7 environment, it becomes difficult and onerous. I also felt that using a domain account can be “heavy” during a boot storm as you need to ensure you are excluding this account from profile management and policies where possible. Sometimes that is easier said than done. There is a level of risk here, as someone can easily make a change that will cause issues. The ability to roll the password and stay compliant was my biggest concern and where I got stuck for quite some time.

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What happened to the Citrix DaaS Remote PowerShell SDK Global Variables?

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If you are used to checking, verifying, or even leveraging the Global variables, such as XDAuthToken, XDSDKAuth, XDSDKProxy and XDSDKUser, created by the Get-XDCredentials cmdlet, Citrix has made changes to the way these cmdlets store and use this data. They have now moved these 4 values into the new NonPersistentMetadata property of the Get-XDCredentials cmdlet output.

But of course there is no documentation to explain this change or even make us aware of it. In fact all their documentation still refers to the global variables. Very frustrating!

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The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops & Desktops as a Service Health Check Script on Steroids

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UPDATE: Version 1.5.9 released on 3rd March 2026. See below for all the details.

Since November 2014 many of us have been using the amazing Sacha Thomet’s XenApp and XenDesktop Health Check Script. I’ve made my own modifications to it over the years, but never contributed and shared anything publicly until June 2025. My motivation is to give the community some amazing visibility of their Citrix environments that they’ve never had before. I took the last release from Sacha, which was the February 2022 update, together with some modules I’d previously written, and overhauled the whole process from top to bottom, and wrote even more modules. Sacha has kindly committed my pull requests to his GitHub repository, which officially adds me as Contributor!

CVAD & DaaS Health Check Script on Steroids

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The Citrix PVS Target Device Driver is a SCSI Adapter Bully

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Working on a Citrix upgrade project a few years ago I was continually getting a blue screen when a Citrix PVS image booted. The symptom was obvious during the boot process. It was as if there were two NICs or the image was trying to load twice. PVS write-cache was also incorrectly being redirected to the server.

PVS Target Agent Blue Screen Symptoms

I checked and rechecked all the obvious suspects, such as ghosted NICs and other devices, old DHCP information, antivirus, etc. Everything looked good. It really did not make a lot of sense. I then stripped all the apps and tools out of the build and it worked! So what was I doing wrong?

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Best Practice for the Active Setup StubPath value

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It’s been a best practice for a long time to clear the Active Setup StubPath value per application to avoid the Active Setup processes from running at logon, impacting the user experience. This is a challenge we constantly have with Vendors and packaging teams. But blindly clearing the StubPath value could lead to application issues. So what happens when you need to go back and troubleshoot an issue with an application that may be related to what “should have” run via the Active Setup process. How do you know what the StubPath value was originally set to? Do you record it somewhere?

I’ve been running a script for years over my builds that simply renames the existing StubPath value to StubPath.Backup and time stamps it. This way you can always review what it should be, and make the necessary changes to allow for this.

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Cold Starting and/or Hydrating Your Applications To Improve Their Startup Times

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In the End User Computing (EUC) space we know that after the first time the application starts post reboot, the next time is faster. The first startup is referred to as a cold startup and all subsequent runs are warm startups. The first time the application starts, components of the application, such as the EXEs (executables) and DLLs (dynamic link libraries) need to be loaded from disk, which can delay the startup time. All subsequent runs will then read the data from the file system cache, which is memory managed by the Operating System.

Hydrate and Cold Start your applications

The way we prepare a system for a user is to cold start (pre-launch) the applications when the system starts. We do this by starting and then terminating each process, such as winword.exe.

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ESRI ArcGIS Pro and Desktop License Type and Program Selector User Interfaces

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Updated 17th July 2024

Here are two awesome User Interfaces (UI’s) I built that will compliment any ESRI ArcGIS Pro (AGP) and/or ArcGIS Desktop (AGD) deployment. More specifically from my point of view, they have been developed with a Citrix Published Application, VMware Horizon, Remote Desktop, VDI and AVD deployment in mind, giving the users the ability to easily switch licensing types and launching the different programs and tools, making life much easier for them.

