Windows – Page 2 – Jere's Techblog

Usefull Blogs / Websites

April 4, 2019

Enclosed a link collection of my mostly used reference books, sorted by topic:

Troubleshooting an App-V issue on a PVS image

March 14, 2019

Jeremias Kühnis

This blog entry is based on the following, a little bit outdated article:

https://securelink.net/en-be/insights/troubleshooting-an-app-v-issue-on-a-pvs-image/

The problem is unfortunately still current it just brings some changes with Microsoft Server 2016. Therefore I took the liberty to copy some explanations from the “old article”.

Problem Description

During a recent application implementation project, we ran into the following issue. Some App-V applications, which were installed locally in the PVS image, were unable to start or they were throwing various error messages. One of the applications which were showing errors, was MS Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) viewer. The error thrown at startup of the application was the following: “The operating system is not presently configured to run this application.”

The App-V client was 5.0 SP2, but App-V 5.0 SP3 was also used as a troubleshooting step. The PVS target devices were configured as such:
Streamed disk
Persistent disk (flush overflow)
Re-installing the application in the image, solved the issue for that particular application. However, we wanted to know the root cause of this issue, so we logged a case at Citrix. This was done because the behavior was not existing on a regular non-streamed VM.
After extensive troubleshooting together with Citrix support we discovered the root cause:
One of the registry keys (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppV\MAV\Configuration\Packages\<package ID>) containing the PackageRoot value contained a faulty HarddiskVolume number.
This volume was indicated as 3, whereas the streamed disk volume number was 2.

Solution

Correcting HarddiskVolume3 into HarddiskVolume2 did solve the issue.
The reason why the HarddiskVolume3 value got into the registry was because these applications where installed in the image on the template machine. This was the machine from which the initial vdisk was captured. During the installation of the particular App-V applications, the original disk was still attached .

This is issue is definitely not Citrix or PVS related, but can be encountered on such a setup.
To prevent this issue from happening again in the future, the original disk was detached from the template VM.

You can get the disknumber in CMD with “DISKPART -> ListDisk” or PowerShell “Get-Disk”.

My expirience and solution with this issue on Server 2016:

In our Environment we ran into the same problem and we could fix this on Server 2008R2 & Citrix 6.5, PVS 7.15 with the modification of one of the registry keys (with a Startupscript during worker boot). (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppV\MAV\Configuration\Packages\<package ID>) containing the PackageRoot value contained a faulty HarddiskVolume number.

On Server 2016 (Citrix 7.17) everything was useless. Creating or deleting a disk on the masterimage or changing the RegKey didn’t work. I also didn’t find a way to change the disk volume number.

The problem could only be solved by adjusting the call parameter of the application. If the application is started in the App-V context it works fine.

As an example:

Microsoft InfoPath 2013

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\AppV\Client\Integration\D24C3BDD-8FAD-44D3-998C-933F8F053682\Root\Office15\INFOPATH.EXE /appvve:d24c3bdd-8fad-44d3-998c-933f8f053682_6b0281c5-bb0b-49fb-b52c-a6651e8ed2ed

filetype associations fix

to fix the filetype associations you need to add the “/appvee:**APPV-ID***” parameter to the registry root class:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InfoPath.Solution.4\shell\Open\command

“C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\AppV\Client\Integration\D24C3BDD-8FAD-44D3-998C-933F8F053682\Root\Office15\INFOPATH.EXE” /appvve:d24c3bdd-8fad-44d3-998c-933f8f053682_6b0281c5-bb0b-49fb-b52c-a6651e8ed2ed “%1”

App-V, Citrix, CitrixPVS, GoldenImage, MasterImage, Terminalserver

Citrix, Citrix PVS, PowerShell, Windows, Windows OS

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Query big ADObject / Containers

March 13, 2019

Jeremias Kühnis

The Powershell AD-Modules have certain restrictions when it comes to querying large objects, this can be bypassed by ADSI Query.

