APP-V 5 User Intergration Location & Appsense Personalization

Microsoft APP-V-5 has a user integration location set to %localuserprofile%
This location contains junction points to the the APP-V application under C:\ProgramData

We typically do not persist the data area %localuserprofile%
This means when the user logs off and back on their per user APP-V delivered applications will have broken icons and fail to launch.

A way to workaround this behaviour is to republish per user based App-V applications at logon time. This rebuild the Junciton points for the application.

We can use the Powershell command "Publish-AppVClientPackage" "AppName"
to republish the users applications.

We can run this with an appsense Logon Trigger. We can also use a conditioncehck to make this more efficient like checking the user is a member of the AD group associated with the application and also checking the application is installed on this client machine.

Information on how APPV-V 5 and how it works can be found here
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/dn508409.aspx#BKMK_pub_pkg_standalone_posh

Re-Apply Windows Theme to existing Users

The windows theme can be managed with GPO , but this setting only takes effect if the user has no profile.

This is because the theme is set using an active setup execution, once execeuted once its tagged and it not run again.

If we want to set a theme for existing users who already have profiles we need to run the code contained in the RUN key.

%SystemRoot%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s /n /i:/UserInstall %SystemRoot%\system32\themeui.dll

This will then adhere to the theme settting within group policy.

Appsense Firefox Personalisation Settings (well redirect to network drive)

Its a bit of a misleading title actually as the following process can be used instead of using the Appsense personalization settings to manage Mozilla Firefox.

This technique was used due to the large amount of data that firefox was consuming and concerns over placing this all in appsense personalization.

Redirection technique
The following technique can be used to redirect mozilla firefox to store its data on a network drive. This means that NO firefox settings are required in appsense personalization, we only use appsense EM policy to manage the changes to the applications configuration to redirect it to the network drive.

The changes to Firefox need to be performed before Firefox.exe is launched so these can be placed either in logon, or post logon trigger in newer versions.

Each Logon
1.) Manipulate Profiles.ini
         Create a profiles.ini file in the users %appdata%\mozilla\firefox directory
         The profiles INI file controls the location where firefox files will be stored.
         The name and Path fields here should be edited.

              Name =xxx.profile
              Path=\\server\share\%username%\AppSettings\Firefox



On first Run
The following tasks are only required for the first time a user launches firefox. This will create the user a new firefox profile onto the location specified in the path set above in the INI file.

2) Check if this is the 1st run of the application.
         We need to perform a check to see if the user has created a profile before.
          For Example Look for H:\Appsettings\Firefox\Profiles\xxx.profile\prefs.js

3) Create a directory to place the user profile (if above did not exsist)
       For Example H:\Appsettings\Firefox\Profiles

4)  Run the firefox profile creation tool. This creates a new profile in the directory detailed in the profiles.ini updated earlier.
       eg. Firefox.exe -CreateProfile xxx.Profile
           

Appsense Environment Manager Powershell Execution Policy

The following is an extract from the documentation surrounding powershell being embedded into Appsense Environment manager configurations.

The basics are if the powershell is to run in the user context you will need to ensure that powershell execution is allowed. 

You can control the powershell execution mode using GPO managed inside the appsense policy. 

Environment Manager overrides execution policies and bypasses any restrictions to enable the PowerShell scripts to run.

Execution polices for users and computers can also be set through Group Policy which override all PowerShell execution policies. A user policy which does not allow any scripts, or only those which are signed, will not affect the running of PowerShell Custom conditions if they are run as System. However, if run as the current user the user policy will not allow the scripts and the Custom condition will fail. A computer policy which does not allow any scripts or only those which are signed, will not allow the running of any PowerShell Custom conditions. Therefore, to successfully run Custom conditions which use PowerShell, your Group Policy must be set to allow these scripts to run for users and computers.

Appsense DesktopNow 8.x Update Process

The following desribles the basic upgrade process that should be used for both major and minor release updates.
Major version changes should be checked in the documention for more details as there are some more caveats.

