[THIN] Re: Streamed Apps and Roaming Profiles

  • From: Nick Smith <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:31:52 +0000

For what it's worth, Microsoft/Softgrid specifically recommend against trying 
to virtualise MAPI products:
http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2007/11/13/softgrid-operations-guide-part-1.aspx

But also provide guidance for virtualising Office 2007 with Outlook 2007 
incluced:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;939796

With the proviso, however, that:

"Items that require interaction with Outlook 2007 from the operating system or 
from other programs do not function correctly. This includes "mailto:"; links 
and the Start menu shortcut for the default e-mail client."

It's starting to look to me that virtualising is fine for standalone products 
but, if you want full functionality you should neither virtualise Office nor 
products that interrelate with Office - which, sadly, is most of the ones I 
wanted to virtualise!


-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
TSguy92 Lan
Sent: 19 November 2007 20:59
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Streamed Apps and Roaming Profiles

I forgot to mention the HKLM values that are also involved with App
streaming at the client side.

HKLM\software\citrix\Rade\Apps

and

HKLM\software\citrix\RadeCache

Under the "Apps" location is a listing of each app that's been
streamed to the workstation, along with the GUID of the app (package
ID#).

The data under RadeCache appears to be a duplicate of what you find
under this same registry key value in HKCU. The default Values for
both Machine and User registry areas per application (the defaults
defined at the time when the machine first pulled down the streamed
application) are detailed here.

When a user runs a streamed app, and makes a change that updates
registry values for that app, they take affect under the previously
mentioned HKCU\software\citrix\RadeCache\*package ID*. In this way, a
user's personalization's within an application stay with them. (at
least as long as their HKCU and '%userprofile%\application
data\citrix\RadeCache' data is available when the login again)

In the case of the issue I pointed out that I had with outlook 2003; I
believe that had the streamed application been published to a machine
that didn't already have outlook (with a mail profile already setup) I
may not have run into the issues that I did. I just found it odd, that
the streamed application in that case, appeared to be trying to run
off of configuration values for the outlook installation that was
located on the workstation, instead of staying within the boundaries
of what was originally published via streaming.

Lan



On Nov 19, 2007 12:19 PM, Greg Reese <gareese@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> This helps.  i'm just starting to plan this and get my head around the
> underpinnings of  streaming things.  I'm extremely lazy so streaming is
> really appealing to me.  I'll try and capture some of this with regmon if I
> can.
>
> thanks!
>
> Greg
>
>
>
> On Nov 19, 2007 1:12 PM, TSguy92 Lan <tsguy92@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > do registry settings created by a streamed app stay isolated and/or roam
> > > with a user?
> >
> > When an app is streamed to a user, the HKCU and HKLM values for that
> > app are stored under the user's HKCU that's running the streamed app.
> > In particular under:
> >
> > HKCU\software\citrix\RadeCache\*package ID*
> >
> > These packages match up with the folders created under:
> >
> > C:\documents and settings\%userprofile%\Application
> > Data\Citrix\RadeCache\*package ID*
> >
> > If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to redeploy a
> > previously streamed application with new pre-defined defaults for HKCU
> > registry values (for instance), in my experiance so far, you would
> > need to remove the *package ID* data from both the locations listed
> > above at the client machine to have the new defaults deployed.
> >
> > As for whether or not Outlook 2007 will trash the profiles you have
> > for Outlook 2003, I couldn't say for certain. I'm still a bit unclear
> > as to how much streamed applications interact with locally installed
> > componants. But certainly there is some tie in at some point.
> >
> > In my case, I was testing out a streamed copy of outlook 2003 to a
> > machine that already had office 2003 installed (and in particular the
> > local outlook 2003 install is tied to a 3rd party software with our
> > phone system). The streamed copy of outlook 2003 had not been packaged
> > to be tied to our 3rd party phone software. Upon launching the
> > streamed outlook 2003 at the desktop, the 3rd party phone software
> > tried to auto-launch and interact with the streamed outlook. (which it
> > couldn't quite do..).
> >
> > So there is some level of local interaction with streamed apps, but to
> > the extent that you're asking . . it sounds to me like you need to do
> > some play testing with non-production systems ;).
> >
> > HTH
> >
> > Lan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Nov 19, 2007 8:30 AM, Greg Reese <gareese@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > Some of you who are a little deeper into application streaming than I am
> may
> > > be able to answer this. I have only streamed two apps and have been very
> > > impressed with it.  I am going to have to start doing a lot more
> streaming.
> > >
> > > do registry settings created by a streamed app stay isolated and/or roam
> > > with a user?
> > >
> > > Just wondering if I stream Outlook 2007 for testing, will it trash a
> users
> > > current Outlook 2003 settings and will those Outlook 2007 settings
> follow
> > > them around session to session or have to be recreated each time it gets
> > > launched.
> > >
> > > Mainly I don't want to trash their existing mail profile and I also
> don't
> > > want them to have to re-create those settings each time they log in.
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > > Greg
> > ************************************************
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> >
>
>
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