Here an example how to read them and how to iterate on users of a group:

#by J.Kühnis 13.03.2019
#example ADSI Query Powershell
$BigGroup = "someADGroupName"
$ADGroup1 = "someADGroup1"
$ADGroup2 = "someADGroup2"


$groupname = $BigGroup
$groupdsn = (Get-ADGroup $groupname).DistinguishedName
$group =[adsi]”LDAP://$groupdsn” 
$groupmemebrs = $group.psbase.invoke("Members") | % {$_.GetType().InvokeMember("SamAccountName",'GetProperty',$null,$_,$null)}

$groupmemebrs | foreach {
    
    $usradgroups = GET-ADUser -Identity $_ –Properties MemberOf | Select-Object -ExpandProperty MemberOf | Get-ADGroup -Properties name | Select-Object name
    IF ($usradgroups.name -notContains $ADGroup1 -and $usradgroups.name -notContains $ADGroup2) {

        #User is not a Member of ADGroup1 & ADGroup2

        }
        Else{
          #User is MemberOf ADGroup1 & ADGroup2
        }
}

Here also an example using a Class to just specify the object the way you like:

#by J.Kühnis 09.10.2019
#Set variables
$ADGROUP = "someAdGrp"

# Load AD-Module
IF (!(Get-Module -Name ActiveDirectory)) {
    Import-Module -Name ActiveDirectory
    IF (!(Get-Module -Name ActiveDirectory)) {
    start-sleep 10
    Write-Warning "No AD-Module Found"

        Exit
    }
}
$groupname = $ADGROUP
$groupdsn = (Get-ADGroup $groupname).DistinguishedName
$group =[adsi]”LDAP://$groupdsn” 
$groupmemebrs = $group.psbase.invoke("Members") | % {$_.GetType().InvokeMember("SamAccountName",'GetProperty',$null,$_,$null)}

class User{
[string]$Name
[string]$SamAccountName
[string]$UserPrincipalName
[string]$Mail
[string]$extensionAttribute7
[string]$extensionAttribute9
}


$Userlist = @()
$groupmemebrs | ForEach-Object {
    $usrATTR = GET-ADUser -Identity $_ –Properties Name,SamAccountName,UserPrincipalName,mail,extensionAttribute9, extensionAttribute7
    
    $User = [User]::new()
    $User.Name = $usrATTR.Name
    $User.SamAccountName = $usrATTR.SamAccountName
    $User.UserPrincipalName = $usrATTR.UserPrincipalName
    $User.Mail = $usrATTR.Mail
    $User.extensionAttribute1 = $usrATTR.extensionAttribute1
    $User.extensionAttribute2 = $usrATTR.extensionAttribute2

    $Userlist += $User
}
$Userlist | format-table

ActiveDirectory, AD, Automation, LDAP, Powershell, query

ADModule, PowerShell, Scripting, Windows

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Copy-Items with folder Structure and Filter in a Foreach-Parallel Workflow

March 8, 2019

Jeremias Kühnis

#J.Kühnis 08.03.2019
$Sourcefolder= "\\localhost\C$\Temp\1"
$Targetfolder= "C:\Temp2\1"


$query = Get-ChildItem $Sourcefolder -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.LastWriteTime -gt [datetime]::Now.AddDays(-1)}


workflow CopyJob {
    param (
    [Object[]]$query,
    [String]$Sourcefolder,
    [String]$Targetfolder
    )
    
Foreach($item in $query){
    $dest = $Targetfolder + $item.FullName.SubString($Sourcefolder.Length)
    
    #Write-Host $dest -ForegroundColor Yellow
    Copy-Item $item.FullName -Destination $dest -Force
}
}

CopyJob -query $query -Sourcefolder $Sourcefolder -Targetfolder $Targetfolder

Automation, Copy, Filesystem, Powershell, Script, Scripting, Windows, Workflow

PowerShell, Scripting, Windows

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MCLI Module error after Citrix PVS Update 7.13 to 7.18

February 15, 2019

Jeremias Kühnis

After Updating Citrix PVS Server i got an Issue with my PVS Scripts.
I couldn’t load the Powershell modules anymore.