Pre-Reqs
Backup the database
Save out all the configurations (as MSI)
Take personalisation servers offline. (Disable NLB)

Update Order
Management Server  (may update database)
Management Console
Personalisation Server (may update database)
EM Console
Client Agents
Client Configurations

Server & Consoles
Update the Management server components first. This may perform a schema update on the database on the 1st server to be updated. Other servers will all need to be updated to recognise the updated schema.
The Management consoles will also all need to be updated at this point.
Personalisation Server should then be updated along with the EM console.

At this point agents and configurations can continue to work as there is forward compatibility.
Putting out Client Agents first is riskier as they are not tested against older management server.
However there is a risk as the consoles have new features that will not be supported by the agent.

Agents & Configuration
The configuration can be updated by simply opening the existing configuration, and answer YES to the upgrade prompt. The new Config & Agent can then be deployed by the management console.

Note : Personalisation Changes, 8.5 does not use "Session Data" and "Desktop Setting" as in past versions. This functionality is now part of "Windows Personalisation"
In version of 8.3 and 8 FR4 the conversion is handle by an migrate process that occurs as each users logs on. The older setting are kept and will show up as (legacy) in the Personalisation view. These setting can later be deleted with a script.

Change the System Locale from command line or appsense

The following method can be used in conjuction with scripts or Appsense Environment Manager to manage a system Regional Locale, Location, Format and language settings.

We basically need to create a XML file with the required settings and then use the Control.exe to read and apply the XML file. 

Then run
Control.exe intl.cpl ,,/F:"c:\yyyy.xml"

 

XML file example for setting the English UK

full information
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-ie/goglobal/bb964650%28en-us%29.aspx

GeoID Table
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd374073.aspx

Appsense Wake Up disconnected Drives

The following is some handy code given out by Appsense to reconnect disconnected network drives.
This prevents the problems of network drives having the red X letter next to them. This red X can cause problems for applications and scripts that try to use the drive while its in this disconnected states.

The user clicking on the drive re-establishes the connection and this script does the same thing.

'DisconnectedHivedDriveReconnect    

'

'THIS CODE AND INFORMATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF

'ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO

'THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A

'PARTICULAR PURPOSE.     

'

'v1.0 - 26/04/2012 Script Written by Mark Titley 

On Error Resume Next

Dim oShell, oNetwork, oWMI, oFSO, arrDiscNetCon, DiscNetCon, strLocalName, strRemotePath, strUserName

Dim bDebugLog : bDebugLog = False 'If set to True extra logging is sent to the event log

Set oShell = Wscript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

Set oNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")

Set oWMI = GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\CIMV2")

Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set arrDiscNetCon = oWMI.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_NetworkConnection where ConnectionState != 'Connected' and Persistent = True")

        

For Each DiscNetCon In arrDiscNetCon

   strLocalName = DiscNetCon.LocalName

   strRemotePath = DiscNetCon.RemotePath

   strUserName = DiscNetCon.UserName

If oFSO.DriveExists(strLocalName) Then

    debugLog "LocalName " & strLocalName & " is disconnected but DOES Exist and is mapped to RemotePath:" & strRemotePath, 1

    Else

    If strUserName = "" Then

  debugLog "LocalName: " & strLocalName & " is disconnected and DOES NOT Exist - will attempt to remap to RemotePath:" & strRemotePath, 1

  oNetwork.MapNetworkDrive strLocalName, strRemotePath, True

  Else

  debugLog "LocalName: " & strLocalName & " is disconnected and DOES NOT Exist - will attempt to remap to RemotePath:" & strRemotePath & " with UserName: " & strUserName, 1

  oNetwork.MapNetworkDrive strLocalName, strRemotePath, True, strUserName

End If

    If Err <> 0 Then

debugLog "Error mapping drive: " & strLocalName & " to " & strRemotePath & vbCr & Err.Description, 2

