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Archive for July, 2008


Terminal services log – usage scenarios

Terminal services log is the first and only application that will provide exact information about users activity on Terminal Server/Citrix, showing for how long an user was connected on server, how much of that time he was idle (not working anything) or active (working something on server).

TSL 2.0 provides information about application usage. Data collected is displayed in forms of charts and grids that can be exported to PDF and Excel.

By using our product you can have detailed usage reports of all terminal servers in your organization. Here are some business problems you might be facing in your own company.

Example of all users summary report (summary for total time, active/idle/disconnected)

Users and sessions

Let’s say you want to see all the users that connected to your server in a particular time frame:

Our application comes with a built in report that lists all the sessions on your TS/Citrix server, including the information about the time they started-ended and information about total time user spent in active / idle /disconnected state during that session.

What are my users doing on the server?

Now you want to check summary for all user activity on terminal server. This way you will have insight how much of the time users are really working something on the server. TSL will allow you to have precise time in how much of the particular user was active, idle or disconnected from the server.

If only desktop for the end user is remote desktop connection, and for 7 hours of the 8 working hours some of the users were idle or disconnected then you will know that something is not good with employee, maybe he is not satisfied, maybe he just don’t like to work.

Application summary

Summary of all applications usage (note on the screenshot there is summary for applications for Microsoft Office)

I would like to know if an employee is always late…
This want be a problem any more, TSL will allow you to capture exact time whan a user logged on your server. TSL will also capture the time user logged off.

If suspect that someone is connecting to your TS/Citrix server outside regular working hours you can use a built in report to see which users connected to your termianal server and processes they run during that session.

Conclusion

With TSL application logging you have powerful insight in all activities on your Terminal Server/Citrix. If you suspect that there is something fishy going on, TSL is the proper tool for you. It controls users and their sessions but also processes. With just one application you can monitor and anylze the productivity of your employees.


Terminal services log 2.0

I am happy that we can announce Terminal services log 2.0. New applications next to user monitoring allows also application monitoring.

For all extra info please visit Terminal services log homepage.


Did you know that 32 bit applications consume 50% more memory on the 64 bit system?

Did you know that 32 bit applications consume 50% more memory on the 64 bit system?

But that is acceptable memory consume because today Terminal servers need much more memory than 4GB what is the limit of 32Bit system. 4GB of memory is enough for around 50 users, using regular office applications but for anything else 64bit system is a must have.


/Console session from PDA

In last post I have described changes on /console and /admin switch in RDP clients newer then 6.0.

Now is possible to start console session from your PDA computer running windows mobile?

Unfortunately it is not. This makes a little sense because why do you want to administer your windows terminals erver from your PDA? But this makes no sense if you are on the road and only device you have with terminal services client is your PDA. This way you will need to call somebody to free TS CAL that you can connect and try to fix what is wrong.


Can I start a console session from a XP SP3 or Vista SP1 client like in Vista without sp and XP SP2?

With old RDP client versions up to 6 you were able to connect to console sessions of your terminal server by using mstsc /console” command.

In XP SP3 and vista SP1 there is no any more that switch, and now you have to use the /admin switch.

To me seems meaningless but on the internet they claim this is a reason because of an architectural change in Windows Server 2008. Session 0 is not interactive session, it is only used for services, and this way /console session is not different from any other session that is connected to windows 2008 terminal services.

The /admin switch is now used to access only session which is free of Terminal Services CALs.


Terminal Services Licensing service discovery

I will describe in this article terminal services licensing discovery methods in workgroup and domain.

In Work group there are two methods for discovering licensing:

License Servers Registry Key Query

go to the registry to key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService\Parameters and create there new key “LicenseServers”. Now enter that subkey and for each license server create new key named “ServerName” where value of this key is:
• The NetBIOS name of the server
• The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the server
• The IP Address of the server
The other method in workgroup is Mailslot Broadcast
This is for a server that has TS enabled issues a mailslot broadcast. TS enabled server then selectes one of the Terminal services licensing servers at random pick.
Discovering Licensing server in domain
First method is via registry keys, same as I described for workgroup.
Second method is via Enterprise License Server Query
TS enabled server queries Active directory for the object, where site-name is the site where TS server resides, and domain name is domain where that terminal server is a member of:
LDAP://CN=TS-Enterprise-License-Server,CN=site-name,CN=sites,CN=configuration,DC=domainname,DC=com

Terminal services log 2.0 – gallery

We are happy to announce Terminal services log 2.0 gallery of screenshots.

Final v2 will be published in a day or two, until that you can check screenshots on http://www.terminalserviceslog.com/features/screenshots/

If you want to try new version, or you have comments feel free to contact us.


Some of the users can see all redirected printers. How can I make them see only their printers?

If some of users see everyone else redirected printers on Terminal server, the probably they are members of the Administrator or Power Users user group.

Check in users and groups for membership.

If this is the case there is no way to them from seeing all printer on terminal servers.

Only solution is to make them normal users again, and that way they will see only their printers.


Supported HP printer devices on Terminal services and Citrix

On this link you can find HP LaserJet printers and supported driver versions for Citrix. Terminal services are also supported but they are not mentioned in this list because Citrix runs on top of Terminal services.
PDF is available at http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/downloads/4AA0-8465ENW.pdf

List has been update April 2008 so it is pretty fresh list of HP devices that will work on Server based computing environment.