XenApp client 12.0 released

Just as I was set up for a big deployment of v11.2, they go and release v12.  Typical.  v12.0 of the Online Plug-in is the new version of Web Interface client and the old PN Agent.  The Program Neighborhood is long gone of course.

At first glance it appears to be basically exactly the same as v11.2 with some bug fixes so I am not sure the major edition change was entirely necessary, but I suppose we should be grateful that its not been renamed!  Suspiciously available on the same day as new versions of XenApp, the Streaming Client and Profiler and various other things, I can’t help but wonder whether the version change was decided on by Marketing.

Anyway, the client is available from here:

Online Plug-in - Version 12.0

And here are its list of issues fixed…

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124172

SideBySide errors - Citrix XenApp client v11.2 requires Visual C++ Redistributable?

When upgrading Windows XP machines to v11.2 of the client I’ve noticed lots of SideBySide (so, Visual C++) errors in their system event log.  The odd thing is, everything appears to work fine, applications launch okay but cause these errors each time they do. 

This issue is mentioned in the release notes of the v10.2 client and appears to still be the case with v11.2.  This was seen connecting to a MPS 4.0 farm, I assume its not about the farm version though.

I can’t find what the actual problems caused by these errors might be, though the Citrix forums mention printing issues.

Anyway, installation of the Visual C++ Redistributable SP1 (x86 and x64) fixed the issue and the errors stopped.  I’ve added this as a pre-requisite to the script that rolls out Citrix 11.2 clients to PCs now.

These are the errors it caused…

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    SideBySide
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    59
Description:
Generate Activation Context failed for C:\Program Files\Citrix\ICA Client\MFC80.DLL. Reference error message: The operation completed successfully.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    SideBySide
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    58
Description:
Syntax error in manifest or policy file "C:\Program Files\Citrix\ICA Client\Microsoft.VC80.MFCLOC.MANIFEST" on line 5.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    SideBySide
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    34
Description:
Component identity found in manifest does not match the identity of the component requested

XenApp 6 available for download March 24th

The big wait for XenApp for R2 (which Citrix are finally admitting is called XenApp 6) looks like it might nearly be over – R2 is plastered all over the Citrix site and buried in there is the date for download availability – March 24th 2010.

http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?ntref=hp_news&newsID=1863096

I can’t wait (no, really!) to get my hands on this as the Tech Preview version was a huge step forward from XenApp 5 for us.  In our benchmarking we saw some serious issues with long logon time and high CPU when we threw loads of Office users at XenApp 5 servers in benchmarking.  XenApp 6 Tech Preview beat it with considerable ease, so assuming they’ve not broken it in the meantime it should be an obvious choice.

Web Interface 5.2 on Windows Server 2008 – configuring NLB Clustering

This guide to clustering Web Interface is intended as an extra to this article on configuring web interface correctly:

http://zenapp.blogspot.com/2010/04/installing-xenapp-6-part-4-web.html

 

1. Install Windows Server 2008 on two servers (or more – up to 32) and give them unique IP addresses on the same subnet. If you can, give them a second NIC and give it another IP, also on the same subnet.  If you don’t, you will have to use Multicast mode later, which might cause problems for your network. Enter a gateway for both network connections and check that they are both accessible on the network.  Yes, I know it will whinge.  For one of these connections go into its advanced networking settings and uncheck the checkbox for “Register this connection’s address in DNS”.  This is the network connection you should use to be a member of the cluster.
2. Install the same version of the Web Interface 5.2 on both servers, configuring them with the same settings.  Web Interface no longer supports centralised configuration so be sure that the configurations are identical.  Comparing the resulting config.xml files in the sites you create is a good idea, they should be the same.
3. Test both servers are able to function correctly.
4. On each server, open Server Manager and select Features.  Click Add Features and select Network Load Balancing, Next and Install.
5. On either server, click Start, Administrative Tools, Network Load Balancing Manager
6. Click Cluster > New.  Enter the name of the server you are on and click Connect.  You should see the Interface name and IP appear below.
7. Click Next and you should see something like the screen below.  Assuming you are happy with the IP it has chosen (this will not be the IP of the cluster but the IP this host uses to participate in the cluster), click Next
   
8. Enter a new IP for the Cluster to be known as.
9. Enter a name for the Cluster (you can create a more friendly DNS alias for the cluster later).
10. Choose the operational mode. If you use Unicast Mode (where the original MAC address of the servers’ NICs are replaced by that of the cluster) and you only have one NIC per server, the servers will not be able to see each other which might be a serious problem as they need to communicate to load balance effectively.  If you use multicast mode (where each servers’ NIC keeps its MAC address and gets a second new shared one for the cluster) you will probably have to make some network infrastructure changes to get other machines to see the cluster. So basically, get a second NIC in each server and choose Unicast.
    
11. Click Next and Finish to accept the rules.
12. Check your sites are available on the cluster IP address.
13. On the second server, open Network Load Balancing Manager.  Click Cluster > Connect to existing and enter the name of the first server (or the server name or IP)
14. Right click the cluster name and click Add Host To Cluster.  Add the second server and choose the network connection that is not set to register in DNS (assuming you had two).  Agree to everything else and the second server should then appear in the list and move quickly to “converging” status.  After a minute, refresh the list and it should go to Converged. 
15. The cluster should function correctly now without further changes, but I would also add some text to the web interface sites on both servers so you can tell where the content is coming from.  This will make troubleshooting easier later on.  Open the Citrix Web Interface Management tool on each server and right click each of the Web Sites.  Select Web Site Appearance.  Click Content, Add, choose your language code, click Next.  Select Footer Text, Next and enter the server name in the text box.  Click Finish, OK and OK.