Published desktop

[rafelbev]

Jesper, you do understand that for the 2X desktop to autostart an application, it has to get a token on the Citrix server that the particular application should be autostarted.

The ThinClientServer does NOT have a list of applications. That is the job of the Citrix server. Since there is no property in the Citrix protocol to actually start an application automatically on startup, its not possible for the ThinClientOS to know which of the applications you should startup. And NO, I don't think that you can set all applications to startup automatically. It would create a huge load on the Citrix/2X servers as well as on the ThinClient.

I do understand that we can however use the simple property of the "Startup" folder found in the start menu. If an application is published in the Startup folder, then it is autostarted. I believe that is a solution without requiring Citrix to change any properties to be set on their backend.

[MNY]

Hi folks,

Like earlier posts has tried to explain - connecting to a specific published Citrix desktop or application is not that complicated. I can give you a picture of how the ICA client accesses the published desktop. In this example the ICA file describes a connection to the fullscreen desktop called "CtxDesktop". The farm app information is retreived through HTTP from the hostname "ica.mydomain.local", which is several A records in DNS for many of the Citrix servers.

Sample ICA file for a fullscreen Citrix Desktop (only necessary lines included):
======================================================
[WFClient]
BrowserProtocol=HTTPonTCP
HttpBrowserAddress=ica.mydomain.local
KeyboardLayout=(User Profile)
KeyboardType=(Default)
SSOnCredentialType=Any
SSOnUserSetting=On
UseLocalUserAndPassword=On
AutoLogonAllowed=On
TransparentKeyPassthrough=FullScreenOnly

[ApplicationServers]
CtxDesktop=

[CtxDesktop]
Address=CtxDesktop
InitialProgram=#CtxDesktop
DesiredHRES=4294967295
DesiredVRES=4294967295
TransportDriver=TCP/IP
WinStationDriver=ICA 3.0
ScreenPercent=0
UseLocalUserAndPassword=On
Compress=On
DesiredWinType=7
======================================================

I hope that helps!

//Magnus

[rafelbev]

This is definately a feature request. Did you consider posting a mail to sales@2x.com based on the length of this thread?

[MNY]

OK, I posted a feature request to the 2X Sales Team.

[VaXoID]

UP Topic...
Not show application from 2XApplication Server in 2XThinclientSession!
Here my adjustments:
On Application Server Side:
Server: 192.168.0.252
Type: RDP
Checking Enable Server in farm
RDP Port: 3389
Status of Check Agent "Agent in use by Controller on machine 192.168.0.252."
Pablishing: 1 Application
Server: 192.168.0.252
Target: %ProgramFiles%\2gis\Omsk\grym.exe
Filtering : by ip address

Connection Setting:
2X Client Gateway Port: 80
Checking Broadcast 2X Client Gateway Address
in Advanced: HTTP Server 192.168.0.252:81
2X Publishing Agent: 192.168.0.252:20002
2X Pablishing Agent Port: 20002
2X Terminal Server Agent Port: 3390

On ThinClient Server Side(WEB interface):
in tab "Published Apps":
Protocol: check RDP
Primary Address: 192.168.0.252 port: 80
Advanced: Direct Mode version: 2X Application Server 4
................................................................................

On my PC 2X through "ApplicationServer Client" it's fine work, but not working from 2XThinkTerminalClient(( Where I was mistaken?
Sorry on my English...Help me please!?!

[guygg]

OK, I posted a feature request to the 2X Sales Team.

Did anything become of this? I've been out of the loop the last few months as it's the insanely busy time of year for those of us in the educational industry, ramping up for summer projects and all. Went checking back here to see if anything had been figured out for this and it seems like MNY finally got the point across. I see that version 5 has hit beta, and was wondering if this feature request ever made the cut.

2X would be a magic bullet if it could do the direct published desktop connection we've been harping on about (and that MNY so ingeniously thought to include a .ICA example of - something I should have done in my original posts on the need). I may do a test install of the V5 beta in the next week or so, but was just wondering if this feature request got any attention. Fingers anxiously crossed...

