Tag: MCS

Adding Client Printer Redirection for Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux to your Citrix Master Image

Today I learned: Citrix Printer Redirection for Mac and Linux is not available Out-Of-The-Box on the Citrix Master Images I install. In this blog post, I will detail the steps I’ve taken to add this missing piece to all of my Master Images.

Introduction

Although quite rare in Germany, a few of our customers use MacBooks at home for the home office. Last week a customer created a ticket, that he couldn’t print on his home printer, although printer redirection was allowed for him in Citrix Studio. At first, I suggested the usual troubleshooting steps, like updating the Citrix Workspace app for Mac and checking the local preferences of the app. Obviously, both didn’t help. I then checked the problem myself and didn’t find an obvious problem. A quick search then led me to two Citrix KB articles, which revealed a knowledge gap on my side:

Client Printing from Linux/MAC is not available on Windows Server 2016 and 2019 (out of the box)

The following Citrix knowledge base articles explain what’s necessary to activate that feature:

  1. CTX283355: Client Printing from Linux/MAC is not working on Windows Server 2016 and 2019
  2. CTX140208: Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux fail to Redirect Local printer to Citrix Sessions

Summary of the knowledge base articles:

  1. Download the HP driver update for HP Color LaserJet 2800 Series PS driver from Microsoft Update Catalog.
  2. Inject the driver into the operating system.
  3. Add the printer driver to the printer driver store.
  4. The next time the user logs on, it will just work.

Continue reading “Adding Client Printer Redirection for Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux to your Citrix Master Image”

Transition from BIS-F version 6.1.3 to 7.1912.x

With the release of the Base Image Script Framework (BIS-F) version 7.1912.x a few minor changes in the ADMX template files occurred.

We are going to outline the changes necessary to your current deployment.

Continue reading “Transition from BIS-F version 6.1.3 to 7.1912.x”

Caution: FSLogix 2009 (2.9.7621.30127) profiles won’t logoff completely

At three customer sites I created test machine catalogs with FSLogix 2009, and all of them had the same issue, that FSLogix profiles won’t logoff completely at the end of the day.

Update January 11, 2021: I was informed about a better solution via Twitter, and updated the Blog post accordingly.

The Problem

During my personal tests with FSLogix 2009 (2.9.7621.30127) I discovered that the profiles won’t logoff completely at the end of the day. See the following screenshots.
Hanging profiles (1)
Hanging profiles (2)

You can clearly see, that despite there are no active or disconnected user sessions, some of the VHDX disks are still mounted, but more important the folders from C:\users\ won’t vanish.

This makes a second login impossible on the same VDA.

My first time: Citrix Machine Creation Services (MCS)

After years of MCS virginity I decided it’s finally time to ditch the little farms and try out good ol’ Citrix Machine Creation Services.

Introduction

So today is my very first time: After years of MCS virginity I decided it’s finally time to ditch the little farms and try out good ol’ Citrix Machine Creation Services. In the last ten years I almost exclusively installed small deployments. The big ones have about 150 concurrent user. All are build upon XenApp 6.5 or XenApp 7.6+ with static persistent virtual machines. I always told myself, that static persistent virtual machines, together with a fully automated patch management (for example: PDQ) are enough. And this is still true, because the maintenance effort is virtually not existent. But it really bugs me, that I’m not equally familiar with at least one of the provisioning methods. You might ask, why I don’t try to learn PVS instead. Well, the simple reason is that my stomach tells me not to. The more valid reason is that MCS is included in every XenApp license and doesn’t require additional infrastructure. And additional infrastructure is always a really big topic for the customer.

This blog post won’t be a real classical Blog HowTo Guide, but more of a report of my journey to help me keep track about what I do. Maybe others suffer the same knowledge gap and are interested in my findings and the path I take. Continue reading “My first time: Citrix Machine Creation Services (MCS)”

Unable to Delete Resources: There is currently an active background action

An addition to CTX138318 about how to delete an old Citrix Studio Hosting connection.
Instead of deleting every task manually we make use of PowerShell piping and Out-GridView.

Today in Citrix Studio I discovered a dead Hosting connection I set up years ago for some MCS tests. When I tried to simply delete the connection, I received the following message:

The error message leads to the following (helpful!) KB article: CTX138318

Continue reading “Unable to Delete Resources: There is currently an active background action”