Entries by Ingmar Verheij

/dev/sda1 has gone 255 days without being checked, check forced

On initial boot of a freshly deployed (Ubuntu) Linux appliance on VMware vSphere 5 the machine stopped working because of an inconsistent disk. According to the machine 255 days where passed without the disk being checked.  After a file system check is forced the machine stops with an error UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY followed by fsck / […]

Microsoft App-V 5.0 – Streaming via HTTP

With Microsoft App-V 5.0 virtual application packages (or sequences) can be streamed to the client with two delivery methods: SMB or HTTP. With SMB being the easiest one (all you need is a file share), the HTTP delivery mechanism is IMO more scalable. The ability to stream via HTTP is natively built-in in the App-V […]

Microsoft App-V 5.0 – Lost administrative access

In case you’re locked out of your Microsoft App-V 5.0 Management Server – because the account / group is removed , you’re not a member of the group or because you don’t know which account was specified during installation – you will receive an error message:  You do not have access to this information. Please […]

App-V 5.0 Reporting Server, missing prerequisites

During a Microsoft App-V 5.0 implementation I had to deploy an App-V Reporting server so the customer could track usage information. I found that the required information is not well documented at TechNet but can be found (it’s scattered around the internet). Also, the information provided by Microsoft is (at the moment of writing) not […]

Internet Explorer 10 group policies not applied? Use GPP.

Recently I had to configure some basic settings in Internet Explorer 10 on our lab environment. After some unfruitful attempts, where settings were not applied, I found out that the client side extension for Internet Explorer Maintenance policies where removed. Ingmar VerheijWas once an enthusiastic PepperByte employee but is now working at Citrix. His blogs […]

VMware: Recover vCenter Single Sign On (SSO) master password

During the installation of the VMware vSphere Web Client I had to provide vCenter Single Sign On Information. Since no additional accounts / groups where granted SSO admin privileges (see VMware vSphere 5.1 Documentation Center)  the only account that had sufficient privileges was the default SSO admin user admin@System-Domain. The credentials of this account are […]

Citrix PVS: Enabling KMS licensing on a vDisk

When streaming a Windows machine the Windows license can be managed by a Key Management System (KMS). Citrix describes it as follows “KMS volume licensing utilizes a centralized activation server that runs in the datacenter, and servers as a local activation point (opposed to having each system activate with Microsoft over the internet).” To ensure […]

Citrix XenApp: Sessions disconnected right after connection

When new sessions are started, either via Microsoft RDP of Citrix ICA, they are disconnected within seconds. This applies to normal users and users with administrative privileges. This problem is caused by a chain of events. One components crash leads to an ungraceful shutdown of other components leaving a garbage configuration, preventing new connections. Ingmar […]

Hybrid local profile with RES Workspace Manager

In a virtual desktop environment the profile solution provided by Microsoft, the roaming profile,  is not sufficient. With the “Zero Profile Technology” RES Workspace Manager has a feature that captures users settings and injects them whenever needed, offering a more flexible solution than the roaming profile. More importantly only the required settings are captured and […]

Citrix PVS: Optimize endpoint with PowerShell

With Citrix PVS the content of a disk is streamed over the network to an endpoint. This requires sufficient bandwidth and an optimized configuration. If both criteria are not met the endpoint suffers from delays, retries or failures. A number of best practices apply when using Citrix PVS, most of them probably apply for your […]