Hey Everyone, Sorry about the absence of an update, I’ve been pretty busy working on a number of projects, I just havent had time to write. I’ve seen a increase of subscribers, so I hope to write more intertesting and valuable content. Please note that I’m not allowing any comments at the moment, it’s just too much admin.
I’ve been travelling a bit in the last month in the US to assist in a number of datacentres migrations as the company I work for continues to grow and expand in America this makes my job more interesting 🙂 its nice to catch up with my US collegues and enjoy a few pints around New York.
Well… lets get back to Citrix.
Enviroment: XenApp 6.5, Web Interface 5.4
There are many ways in which we can use Citrix so that our users get ther best experiance. I’m now working on the idea of Citrix pre-luanch, a client has required that their application are automatically launched before they even sit down at the desk. Some trading applications take a while to load all the binaries, connect to the databases and load the positions.
So is there a way to shave 5 minutes off the day waiting for applications to launch? Well apprentialy so, but how does this work and is it safe and secure?
Over the next couple of days I’ll be running some tests to see how the pre-launch feature works and what steps are required in the real world. I’ve started but looking at the Citrix documentation on this subject and the changes required on the Citrix Receiver and in the App Center.
The Requirement:
To launch a single trading application which normally takes 5 minutes at a scheduled time.
Update:
Yes its works, but it depends if you have the Web Interface or StoreFront and the version of Citrix receiver.
What to expect: The pre-launch feature starts the applications upon logon of the Citrix Receiver in a disconnected state so then you can reconnect to them quickly when you launch the application. This could be Single Sign on or if you have saved your password in Receiver. The application will not acutally launch, but it will be quicker to access.
When you close the application that was prelaunched the sessions also logs out and the prelaunch app only reoccurs upon next logon or if scheduled.
How to configure your enviroment:
This really depends on weather your using the Web Interface or StoreFront. If your using the Web Interface 5.4 then you have to use Citrix Receiver Enterprise 3.4 or below, I only tested with version 3.4 and it worked. If your using Storefront then the latest version of Receiver 4.1 works.
Options:
There are 2 ways to configure the prelaunch feature, the first is to just login to receiver using SSO or entering your password. The second is via a schedule time and this is configured in the registry or GPO so you so wish.
Here is how to configure the registry: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX130793
(Update) But does it really work?
Yes, if your using simple applications like Microsoft Office or adobe, however if an application has background processes that loads tables or data then no not really. However there is a work around and this will allow you to pre launch (start) your Citrix applications.
I’ve only tested with Citrix Receiver 3.4 but it should work in 4.1.
Prerequisites: Users must have saved password checked in Receiver.
This is how you do it:
From the command prompt:
Run: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Citrix\ICA Client\pnagent.exe” /QLaunch “MyFarm:Excel 2007”
You can then add this to a batch process and schedule it to start when you need i.e 9AM every mon-Fri.
If this doesn’t work then check users have saved password enabled and that their password hasn’t expired.