Err.Clear

Else

debugLog "Success mapping drive: " & strLocalName & " to " & strRemotePath, 1

End If

   End If

Next

Function debugLog(strLog, level)

If bDebugLog = True Or level > 1 Then

oShell.LogEvent 4, strLog

End If

End Function

CSIDL Paths

The following are common CSIDL Paths that can be used in appsense personalisation

{CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA}     c:\users\xxxx\appdata\local
{CSIDL_APPDATA}                    c:\users\xxxx\Appdata
{CSIDL_PROFILE}                      c:\users\xxxx
{CSIDL_MYDOCUMENTS}       c:\users\xxxx\My Documents
{CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA}         %ALLUSERSPROFILE% (%ProgramData%, %SystemDrive%\ProgramData)

Appsense Special Command Chrome Clean

Appsense Environment manager user personalisation settings allow includes and excludes at a folder level. However this is some times not sufficient to ensure a clean user profile.

Google chrome for example puts a lot of large files into the user data folder. Some of this folders contents are required however so a folder exclude will not do.

To workaround this the appsense special command can be used. This command switch allows integration with Appsense personalisation application bubble.
To clean up the un-required chrome files i set a logoff action that runs a "Execute" action
to run CMD.EXE and then uses the following Appsense special switch

/appsensespecial:chrome.exe:21.0.1180.89 /c del "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\google\Chrome\User data\safe*" /F /Q

Default Browser Registry Keys

The following registry keys save the users chosen default browser.

It should be noted that these keys are locked during the user session so changing them with a script is not possible. Im hoping that a logon/logoff script can help with that and will update with results.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.html
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.shtml
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.xht
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.xhtm
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.xhtml
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.webm
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\FirefoxHTML
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\FirefoxURL
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\gopher
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\http
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\https
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\StartMenuInternet
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations

Appsense 8 CCA Agent Silent Install syntax

The Appsense CCA agent can be deployed silently with script by use of the MSI installer.
This MSI allows the configuration of the management server location and the deployment group.

The syntax is

msiexec.exe /qn /i "\CommunicationsAgent.msi"
WEB_SITE="https:///" GROUP_NAME=""

Appsense Personalisation Server default locations

By default Appsense Personalisation server has the following includes and excludes in its global settings.

HKCU\Software

{CSIDL_PROFILE}
{CSIDL_COMMON_FAVORITES}
{CSIDL_FAVORITES}
{CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA}

These default settings can be mean noise can get into the users personalisation.  Also global settings override app and group settings so changing these when designing and testing your system is a recommended practice.

Simply remove these defaults from the global settings and place them inside each individual application. Then as you start to profile and understand an application you can start to remove and tailor these settings so as to reduce unwanted file and reg keys being stored.

Appsense Antivirus best practice

Appsense have a knowledgebase article on best practices for anti virus in environments with Appsense Installed.

This guide includes info for most popular AV vendors.

https://www.myappsense.com/Knowledgebase/TN-150489.aspx

Appsense 2003 servers not communicating with the management server error 401

I had an environment with a mix of 2003 and 2008 servers. The CCA for all 2008 servers showed up as expected but no 2003 servers. When looking in eventlog of the 2003 servers they failed to connect to the management server with a error 401. (typically security)

When i tried to push the CCA from the management console to the device I got the error
"Failed to install CCA not enough storage space to perform this command"

I set "management\deployment" access to anonymous in the Appsense SCU and all my 2003 servers showed up.

Appsense Citrix Hook Recommendations

TN-150517 - Recommended AppSense Excludes for Citrix Hooks

Date added: 19 Oct 2011

Back to results

Applies To

Products:	Application Manager ALL, Environment Manager ALL, Performance Manager ALL
Windows:	*All versions of Windows

Symptom

We have seen a range or Performance / Stability issues to date that have been related to various Citrix Hooks, including:

High PTE usage for all AppSense executables

Environment Manager crashes / hangs

General instability or unpredicted behaviour with AppSense products

Cause

In many of these cases, the symptoms have been caused by the presence of various Citrix hooks within our processes, most commonly the Citrix Multi Monitor Hook (mmhook.dll) and the EdgeSight Monitoring components.

