How To Totally Remove GPO

Assuming you mistakenly created a GPO and want to delete it before your boss hammerring your head (huh?).. Okay, too much drama, so let's change it. You want to housekeep your GPO (again?), and there are some GPOs need to be deleted. You right click at it, press Delete, and this message box prompted. 

Do you want to delete this link? 

This will not delete the GPO itself.

So, are you doing it right? The answer is no. Deleting it from the OU structure will not totally remove the GPO, it only unlink the OG from the GPO.

Description :
Put Citrix servers out of Citrix load (some sort of private mode / maintenance mode).



How To Do :

1.  Within Group Policy Management Console, Go to Group Polcy Objects node. Right clik at the target GPO, and choose Delete
   
   
   
   
   

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How To Enable / Disable Time Zone Redirection

There will be situation where Business wants users' Citrix sessions to reflect server time zone, especially when the datacenter location and users' locations are at different time zones. These steps are also applicable to provide local time zone to Citrix / TS users.

Description :
To provide server / local time zone to users' Citrix sessions.


How To Do :

1.  Launch Citrix AppCenter, and go to Policies node.
   
   
   
   
2. From there, click at Users tab.
   
   
   
   
3.  Depending whether to create a new policy or edit current one, choose the option accordingly. In this case, we create a new one.
   
   
   
   
4.  Configure policy name
   
   
   
   
5.  Browse to All Settings > ICA > Time Zone Control
   
   
   
   
6.   Add Use local time of client policy
   
   
   
   
7.  Choose desired option, whether to use server time or local time, then press OK
   
   
   
   
8.  Press Next to proceed
   
   
   
   
9.  Configure filtering accordingly.
   
   
   
   
10.  Enable and create the Citrix policy.
    
    
    
    
11. Go to Group Policy Management Console, and create a new policy or edit current policy. In this case, we edit current policy.
    
    
    
    
12.  Browse to User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Destop Session Host > Device and Resource Redirection
    
    
    
    
13.  Right click at Allow time zone redirection, and press Edit
    
    
    
    
14.  Choose to enable or disable time zone redirection accordingly. Press Apply and OK.
    
    
    
    
15.  This is the outcomes. 
    
    
    
    

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Failed to Delete / Move Organizational Unit in Active Directory

I think I rarely touch about Active Directory, so let's start with a basic one. Let say, one day you want to housekeep your OU structure, delete or maybe move some OUs to different locations, but you got an error :

You do not have sufficient privilages to delete <OUName>, or this onject is protected from accidental deletion.

or

Windows cannot move object <OUName> because:

Access is denied.

Well, if we look at the first error, it is clear cut, the object is protected from accidental deletion, so the object needs to stay there. Whereas for second error, it just mentioned "access is denied". 

Issues :

• Can't delete or move OU, either one of above errors prompted.

Troubleshooting 

1.  Right click at the target OU, and click at Properties
   

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How To Hide Windows Local Disk Drives From Users

In some organizations, Management may want to hide certain server local drives from being accessed by Citrix users. There are a few methods to do so, but in this post, we will be using GPP. 

Note that this step will only HIDE but not prevent users from acecssing to it. The configured drive will only be hide from WIndows Explorer. Thus, users still can access to the drive via Command prompt, Run command etc.

Description :
Hide certain drives from being accessed by users.



How To Do :

1.  Launch Group Policy Management Console. Depending on how your AD is structured, right click at the OU, and choose " Create a GPO in this domain, and Link it here... "
   
   
   
2.  Give it a name, and press OK.
   
   
   
3.  Then you can see the GPO created.
   
   
   
4.  Right click at the GPO, and choose Edit.
   
   
   
5.   Expand to User Configuration > Preference > Windows Settings, click at Drive Maps
   
   
   
6.  Right click at Drive Maps, hover to New and click at Mapped Drive
   
   
   
7.  In here, follow below instructions:
   Action : Update
   Drive Letter : Existing, and choose desired drive (in this example, it is D: drive
   
   Press Apply and OK.
   
   
   
   
   

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Review : Citrix XenApp 7.x Performance Essentials by Packt Publishing

Oh my my~ It has been awhile since my last updates! I will kick start this blog again by providing my review to a Citrix technical book, with the title of Citrix XenApp 7.x Performance Essentials by Packt Publishing.