[guygg]

So I guess there's STILL no solution for this? We've still been running 2X version 3.x (with little-to-no correct load balancing against the Citrix farm) and are looking at moving up to 5.x. I just did a test install of the latest 5.x build (3606) and still see no way to have a connection defined for the client to connect straight to a specified published desktop, then end up back at the 2X login screen when logging off, never having been presented with a 2X desktop shell or list of other published apps the user may or may not have. In other words, do EXACTLY what the ICA desktop connection option in 2X ThinClientServer does, but do it to a published desktop in Citrix. The topic was beat to death last year in this very thread, with MNY even showing an example ICA file (and said had also been submitted as a feature request). It is THE weak spot of the product, imo.

So I guess the question now becomes, is this just a pipe dream that we'll never see in the product, given that the topic has seen more than a year go by with still no mention of the feature possibility? Should we give up and just start looking for another solution to the question?

[rasqual]

The issue for me is this: A published Citrix desktop is a special case. It's absolutely exceptional. It's not like just any published application. It uses Citrix's load balancing, performance counters, and other features in ways non-published desktops do not. MANY organizations publish desktops for these and other reasons, even when they have no other published applications. In such cases, it's not important to have a selection of published applications available for users to see. In 2X, the method of presenting published applications is an utterly useless distraction for companies who just want Citrix-balanced pub'd desktops out there.

2X load balancing is not some kind of encouraging alternative under the circumstances; in fact, it's somewhat irritating to hear the suggestion -- as if a Citrix-centered strategy should suddenly dis-integrate just to accommodate 2X's recalcitrance on the importance and uniqueness of published desktops.

What irritates most, though, is the thought that a company so centered on thin client technology could so fundamentally "not get it" on this issue. When I select vendors -- or decide whether to keep them -- how well they intuitively and instantly understand things like this is a large influence on my thinking.

I went with 2X largely because Cláudio Rodrigues was involved. His own innovation, resourcefulness, and intuitive understanding of the issues -- coupled with his responsiveness and willingness to accommodate obvious best-practice implementations -- led me to believe that 2X was cut of the same cloth.

Two full versions later, I now believe it's not so. There are thin clients -- individual machines -- which will auto-connect to published desktops. When otherwise worthy and innovative software that should know better won't even do what's done every day in hardware around the planet, something's wrong.

It may be time to move on.

[EnderWiggin]

I agree with rasqual. We are currently evaluating Thin Client software and we really liked 2X until we ran into this issue. We cannot redesign our Citrix infrastructure to accomidate 2X. We use Citrix primarily for remote access and it is designed to work that way. We have several other thin clients that connect just fine and allow us to connect to a desktop session using a Citrix published application. We depend on the load balancing and reporting features that Citrix provides and cannot allow direct ICA desktop sessions in our environment. We really liked 2X because of the management feature and wanted to roll our existing HP and Neoware thin clients into this but if this problem cannot be resolved then I don't think that 2X is right for us.

On another note, we cannot get published applications to work at all for us using our Citrix 4.5 servers but it works fine using Citrix 4.0. Has anyone else run into this? I found another thread about this here http://www.2x.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1307 but no solution has been posted yet.

All of our servers have been upgraded to Citrix 4.5. We were able to test this on Citrix 4.0 by brining a decommissioned server back online long enough to test this. Anyone know why this doesn't work with Citrix 4.5?

[rasqual]

<crickets>

[InfoCPA]

Hello,

We managed to launch a Citrix published desktop at startup thanks to 2X browser feature. Here's what we've done :
- define the Citrix options for the published apps ;
- create a guest account in our AD with a "set and forget" password ;
- set up 2X default settings to auto-login with this account ;
- define a 2X browser with an .ICA file as startup page, such as the one suggested before, with auto-start and full screen - or you can design a Web page linking to this ICA file ;
- define a 2X connection allowed only for the guest account, associated to the Citrix published apps entry and the browser entry ;
- define a "bogus" application in Citrix, for the guest account only. This is necessary otherwise you get a "TCSS024 Logging off since nothing is available for your desktop" at startup because 2X needs either a Citrix or RDP connection validated for the logged-on user. For instance you can set up a published content pointing to whatever URL you like (we didn't publish a real application because we don't want anonymous or guest accounts to open a session on our Citrix farm).

