Link Pick: Deploying Adobe 9 for Windows

In a previous blog posting I complained about Adobe Acrobat 9 not working in IE with Windows Vista with Mandatory profiles. Well I have since figured out after lots of aggravation that your only choice so far is to uncheck and change the setting in Adobe Acrobat Internet preferences to turn off opening the PDF in the browser. .

In researching this issue I came across an AWESOME step by step for installing Adobe written bay Aaron Parker, that includes an MST of the recommended settings. All I can say is Aaron, you da man!

http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/deployment/deploying-adobe-reader-9-for-windows

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Xenapp 5.0 Comparative Matrox

If you are looking for a comparison of Xenapp 5.0 features compared to previous releases look here

;http://www.citrix.com/site/resources/dynamic/salesdocs/Citrix-XenApp-Comparative-Matrix%28Aug08%29.pdf

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Citrix Delivery Center Live -Xenapp 5 launch

On September 9^th, Citrix will host Citrix Delivery Center Live – the first in a series of live virtual events. Join us for an in-depth look at how XenApp is delivering all applications to all users, what's new with XenApp 5, how XenApp, XenDesktop and XenServer work together to enhance the virtualization experience and other key topics. You'll attend keynote sessions, chat live with Citrix product experts, network with other industry leaders and visit Citrix partners to learn about joint partner solutions. The agenda includes 7 sessions and all but the first one are being led by Product Managers.

Signup for the event is here
http://events.unisfair.com/index.jsp?eid=314


Jim Kenzig
Blog: http://www.techblink.com

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OPINION: It is time for Microsoft to start making nice with competing software vendors if they want to sell Vista. Save your $300 Million!

This is my Opinion and does not reflect those of any of my employers. I have never been a Microsoft Basher (in fact I am probably one of their biggest champions over the last 25 years) But I am really fed up with the hype and also the infighting between Microsoft and other competing computer companies and this isn't going to sell me Vista. And since my MVP status was taken away I'm not going to hold back anymore. (not that I did when I was an MVP which is probably why they didn't pick me up again in the first place LOL)

NEWSFLASH TO MICROSOFT: Jerry Seinfield isn't going to help you sell more Vista licenses to Enterprises no matter how much you pay him. (and it is $10 million for those who care.) It is very funny to poke fun at other vendors, but I hate to tell you that Apple is spot on with most of it's Mac and PC commercials when it comes to the Enterprise.

I have been trying to roll out 700 Vista machines in our enterprise since last July (2007!) and at every corner I arrive at a new STOP sign that prevents me from doing it. Our organization requires several plugins and pieces of software from many vendors. These vendors deem their software Vista compatible but in reality they are only Vista compatible if the user is local and not on a domain or is an administrator.

And some of these programs, whether you turn off UAC, tell them to always run as administrator, put them in compatibility mode or whatever, still crash hard as soon as the user account is made a mandatory or roaming profile.

Companies like Adobe, Sun, ADP, Altiris, Symantec seem not to really care whether their software is fully compatible with Vista. I've had issues with every one of these companies getting one of their products to work on Microsofts Darling new OS.

Countless hours of my time have been wasted attempting to circumvent Vista's built in "security" just to get simple core applications (like Adobe Reader 9) to work in a domain environment. Sun only certifies the latest versions of Java to work with Vista and ADP whom refuses to update their applications like eTime to run properly with the latest version for example refuse to play. Time keeping is a critical thing here as our employees like to get paid.

There is a wonderful open source IM application that we are going to use called Spark to provide support to our customers. Worked fine for local user accounts but as soon as you put it into a roaming profile, bam, for some reason now you have to be an administrator to run it. Same for Adobe Acrobat 9 and countless other programs.

Every program has had a different solution in trying to get it to run in an enterprise environment on Vista. I really doubt that Microsoft used a domain with mandatory roaming profiles to the user in it's so called Mojave experiment. If they did the users would not be saying how great it was.

Dammit Microsoft! I really want Vista to work and to give it to my users. I really do. I know it isn't your fault that OTHER vendors can't get their software written correctly to adhere to your stringent security requirements but it SHOULD be your responsibility to ENGAGE them and assist them in getting it to work. These are not small companies I am talking about and yes most have competing products to your offerings. But bringing on the Borg attitude is not going to win you any customers and comedy is not going to make it any easier for them to deploy Vista.

Right now the Adobe problem is a project killer for us. Windows XP is looking mighty fine.

MY ADVICE TO MICROSOFT?
Save your $300 million advertising dollars and go out and use it to send a couple of code gurus around to these companies and get them to help get their code to work! You could spend half the money, donate the other half to charity and sell 10 times more product cause it would WORK!