 

To me, the title said it all. It explains the essential items for XenApp 7.x in term of performance. The instructions (followed by a few screenshots) given help readers to understand in the topic, and assist them if they want to dirt their hands with labs or training. 

Note that there are huge differences between XA 6.5 and XA 7.x, and this book do the job well in explaining the 7.x technology, without making the readers to confuse with XA 6.5.

A good read, moreover reference to Citrix Administrators, as well as the beginners. 

You may check the book here.

Well, this book does help me on my CCP : Virtualization preparation. But hey, that is not the focus here :)

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Unable to Create Site for Citrix XenDesktop 7 with "Cannot write property Collation. This property is not available on SQL Server 7.0" error

This issue occurred when i wanted to use SQL 2012 in my XenDesktop 7 environment (new setup). This error blocked Admins from creating new XenDesktop Site. Based on Citrix KB, it turned out that Share Management Object (SMO) library needs to be upgraded to SP1 on the server which hosting Citrix Studio.

Issues :

Unable to create Site on XenDesktop 7 with below error :

Cannot write property Collation. This property is not available on SQL Server 7.0

Resolution :

1.  FIrstly, download Shared Management Objects from here :
   
2. Double click at SMO
   
   
   
3. This screen will launch.
   
   
   
4. Installation will upgrade SMO. Press Yes to this message box.
   
   
   
5.  Press Next 
   
   
   
6. Accept the license, and press Next
   
   
   
7.  This is optional step, press Next once you done
   
   
   
   
   
8.  Press Install
   
   
   
9.  Installation in progress...
   
   
   
   
10. Done. Press Finish.
    
    
    
    

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Error on Powershell - 0xffff0000

I am not very familiar with PowerShell, yet... really. Currently, my main scripting language is VBScript. However, I am truly believe the needs to learn PowerShell is keep increasing every single day. Server 2008 and Server 2012 are equiped with PowerShell, some advanced managements in XenDesktop 7.5 are using PowerShell, it is fun to learn PowerShell (they said), and a few other points mentioned by my colleagues (Wow, what on earth Heiry, why your introduction is longer than an episode of Dads?)

Issues :

Error encountered when a scheduled task created to run PowerShell script :

The shell cannot be started. A failure occurred during initialization: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Furthermore, this error reported on Task Scheduler.

Troubleshooting 

1.  Go to Start > Run, and type regedit. Press Enter
   
   
   
2.  Registry Editor launched. Browse to My Computer > HKEY_CURRENT_USER, and look for for Environment folder. It is not there.
   
   
   
3.  Next, go to My Computer > right click and choose Properties
   
   
   
4.  Go to Advanced tab, and click at Environment Variables...
   
   
   
5.  You won't see any entry on variable, as below :
   

Resolution :

There are 2 methods to solve this :-

Method 01 - Using Registry Editor :

1.  Launch REGEDIT. Browse to My Computer > right click at HKEY_CURRENT USER > hover at New > Choose Key
   
   
   
2.  Change the new Key name to Environment
   
   
   
3.  Now, lets refresh Registry Editor by pressing View > Refresh
   
   
   
4.  We can see the new key is arranged accordingly.
   
   
   
5.  Next, rignt click at Environment key > go to New > choose Expandable String Value
   
   
   
6.  Right click at newly created strign entry, and choose Rename and name it as TMP
   
   
   
7.  Right click at TMP string, and choose Modify
   
   
   
8.  Configure below string to Value data box :
   String : %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp
   
                  
9. Perform step 5 until 8 with below info : 

String Name : TEMP
Value Data : %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp

Method 02 - Using GUI :

1. Right Click at My Computer > choose Properties > click at Advanced Tab > Click at Environment Variables
   
   
   
2.  We will add the strings from here. Choose New
   
   
   
3.  Configure the variable names and variable values accordingly, then press OK
    Variable name : TMP
    Variable Value : %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp
   
    Variable name : TEMP
    Variable Value : %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp
   
                                                                    
   
4. This is the outcome. Press OK, and launch the PowerShell script to test.
   

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