ArcGIS Pro Challenges

  • Changing the licensing is not as simple as it seems, especially when launching it as a published application. This is because you have to change it from within the program once launched; and then the program needs to restart for the new licensing type to work. What that means is that the ArcGISPro.exe process will terminate and restart. Whilst that happens a published application session may log itself off, as there are no processes running to keep it open. The code in this UI will manipulate the user registry values before starting ArcGIS Pro, and therefore setting the licensing type as required. I call this Self-Service by allowing the users to switch License Levels/Types on demand!
  • Having a single interface allowed me to integrate other tools and processes as requested by users over time that could all be associated with ArcGIS Pro. For example, users wanted an easy way to start File Explorer in the same session. Let’s make it easy for the users to do their work! That’s my job!
  • Update on 17th July 2024 for Python code changes I completed in back February:
    • Due to some corporate licensing challenges with ArcGIS Pro, the ArcGIS Pro License Selector has been updated for the following reasons:
    • It defaults to a Basic license, regardless of what you last used. If you need to use a Standard or Advanced license type, please select it before launching ArcGIS Pro. This behaviour can be changed back by using the AlwaysDefaultToBasic script variable as documented below.
    • I have added a “Reset Extensions” checkbox, that is selected by default. This will remove any Extensions you may have selected in your previous session, as the licensing for some of these Extension is also limited. You have the option here of deselecting it if you wish to continue to use previously selected Extensions in your new session. This behaviour can be changed back by using the AlwaysResetExtensions script variable as documented below.
    • Unfortunately, neither of these settings are managed by ESRI at an enterprise level, so I’ve enhanced this tool to assist in reducing the usage of the more advanced licensing options.
    • I have also improved the flow of the Python code.

ArcGIS Desktop Challenges

  • In a large enterprise deployment, setting the licensing model can be a pain. This is done via a user environment variable. So you could use Group Policy Preferences to target them based on AD Security Groups. But that adds an administrative overhead, and users must then log support tickets via the Service Desk, which creates unnecessary overhead and lost time whilst they wait for it to be actioned. That’s not agile, and doesn’t allow users to change their license type to suite their needs. The code in this UI will manipulate the user environment variable before starting the ArcGIS Desktop program of choice, such as ArcMap or ArcCatalog, and therefore setting the licensing type as required. Again, I call this Self-Service by allowing the users to switch License Levels/Types on demand!
  • There are way too many Start Menu items to publish, which is not a neat and tidy way to present it, so why not just present it via a single UI?
  • Having a single interface allowed me to integrate all the common ArcGIS Desktop programs and other tools and processes as requested by users over time that could all be associated with ArcGIS Desktop. For example, users wanted an easy way to start File Explorer in the same session, and they wanted a way to install specific Python modules that are not part of the default Python install. Again, let’s make it easy for the users to do their work! That’s my job.
  • ArcGIS Administrator notes: 
$acl= get-acl -path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\ESRI"
$inherit = [system.security.accesscontrol.InheritanceFlags]"ContainerInherit, ObjectInherit"
$propagation = [system.security.accesscontrol.PropagationFlags]"None"
$rule=new-object system.security.accesscontrol.registryaccessrule "USERS","FullControl",$inherit,$propagation,"Allow"
$acl.addaccessrule($rule)
$acl|set-acl
 
$acl= get-acl -path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{E6BDAA76-4D35-11D0-98BE-00805F7CED21}"
$inherit = [system.security.accesscontrol.InheritanceFlags]"ContainerInherit, ObjectInherit"
$propagation = [system.security.accesscontrol.PropagationFlags]"None"
$rule=new-object system.security.accesscontrol.registryaccessrule "USERS","FullControl",$inherit,$propagation,"Allow"
$acl.addaccessrule($rule)
$acl|set-acl

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XDPing C# Function

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I wrote this C# (csharp) function back in 2020 when developing the Self-Service Session Reset Tool. I have since enhanced it for improved error checking and logging and am happy to share it here for anyone else who wants to leverage it. I released a PowerShell version back in 2019. I like to integrate these functions into the scripts and tools I create as part of the health checks I do. I believe that by checking that the Broker’s Registrar service is reachable, listening and processing requests on its configured port, we can only then assume it is in a healthy state.

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Sentinel LDK License Configuration Helper Service

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Introducing the Sentinel LDK License Configuration Helper Service. This new tool I’ve created uses registry values and/or XML files to configure the client-side Sentinel LDK License Manager (hasplms) service, which updates the configuration in the License Manager Configuration File (hasplm.ini) found under the “C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Aladdin Shared\HASP” folder on a 64-bit Windows machine. It achieves the same outcome as using the Configuration option from the Sentinel Admin Control Center (ACC) web interface via http://localhost:1947.

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