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Citrix Provision Server 5.0 (Project Charles) Released to Web!

Just received the following notification from Citrix:

Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 (Project Charles) has officially been released to web (RTW)!
What does this mean:

Existing PVS customers can download Provisioning Server 5.0 as of today (as a Benefit of Subscription Advantage).

All net-new customers will not be able to directly purchase Provisioning Server 5.0 until September 1, 2008. This is when the new Media Kit SKUs are available for sale.

If a new or existing customer purchases Provisioning Server today, they will receive Provisioning Server 4.5 SP1 as part of the original order, but will also have the ability to download Provisioning Server 5.0 via their MyCitrix account.

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Updated Citrix Community Site

Citrix has been working hard at listening to its customers and has created a new overhauled redesigned community site. Check it out at http://community.citrix.com/

Check out John Fanelli's post about the new community at

http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/johnfa/2008/08/15/Welcome+to+Citrix+Community+2.0

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Woohoo Citrix creates a static client url!

I made the suggestion recently in the Citrix Communispace for Citrix to create a static redirect page to Citrix.com/clients. The marketing team listened and now you can point to this on your WI page and have your help desk direct your users to http://citrix.com/clients to get the Citrix client they need!

Score 1 for Kenzig!

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Download Pick: Synctoy 2.0

This weeks download pick is Synctoy. Microsoft has released an updated version of the Synctoy Powertoy for windows which allows you to easily sync files and folders..

Here is a list of the new features of Synctoy 2.0 from the Readme

Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition.

True Folder Sync: Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions.

Exclusion Filtering Based on Name: File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching.

Filtering Based on File Attributes: The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden).

Unattended Folder Pair Execution: Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off.

Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints: Ability for folder pairs associated with the same or different instances of SyncToy to share end-points.

Command line enhancements: Added the ability to manage folder pairs via the command line interface.

Re-Architect Sync Engine: The SyncToy engine has been rearchitected to provide scalability and the ability to add significant enhancements in future releases.

Sync engine is also more robust insomuch that many single, file level errors are skipped without affecting the entire sync operation.

Sync Encrypted Files: Sync of Encrypted files works when local folder and files are encrypted, which addresses the common scenario involving sync between local, encrypted laptop PC folder and remote, unencrypted desktop PC folder.

64-Bit Support: SyncToy now has a native 64-bit build (x64 only) for 64-bit versions of Windows.

Folder pair rename

Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded. Usability improvements for the sub-folder exclusion dialog.

Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup.

Setup Improvements: Integrated setup with single self-extracting archive file and no extra downloads if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Enabled silent install for the SyncToy Installer file (see readme.txt file for more information). Removed combine and subscribe actions.

Removed combine and subscribe actions

Get it at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&DisplayLang=en

There is also a white paper now that explains Synctoy and how it can be used to enhance your workflow at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=50fa5932-0685-4fe3-9605-536f39bd6c86&DisplayLang=en

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Download Pick: Windows Server 2008 w Hyper V and Server Core Evaluation VHD

For those of you who are interested in getting your feet wet and playing around with Windows 2008 and Hyper V, Microsoft has made available a VHD (Windows Virtual Server/PC hard disk file) for Windows Server 2008 Enterprise with Hyper V and one for Server Core to test it out. You can get the downloads from the page at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=060f0c51-339a-4c4e-bb6e-716bb7401fd4&DisplayLang=en

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Microsoft opens Live Mesh Preview to more users and Mobile Mesh released!

Microsoft announced witnin the last week or so that they will be opening up the Live Mesh Tech Preview. You can sign up directly, with no waiting list, if your country/region is the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, or New Zealand.


To sign up see
https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/LearnMore.aspx

Paul Thurrot describes live mesh in this way "Under the Live Mesh paradigm, users create a "mesh" of interconnected devices, including PCs, Macs, various mobile devices, and a Web-based desktop. (In the current prerelease version, only PCs and the Web desktop are enabled.) You can synchronize folders (and their contents) between all of these devices, providing you with anytime-anywhere access to your data. Live Mesh also provides PC remote control functionality, so you can use your PC when away from home, for example, over the Internet."

I have been testing the service for several months. If you install Silverlight on your system you can back up all of your pictures to the Mesh "cloud" and view them as a slide show for example. As well as upload your music and play it from online Mesh folders with the silverlight plugin. Mesh lets you open Microsoft Office files directly from your online folders also.

