Sign on to the Thin List

You can sign up to be on the Thin Discussion list at http://www.freelists.org/list/thin !

ajaxWindows YAWOS (Yet Another Web OS)

Well I have written about a few of the "cloud" type Web OS tools out there including G.ho.st and Windows Live Mesh to name a few but today I would like to tell you about AjaxWindows. AjaxWindows is a project funded by Michael Robertson of MP3.com, Linspire(aka Lindows) and Mp3tunes.com fame. AjaxWindows is an online full desktop that includes word processor, email client, IP telephony with an app called Gizmocall, instant messaging and more. Ajax Windows is best run under Firefox but can be run under Internet Explorer once an active X control is installed.

As its name implies ajaxWindows uses javascript so you must have that enabled within your browser in order to run it.

ajaxWindows does not contain a built in browser, rather it uses an application launcher to use your local machines browser. This makes sense because you can't use the program in the first place if you haven't got a browser installed on your computer.

The site uses something called SyncWizard which will help you Sync your files and mobile phone, pda and even your Amazon Kindle info up to your online ajaxWindows desktop.

You can sign up for an account at the below URL:
http://www.ajaxwindows.com/apps/windows/content/index.html

Here is a demo video of Ajax Windows.

Download Pick: PowerGui - A graphical user interface and script editor for PowerShell.

Hello All,
Here is a great FREE utility to get you started learning and using Windows Powershell. The utility is called PowerGui and it is an extensible graphical administrative console and IDE for managing systems based on Windows PowerShell.

What is really cool is that PowerGui has built a pretty large following and community and already there are many contributions of what they call PowerPacks that are prebuilt consoles for things like Active Directory, Terminal Services, Hyper-V and yes even Citrix!

So here are a few links to get you started:
You can download PowerGUI from here:
http://powergui.org/downloads

Once you download and install PowerGui you can download and add the community created PowerPacks
There is a Terminal Services PowerPack you can get from here:
http://powergui.org/entry.jspa?externalID=2071&categoryID=296
This PowerPack allows basic administration of Termial Servers (view settings, permissions, enable/disable connections), RDP sessions (message, connect to, disconnect) and RDP connections (launch, edit settings).

There is one for the Citrix Console available at this link:
http://www.powergui.org/entry%21default.jspa?categoryID=296&externalID=2033
This is a pretty cool thing, you can logoff specific users, view printer, hotfixes, enable or disable apps and more. It would be excellent start to create a console for your help desk.

And one for Hyper-V here!
http://powergui.org/entry.jspa?externalID=2142&categoryID=290

There is quite a library of Powerpacks in categories such as Active Directory, Exchange, Windows Server, Reporting and more!
You can search through them here:
http://www.powergui.org/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=21

What is really cool is once you load the power packs there is a tab that lets you see what the powershell script is doing in the background.

Coming Dec. 4th Turbocharge your data center on Citrix Delivery Center Live Online

Sign up now for the December 4th Geek Speak Live - TurboCharge your data center on Citrix Delivery Center Live Online at:

http://web.citrix.com/citrixdeliverycenterlive/

Sessions will include:

Introducing Xenserver 5
Virtualizing XenApp with XenServer
Introducing Netscaler 9
Cut Datacenter Cost by 60% with Netscaler
Selecting the best Virtualization Infrastructure for XenDesktop
Storage best practices for VDI
Turbocharging Secure Access

AND Geek Speak Virtual!

The Xenapp 5 launch event done this way was fabulous and this is an activity definitely worth taking the time and checking out. Vendors are available at virtual booths to discuss your questions. Sessions from the first event are recorded and available.
It is probably the best online virtual events I ever attended.

Download Pick: Xenapp Web Interface 5.01 Paint by Number Kit - Pimp My Xenapp

For those of you who have installed Citrix Xenapp Web Interface 5.01 you will find that Citrix has changed a lot of the file structure and made a whole lot more of the interface javascript.

The Xenapp Web interface 5.0 SDK has some instructions in it on how to make some changes and do things but unless you are a developer or programmer it reads like a knitting instruction manual looks like to an auto mechanic.