Of course I have properly registered the DLL of the PVS Snapin. I executed the following command as admin in the CMD:

"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\InstallUtil.exe" "c:\program files\citrix\provisioning services console\Citrix.PVS.snapin.dll"

I got this Error:

PS C:\Temp> Add-PSSnapin *
Add-PSSnapin : Cannot load Windows PowerShell snap-in McliPSSnapIn because of the following error: The Windows PowerShell snap-in module C:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Services
Console\McliPSSnapIn.dll does not have the required Windows PowerShell snap-in strong name McliPSSnapIn, Version=7.13.0.13008, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null.

Solution:

The support article https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX226178 describes some symptomps but the Solution didn’t work.

In my case I had to manually change certain registry keys.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellSnapIns\McliPSSnapIn]

You Can also Copy this into a .REG File and run on the PVS Server (Ensure the Versionnumber is equal to your PVS Version):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellSnapIns\McliPSSnapIn]
"PowerShellVersion"="5.1"
"Vendor"="Citrix Systems, Inc."
"Description"="This is a PowerShell snap-in that includes the Mcli-Add, Mcli-Delete, Mcli-Get, Mcli-Help, Mcli-Info, Mcli-Run, Mcli-RunWithReturn, Mcli-Set and Mcli-SetList cmdlets."
"ApplicationBase"="C:\\Program Files\\Citrix\\Provisioning Services Console"
"ModuleName"="C:\\Program Files\\Citrix\\Provisioning Services Console\\McliPSSnapIn.dll"
"CustomPSSnapInType"="McliPSSnapIn.McliPSSnapIn"
"Version"="7.18.0.106"
"AssemblyName"="McliPSSnapIn, Version=7.18.0.106, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"

Citrix, CitrixPVS, Powershell, Windows

Citrix, Citrix PVS, Citrix SDK, PowerShell, Windows

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Visual Studio Code

January 29, 2019

Jeremias Kühnis

One of my favorite editors for editing Powershell scripts is Visual Studio Code. Mircosoft’s OpenSource Code Editor, launched in 2016, is a wonderful editor and the biggest advantage is that it works on Windows, Linux and Mac.

In this article I want to show some advantages why I prefer this editor to the classic Powershell_Ise, Atom Editor and Notepad++. I also show useful addons and editor settings.

Okay first of all i’ll show you why

At the beginning I will show you the advantages of the editor:

The editor is very fast (no lags) and it starts very fast
The editor is with approx. 180MB installation size relatively slim in contrast to Visual Studio
The editor supports various programming and scripting languages, which can be installed using extensions.
Many Addons/Extensions (Debugger, DebugConsole, ColorEditors, Autocorrection, Sourcecontrol, GIT, TFS Server, Docker, various Azure Tools and Connections)
Code can be executed within the editor.
Integrated Terminal Console
Many configuration options (autosave, color selection, editor behavior, code arrangement and much more).
Command Explorer
Various color themes for the editor itself (dark / light, much based on Visual Studio)
Configuration can be easily done using .json files or GUI
Has a very large user community and is strongly pushed by Microsoft.

Distinctive differences to Visual Studio Editor:

Visual Studio Code organizes itself according to folder structures (file system) and not like Visual Studio with “Projects”
No integrated editor for Windows WPF/Windows Form GUI’s.
No Enterprise Debugging (CPU Runtime)

Those are my prefferd Custom Settings:

I have made the following setting in the JSON file (User Settings) to make the scripten more pleasant.

“powershell.integratedConsole.focusConsoleOnExecute”: false,

“powershell.scriptAnalysis.enable”: true,

“powershell.codeFormatting.openBraceOnSameLine”: true

Automation, Azure, Editor, OpenSource, Powershell

PowerShell, Scripting, Windows

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Usefull Blogs / Websites

Powershell Tutorials:

Function / Script librarys:

Citrix:

Linux:

Troubleshooting an App-V issue on a PVS image

Problem Description

Solution

Query big ADObject / Containers

Copy-Items with folder Structure and Filter in a Foreach-Parallel Workflow

MCLI Module error after Citrix PVS Update 7.13 to 7.18

Visual Studio Code

Links

Community