How does my computer know that it is connected to the internet ?

On July 7, 2012September 28, 2020 By Philip FlintIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The answer is surprisingly simple for Windows computers. It attempts to connect to

http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt

NOTE: This address has been updated to www.msftconnecttest.com/connecttest.txt starting with Windows 10, version 1607

If it receives a HTTP 200 (if it receives the text “Microsoft NCSI” in the file) then you are on the internet – if it does not receive this text then you receive the warning symbol on the network item in the system notification area.

So, if you don’t have internet connectivity but need your computer to think you have for some reason (because a piece of sofwtare requires it for a lab or some toher reason) then yuo can simply create your own version of the abve site and file using your internal servers and DNS and fool your computers into thinking that they are indeed internet connected.

Nice post on how to prevent XenApp / Citrix from causing performance issues with AppSense

On May 10, 2012 By Philip FlintIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Read the original at http://appsensebigot.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/improving-appsense-performance-by.html

No product licenses found on the license server for the selected model

On May 2, 2012 By Philip FlintIn Uncategorized1 Comment

When running the XenApp Configuration Wizard you may get the following error.

There are many reasons this may occur but I have noticed it always occurs with the latest version of the licensing server 11.10 whether you have specified the correct Product Type or not. The work around for me was to choose “Select the model at a later time”

This will let you complete the wizard. You can then use Citrix policies to set the license server location, port and model type at which point everything works.

How to redirect appdata without issue.

On February 12, 2012 By Philip FlintIn Citrix, IT, Profile Management, Uncategorized, XenAppLeave a comment

http://blogs.citrix.com/2012/02/11/citrix-profile-management-and-vdi-–-doing-it-right/

Session sharing not working on XenApp ?

On February 12, 2012 By Philip FlintIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

If the server is really busy you may be getting load balanced off. This behaviour can be over ridden by setting he appropriate session flag for seamless sessions. The full article is available at http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx101644.

Being prompted to save ICA files to disk

On February 12, 2012 By Philip FlintIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

If you are being prompted to save ICA files to disk then Citrix have a support article which may help – http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX804493.

The interesting item here is the one that suggests that the ICA MIME type may need to be added to IIS.

Keep your Microsoft environment running smoothly

On January 2, 2012 By Philip FlintIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The full collection of daily, weekly, monthly and annual maintenance tasks to perform to ensure smooth running of your Microsoft environment can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee923724.aspx

Hyper-V Survival Guide

On January 1, 2012 By Philip FlintIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Great resource for everything Hyper-V available at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/125.aspx

Securing NetScaler / AGEE interface

On December 19, 2011 By Philip FlintIn Access Gateway, Citrix, IT, NetScaler, UncategorizedLeave a comment

By default when you install a NetScaler or AGEE the admin interface can only be connected to by HTTP. To configure the device to allow you to connect by HTTPS complete the following steps:

1) Connect to the devices configuration utility using a browser
2) Expand the Network node
3) Click on RPC
4) Select the NSIP (NetScaler admin IP Address)
5) Click Open
6) Tick the Secure check box
7) Click OK

Installing Windows 8 on XenServer

On September 23, 2011 By Philip FlintIn Uncategorized, Virtualisation, Windows 8Leave a comment

Having trouble installing the recently released developer preview on XenServer ?

Thomas Koetzing has the fix on his blog

Create a VM with a Windows 7 template and copy the virtual machine UUID from the general tab in XenCenter or use xe vm-list in the CLI. Next you need to run the command xe vm-param-set uuid=<VMUUID> platform:viridian=false

The installation can the proceed as normal.