Anyhow Citrix has offered a Paint by Number kit on their Pimp my Xenapp site.
Check it out here:

http://community.citrix.com/display/xa/PimpMyXenApp

When I started playing around trying to figure out where things are I realizedthat the WI Access management console makes most all of its changes in the WebInterface.conf file located in:
C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\AccessPlatform\conf\WebInterface.conf

I like the black interface and really the only thing I wanted to do is just put a few links across the top of apps screen of the web inteface. So here is a brief tutorial of how I did it.
Navigate to the above conf directory and make a backup copy of the Webinterface.conf file. Right click on the file and choose edit or open and open the file in Notepad. Go to edit in Notepad choose find and put in Appwelcome.
It will take you to the following line:

AppWelcomeMessage_en=

Now all you need to do is write some html code like in the below text box to include your links and add it after the = sign after AppWelcome message

<b><a href="https://www.adp.com" target="new">eTime Timecard</a> <a href="http://www.cnn.com" target="new">Library Intranet</a> <a href="http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org" target="new">Library Home Page</a></b>

Save the file and you should be done.
The above code would give you three links across the to of the apps page. The "nbsp " will put a space between the links. You will want to add the target="new" tag at the end of your url to make the links open in a new window or they will open in the same window and close your web interface. If you have workspace control enabled that will also close all of your users open apps!
Anyways here is what the finished product across the top would look like.
eTime Timecard Library Intranet Library Home Page

No neeed to stop and restart IIS after editing the Webinterface.conf file just a refresh of your apps page you can see the changes.

Alert: If you use AVG Antivirus, User32.DLL may have been removed from your system!

I've encouraged the use of AVG antirus in the past but I guess no antivirus program is perfect. I guess that Saturday's November 8th update falsely marked a critical Microsoft file user32.dll as a virus and deleted it which caused many systems running Windows XP to crash and blue screen. AVG gives instructions on it's site how to recover the file.
http://freeforum.avg.com/read.php?7,155461#msg-155501

Here is some text from the thread:
Many PC's crashed after todays's update of AVG. The update destines user32.dll as a virus: PSW. banker4.APSA.
Valid for Win XP SP2 and SP3 with AVG7.5 and AVG 8.
This is not a virus, but an essential part of your windows programme.

prevention:
before you start up your PC, unplug the internet cable. Boot your PC and disable in your firewall the access to internet for the AVG update manager. Reconnect the internet cable. In this way your PC stays safe from the maliceous AVG update.

solution:
if you happen to believe the AVG programme (like I did) when it shows you the virus alert, and have choosen "heal"or quarantine""your PC will no longer restart. It shows a blue screen at start up and tells you it cannot find winsvr, error c0000135. System recovery has no effect. Don't panic (like I did) but:

-restart your PC in safe mode (press F8 during windows start up)
-open the AVG control centre by clicking the logo or via start-programs-AVG
-go to the virus vault, select user32.dll and click restore.
-empty the virus vault
-close AVG
-now unistall the whole AVG program: start-programs-AVG-uninstall
-reboot the PC and it is fine.

Wait with installing a new version of AVG until they releas a good version. In the mean time, use a different virus scanner.

The faulty AVG update was released 8 nov around 2200 GMT apparently, looking at various fora. It impacted many PC's around the world in the mean time. This is actually worse than a virus itself.
It also effects the paid-for Pro versions, so wondering what will happen on Monday morning in many businesses.....

As I just spent many hours tackling this issue and found help in many internet fora, I thought it would be apprpriate to post a solution here. For those that experience the same issue, I hope you will find it usefull.

With best regards,
Richard.

and from AVG Support
Richard, Email confirmation reply from AVG Technologies Support....

thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, the previous virus database might have detected the
mentioned virus on legitimate files. We can confirm that it was a
false alarm. We have immediately released a new virus update
(270.9.0/1778) that removes the false positive detection on this file.
Please update your AVG and check your files again.

The system can be restored by following the steps in one of the
comments on forum (using safe mode or recovery console and copying
c:\windows\system32\dllcache\user32.dll into the right location)

If you need to restore deleted files from AVG Virus Vault you can do
it this way:
- Open AVG user interface.
- Choose "Virus Vault" option from the "History" menu.
- Locate the file that was incorrectly removed and select it (one
click).
- Click on the "Restore" button.

We are sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your help.
Best regards,
Zbynek Paulen
AVG Technical Support
There is also a false positive user32.dll dropdown at: http://www.avg.com/support

These are the directions that AVG gives to recover your system...
In case you are not able to run your Windows XP operating system after AVG virus definition update, it may be caused by a false positive on a specific "user32.dll" system file. The file was moved to the AVG Virus Vault and deleted. Therefore it is not possible to start Windows. Please follow the steps below to rectify this situation:1. Please insert the Windows XP installation CD and boot computer from this CD.
2. Choose and run Recovery Console.
3. Choose Windows operating system you want to repair.
4. Disable AVG Resident Shield from loading. You can disable loading services/drivers with "disable" command, i.e. you have to type the following commands (some
of them might not be present in all AVG editions):
disable avgMfx86disable avgMfa86disable avgldx86disable avglda86
5. Restore the User32.dll file from the Windows XP installation CD (instead "D:" use letter of your CD-ROM drive):
expand D:\i386\user32.dl_ c:\windows\system32\
In case the command fails, please use the following command to rename original user32.dll and repeat the command above.
ren user32.dll user32.bak
6. Restart computer and boot Windows normally.
7. In order to re-enable the AVG Resident Shield services we recommend that you perform the AVG repair installation as follows:

- Download the latest AVG installation package from the following webpage and save it on your hard disk:

http://www.avg.com/download?prd=aav(AVG Anti-Virus 8.0)http://www.avg.com/download?prd=ais(AVG Internet Security 8.0)
http://www.avg.com/download?prd=avf(AVG Anti-Virus plus Firewall 8.0)

- When you are prompted, please do not open this file directly from the internet, but click the Save button and choose a location, where the installation
file should be stored. We recommend saving the file to the Desktop.- Restart your computer.- Locate the downloaded AVG installation file (it has a four color square icon and its name starts with AVG_...) and launch the installation by
double-clicking on it.- Follow the installation wizard.- When prompted, please select the Repair installation option.- Enter your license number when you are asked (we recommend that you use the copy&paste* method to enter this license number into the installation form).- Restart your computer and update AVG.

My upgrade of Citrix Presentation Server Web Interface 4.5 to Xenapp Web Interface 5.01

Hi All,
Just wanted to pass along my experience today of upgrading our external Citrix web interface from Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 to XenApp 5.01.

For the most part I was pleasantly suprised with the ease of it and how well it went. I am still figuring out some of the new file structures and customizations but I will pass those tidbits along as I figure them out.
I started by downloading the Citrix Xenapp 5.01 Web interface file from Mycitrix.com which is buried under Xenapp 5 server on the Citrix Site. You will need a mycitrix.com login in order to download the free Web Interface 5.01 file. You can try this link after you login:
http://www.citrix.com/English/SS/downloads/details.asp?downloadID=1681219&productID=-1
I then made a backup copy of my program files\citrix folder and my Inetpub\www folder just in case things went terribly wrong.

Needless to say the documentation for 5.1 was rather lacking. There was a paragraph in the XA 5 admin guide saying you could upgrade from 4.5 to 5 but good luck finding anything else out there. So I gave it a whirl, I closed all apps on the server stopped the antivirus and my WI website in IIS and ran the WI 5.01 executable. It immediately crapped out because it did not find the Xenapp 5.01 console installed on the server. So I had to go back out to MyCitrix and find the Web Interface Console installation files.

After some searching I finally pegged them down. I downloaded and had to unzip them to run the executable. It was called the Web Interface 5.01 Console Extension on the web site. I found it at
http://www.citrix.com/English/SS/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=1681221&productId=186

I ran the Console installation, nexted through it with defaults and all seemed well.

Next I ran the WI installation executable. I chose defaults on all that and nexted through the prompts. Went back to IIS restarted my website and restarted my antivirus and jumped on another machine to see how it looked. Well WI came up and it is a simple black login screen. So I ran the WI console and went through the choices, played around a little bit and made some modifications. This version of WI doesn't use the include files in the same way as 4.5 and has a little bit different directory structure but the new version of the console setup for the website does allow for some additional configurations of color and html links in it. This weekend I will poke around the Web Interface 5.01 SDK that was recently released on the Citrix Site to see what I need to do to get my headers and footers back and pretty it up, but the site is running just fine.

It was an easy upgrade, no problems except for the console surprise. WI 5 seems to load the apps faster and I tested it out on my Tmobile dash to see if it detects the mobile version and it indeed does. Now I just got to get the ICA client working on my dash and I can have my office with me in my pocket wherever I go!

New Windows IT Pro ITTV Video Using TS Easy Print to Redirect Printer In Terminal Services

In the latest edition of Windows IT Pro magazine newsletter one item caught my eye. The group is creating a video site for IT Pros called ITTV. IT Pros can upload their IT related videos to the site ala YouTube.

One video I came across that might interest some here is one by John Savill on how to use Easy Print to redirect a printer in Terminal Services.
http://www.ittv.net/VideoPlayer/tabid/57/VideoId/215/Using-TS-Easy-Print-To-Redirect-Printers-In-Terminal-Services.aspx

One thing that would be useful and that is currently lacking is a link to embed videos in blogs. Hopefully that will come.

The site is having a video contest called "If I ran Microsoft" encouraging you to upload a video of yourself saying what you would do if you ran Microsoft. Lets see, Fix Vista, Fix Vista, Fix Vista....lol

Enter your video here:
http://www.ittv.net/Contest/tabid/242/Default.aspx