PTE Usage, for example, for EMAgentAssist.exe (roughly equivalent to EMUser.exe in Environment Manager 8.1.x), dropped from 12,000 to 4200 when excluded from MMHook.dll, and dropped to 4100 when excluded from all Citrix hooks.

Solution

Add the following entries to the Citrix Hook exclusions within the following key(s) depending on OS / Citrix Version (Comma separated):

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Citrix\CtxHook

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\CtxHook64

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\CtxHook

Value Name: ExcludedImageNames

Value Type: REG_SZ

Value Data:AMAgent.exe,Cca.exe,WatchdogAgent.exe,WatchdogAgent64.exe,EMAgent.exe,EMAgentAssist.exe,EMNotify.exe,EmCoreService.exe,EmExit.exe,EmLoggedOnUser.exe,EmSystem.exe,EmUser.exe,EmUserLogoff.exe,PmAgent.exe,PmAgentAssist.exe

Add the same processes to the EdgeSight Exclusions (note these entries are semi-colon separated rather than comma as above):

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\rskcore

Value Name: UviProcessExcludes

Value Type: REG_SZ

Value Data:AMAgent.exe;Cca.exe;WatchdogAgent.exe;WatchdogAgent64.exe;EMAgent.exe;EMAgentAssist.exe;EMNotify.exe;EmCoreService.exe;EmExit.exe;EmLoggedOnUser.exe;EmSystem.exe;EmUser.exe;EmUserLogoff.exe;PmAgent.exe;PmAgentAssist.exe

 

In addition, please Note that by installing Hotfix ES540XA6AgentWX64001 for EdgeSight for XenApp Agents, Version 5.4.7.1, the above UVIProcessExcludes Value will be deprecated on the Server.

During the Hotfix installation, any value data within UVIProcessExcludes will be migrated to the new UviProcessisExcluded location (please see citrix article http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131261 for more information).

 

To exclude specific processes if the above Edgesight 5.4.7.1 ES540XA6AgentWX64001 Hotfix is in place:

1. Add a list of processes to be excluded from being monitored by EdgeSight (separate the processes by a semi-colon) to the UviProcessList registry key.
2. Set the UviProcessIsExcluded registry key to 1 to exclude the processes in the list:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\rskcore
Name: UviProcessList
Type: REG_SZ
Data:

AMAgent.exe;Cca.exe;WatchdogAgent.exe;WatchdogAgent64.exe;EMAgent.exe;EMAgentAssist.exe;EMNotify.exe;EmCoreService.exe;EmExit.exe;EmLoggedOnUser.exe;EmSystem.exe;EmUser.exe;EmUserLogoff.exe;PmAgent.exe;PmAgentAssist.exe

Name: UviProcessIsExcluded
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1 (to exclude the listed processes from being monitored, this is set to 1 by default)

Appsense Personalisation Tweaks

These are some tweaks that can be considered in EM 8.* environments.

01: Network Load Balancer Monitoring – Ensure that the monitoring site is not Status.aspx
and instead uses http://servername/personalizationserver/session.aspx

02:  %ProgramFiles%\AppSense\Environment Manager\Personalization Server\App_Code\Global.asax.cs - Find the first line 'Protocol.IsCompatible = IsCompatibleTypeEnum.Incompatible;' and rem it out (//). Ensure this is the same on each of the Personalization Servers. After the change either reboot the server or restart the PersonalizationServer website.

03:  %ProgramFiles%\AppSense\Environment Manager\Personalization Server\web.config - Search for the line 'compilation debug' and ensure that the line reads 'compilation debug="false"'.