When the client starts, Opera opens in full screen and launches the published desktop, then the "real" user logs in. This way our recycled PCs with 2X TCS will behave the same way as our other thin client terminals. No more hassle with unlocked desktops while the user is away, and I also like the "one-step" logoff and shutdown process. I think it's also possible for several users to open desktops side-by-side.

Caveats :
- the guest account login should be rather short (no space, dash and so on) ;
- the application/x-ica MIME type must be defined for ICA files on the web server ;
- the bogus application must be visible, for instance in the startup menu. However when you click on it, you get an error message - 2X complains it can't find the locally cached ICA file, because an extra slash is added in its path. (Yes this is rather confusing for the end-user so you might want to call this app "don't click here" or something) - I'd really like to get rid of this.

I hope this will be helpful (this is also the only way 2X could be usable for us). I am very interested by your feedback so that we can improve this system.

[guygg]

It's interesting to see the lengths some people have gone to for getting around this insane limitation. Truly an impressive kluge to the issue. And I really wish it was a workable solution, but we have the added issue of wanting to use these terminals for other kinds of users as well. So a Citrix user gets pointed at the Citrix farm (via the published desktop) and other users get pointed at a local RDP terminal server. If we hard code the guest user in this procedure, we'd lose the very flexibility that we love about having 2X to begin with.

I'd give up 75% of the features (or more, probably) in 2X ThinClientServer just to get the ability to connect a user to a specific published desktop. It's a feature I've been dying to see in the product since basically when it was released years ago. It seems to be the one feature nobody at 2X has any interest in implementing, which is very, very sad. It's the one and only thing that has kept me from recommending the product to fellow IT pros that I know will face the same issue. I really love everything else that this solution provides in functionality, and it kills me to always have to follow it up in conversations with the caveat of "but it can't connect directly to a published application/desktop, so it can't do the simple task that your old Win98-based terminals are already doing for you, despite giving you all this new, nifty functionality." We knew the limitation going into buying the product years ago, but given the fact that other features were being implemented in the product at the time, we kind of assumed this one simple feature would make it into the product within some sane amount of time. Sadly, I've kinda given up on ever seeing this put into the product after this much time...

[InfoCPA]

I agree this is a kind of twisted solution for a simple problem, but at the moment it's the only way 2X could be used in our organization.

We had bought 2X 14 months ago in the purpose of recycling 500 PCs, but at the time we overlooked this issue as we were focusing on setting up our infrastructure. Then we spent a lot of time trying to find out how we could publish our Citrix desktop, and eventually we wound up buying 300 Wyse S10. 120 XP PCs will be reused and in the end 2X might only be used for 100 PCs or less.

And all of this is really a shame, not only because we have wasted lots of time and money, but also because we really liked and believed in this product. Now as version 6 comes out without this feature, I wonder if it's worth buying another year of support since our S10s do the job fine and may even be cheaper. Anyway, at least we can get something out of 2X with this trick.

As for your case, wouldn't it be possible to assign auto-logon only to those terminals you would like to use with a published desktop ?

[guygg]

As for your case, wouldn't it be possible to assign auto-logon only to those terminals you would like to use with a published desktop ?

Problem is that there are some terminals that are used by both Citrix farm users and local RDP TS users. It varies depending on who's at the machine at a given time.

And yeah, I wasn't knocking your solution. Rather inventive, actually. Just a shame that such odd measures are needed to accomplish it...

[rasqual]

Problem is that there are some terminals that are used by both Citrix farm users and local RDP TS users. It varies depending on who's at the machine at a given time.

And yeah, I wasn't knocking your solution. Rather inventive, actually. Just a shame that such odd measures are needed to accomplish it...

What's especially sad about this is that the ability to vary connections by user group is a great feature that then founders on the shoal of this incapacity of the product to deliver on this flexibility for published desktops.

It's like training well for a marathon, then wearing a Santa suit on race day. It makes as little sense.