Also of note MOBILE users can connect to their Mesh account now. See the blog entry here about Mobile Mesh

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Watch out with ADOBE ACROBAT READER 9 on a domain with Vista user roaming profiles

Update: In researching this issue I came across an AWESOME step by step for installing Adobe written by Aaron Parker, that includes an MST of the recommended settings. All I can say is Aaron, you da man!http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/deployment/deploying-adobe-reader-9-for-windows

There also is a greate admin template to set up Adobe Acrobat to work so it opens OUTSIDE the browser. I had to do two things to get Adobe Acrobat to work on Vista. Logged on as an admin, go to the Adobe reader executable on the hard disk in the program files/adobe/9.0/reader folder and right click on it and choose properties. Then choose the compatibility tab and choose set compatibility for all users and choose Windows XP SP2 from the drop down. Apply. I then had to open Adobe reader, choose edit/preferences. Click on Internet in the side menu and uncheck the open in browser box. Hope this helps.

NOTE: If you have a solution to this please post in the comment section! Thank you.

I'm putting this out there everywhere I have a presence in hopes that Adobe will get off it's butt and fix this problem. If you install Adobe 9 acrobat reader on Windows Vista on a domain and use roaming profiles for users, be it mandatory or not, Acrobat Reader will crash and will not run. It gives errors in modules annots.api and also msvcr80.dll. Note that this is NOT an IE only thing, Acrobat reader crashes when run by itself, with Firefox and Apple Safari browsers as soon as the account is set to roam.

As soon as you give the user admin priveleges the program will run. I've tried turning off UAC, still broke, I've tried running adobe reader in compatibility mode, still broke, I've tried running adobe as administrator settings still broke. I've tried changing access on adobe folders to give users full control, still broke. Giving a user administrator priveleges is NOT an acceptable solution. Further having to mess around with Dep and Windows Security features is NOT an option. If Adobe wants to play with the big boys and try to consider it's product an "industry standard" they have to write it correctly.

I am not the only one having this issue there are posts all over the internet including the below samples IN the adobe forums.
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b5db5d
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b5ea2a
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b5c646

Citrix admins have also reported issues with it crashing and getting it to work~
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b5f923
However I did find an installation script for Adobe 9 on Citrix
here Though I have not tested this so I do not know if it works.

My recommondation is don't install Adobe Acrobat 9 in a Vista domain until Adobe addresses this issue!

NOTE: Local non admin user profiles CAN run Adobe. If you make it a roaming one that is when you have issues.

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Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0 (Project Charles) enters Release Candidate Status

Well I am now allowed to blog about the upcoming release of Citrix Provisioning Server 5.0.

Quickly though if you don't know what Citrix Provisioning Server is or does, take a look at this video. The video shows 150 desktops being provisioned with Windows XP, then changed to Windows Server, different versions of Linux and Vista instantly with a few mouse clicks. Which a better quality version can be downloaded from here to justify buying it to your boss. (note I suggest you right click on the above link and choose save target as and save the video to your local drive to view it)

Provisioning Server is also the magic behind Citrix Xenserver. So it is good idea to start learning about it if you want to use it to provison your servers.

I have been beta testing this product for several weeks and can tell you that it is spectacularly different than the 4.5 (1.0) product that Citrix purchased from Ardence and renamed.

Version 5.0 can be considered a grown up version of the 4.5 (really 1.0) product! While PVS 1.0 was a simple click install with few choices in the console for changing things and proprietary vdisk, version 5.0 begins to build standards and look like a product that is truly ready for the enterprise!

PVS 5.0 Datacenter version adds management improvements such as Role Based Administration that grant admin access rights based on Active directory group membership. Farm partitioning is available that allows the management of large server farms with the ability to group several provisioning server hosts, servers and vdisks into separately managed sites.

And the best part the new UI is a Microsoft Management console Snap in that lets you integrate PVS with your existing mmc's!

New in this version is the ability to use Microsoft Virtual Hard disks (VHD) for the vdisk and also customers can use Microsoft SQL Server for the backend database. There is also Windows 2008 streaming functionality that enables provisioning of physical and virtual W2K8 servers including the ability to stream Microsoft Hyper V to bare metal servers making it possible to dynamically configure servers to run a single, dedicated workload or be virtualized to run multiple workloads.

For a sneak peak at the console click here

PVS 5 introduces the concept of sites and stores. Stores are A logical name given to a physical storage location for vDisks. The store is used by all Provisioning Servers within a farm to refer to a shared storage location.

Sites is a container that groups a vDisk Pool, PVS Servers and Device Collection. A site can represent a physical or logical location… Citrix designed the GUI so you the administrator can create a hierarchy that makes sense to you!

The addition of sites and stores give administrators the flexibility to set up multiple PVS in multiple sites and locations and use multiple storage areas.

PVS 5 also introduces High Availability options among many other great new features.

As I test and learn more I will post here.

There seems to be a PVS 5 at Citrix here and Here is Pete Downing's video Gus Pinto recorded from a few months back at Citrix Synergy talking about PVS 5.0

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