04: Auto Close - On the PersonalizationServer database the 'default' setting is to have autoclose ON. This can cause performance degradation. You can check the configuration by executing the following SQL within Management Studio:

SELECT * FROM sys.databases WHERE DATABASEPROPERTYEX(name, 'IsAutoClose') = 1

This will give you a list of all databases which have AutoClose turned on. You can then disable Auto Close by executing:

ALTER DATABASE [PersonalizationServer] SET AUTO_CLOSE OFF WITH NO_WAIT

This can also be done this through the GUI if desired (right click the database > Properties > Options > Auto Close)

If this option is taken to change the database to AutoClose = Off the Personalization SCU will return a variance.

05: IIS Queue Length - You can essentially follow the guide found on http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd441171(office.13).aspx which explains how to change the queue length depending on the IIS version. Ideally this needs to be set to around 1.5 times the number of concurrent users.

06: PersonalizationServerPool – Ensure that the pool has only ‘1’ worker process.

Monitor number of connections to IIS

If you are performing load balancing across web servers its nice to ensure that the load is looking fairly even.
A quick and simple monitor can be performed by looking at the following perfmon metric

+Web Service
      Concurrent Connections

Switch a Local Profile to a Guest Profile at Logoff

The following site has a powershell script that can be used to change a user local profile into a guest account.
Using Appsense EM logoff triggers we can perform this task at logoff.

This has the benefit that guest account clean themselves up at logoff where locals stay on the server. We dont want users local profiles to stay on the server as thats a mess.


http://www.michelstevelmans.com/local-profiles-appsense-personalization-powershell/

Appsense Environment Manager v8.1

Appsense Environment Manager 8.1 is now released and is a major update from the v8.0
I have so far only read the release notes but heres a quick summary of the differences from 8.0

EM Agent
32 bit and 64 Bit Agent combined
Lower CPU and memory consumption by the agent
Improved network usage (not sure what this means)

New Conditions
By Operating system (yipee saves custom code)
By Date and Time
By existence of a folder or file (yipee saves custom code)
By existence of text within a file (yipee saves even more custom code)

New Actions
Add text to a file (very handy for some tricky custom stuff, again saves lots of coding)
Session Values (yipee, Environment variables basically that you can pass about and check etc..)

User Personalization
Session Data enhancements to allow sharing of registry keys between personalised/isolated applications

Debug Tools
A File based registry browser tool (could be handy for troubleshooting)
Log Viewer (I had beta of this and its wicked)
Reg import and export tools

Summary
Improved logon speed etc.. (This claim is simply based on your improving the order of logon events with the new actions and triggers.

The full information is available in this Appsense Document
Appsense EM 8.1 Whats New

Citrix User Profile Manager v Appsense EM

The Citrix User Profile Manager (UPM) component has been designed by Citrix to alleviate many of the problems associated with traditional Windows Roaming profiles.

Aimed at users getting their desktop delivered with XenDesktop this technology takes roaming profiles to a new level of management.

The setup is pretty simple with a service agent being installed on the users virtual desktop. Then adding a Citrix Provided ADM template to AD. This ADM template controls all the management of the profile manager.

The ADM template allow controls such as

• Which users will use the UPM
• Location the profile will be stored
• Include Reg Keys
• Exclude Reg Keys
• Stream the Profile (speeds up logon)
• Default Profile Template
• Local Administrator Processing

A Great demo video is available from Citrix
Citrix Video Demo

Comparison with Appsense User Personalization

While the Citrix User profile manager is a big step forward in profile management over the standard windows Roaming profile , it does look quite simplistic when compared to the very mature product Appsense Environment Manager.
Essentially Appsense does everything the CUPM does but with more options and flexibility.

Here is a quick list of additional features in the Appsense EM product

• Advanced Triggers for application launch and close (+ other trigger conditions)
• Conditions like User location, Access method etc...
• Application settings are isolated to prevent conflicts
• Platform Independent (eg. Windows XP and Windows 7)
• Logon time Analysis tool
• Group Policy Integration
• Scaleable for Multisite Environments
• Reporting functionality for auditing application usage