Windows Server 2012 automation with Powershell

9465EN_0_PowerShell_Packt_EbookPackt publishing contacted me recently to review a new book they published on automating Windows Server 2012 through PowerShell. As I just received the book I can’t give you a review yet but it will be posted in the next couple of weeks. So bear with me until then I can leave you with a link to the book and some details on the book:

Release Date : March 2013

Author : Ed Goad

  • Extend the capabilities of your Windows environment
  • Improve the process reliability by using well defined PowerShell scripts
  • Full of examples, scripts, and real-world best practices

Microsoft® Lync™ 2013 VDI Plug-in v1.0.1

With Lync™ 2013, Microsoft has introduced a new VDI Plug-in for Windows devices. This Tech Preview release enables the Microsoft® Lync™ 2013 VDI Plug-in to be used with the Citrix Receiver for Windows 3.x and XenApp 6.x. The Tech Preview consists of a new plug-in to the Citrix Receiver for Windows called the Display Adapter Plug-in. This new plug-in supports the Remote Desktop Protocol Geometry Tracking Extension used by Lync 2013 and related Windows components to insert and correctly position child windows for rendering Lync video. With this architecture, all Lync media processing is done on the user’s Windows device, maximizing XenApp server scalability and ensuring optimal audio-video quality.

Note: This technology preview software is made available to you in accordance to the terms and condition you agreed to in the End User License Agreement (EULA). The technology preview is for evaluation use only. It not supported in a production environment.

Documentation

You can find documentation around this plug-in here.

Download

You can download this plug-in here at the Citrix download section. A valid My CitrixID is required!!!

ShareFile User Management Tool 1.4 released

The ShareFile User Management Tool enables IT departments to provision and deprovision employee users and distribution groups in ShareFile based on Active Directory. This allows IT to leverage existing AD workflows for creating and updating users and groups and have them automatically kept in sync with ShareFile.

For Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008

New features include:

  • Improved Performance and UI

Documentation:

Citrix eDocs.

Download:

You can download this management tool at the Citrix download center. A valid My CitrixID is required to be able to download this software.

Citrix XenServer Security Update (for all versions)

A security vulnerability has been identified in Citrix XenServer. This vulnerability allows an unprivileged user of a guest VM to crash the host.

The vulnerability is identified as:

• CVE-2013-1917: Xen PV DoS vulnerability with SYSENTER

Mitigating Factors

The vulnerability can only be exploited from PV guest VMs running on Intel CPUs.

Hotfixes

Hotfixes have been released to address this issue. Citrix recommends that affected customers install the relevant hotfix, which can be downloaded from the following locations:

Citrix XenServer 6.1: CTX137487 – Hotfix XS61E019 – For XenServer 6.1.0

Citrix XenServer 6.0.2: CTX137486 – Hotfix XS602E022 – For XenServer 6.0.2

Citrix XenServer 6.0.0: CTX137484 – Hotfix XS60E028 – For XenServer 6.0

Citrix XenServer 5.6 Service Pack 2: CTX137483 – Hotfix XS56ESP2027 – For XenServer 5.6 Service Pack 2

Citrix XenServer 5.6 Feature Pack 1: CTX137482 – Hotfix XS56EFP1017 – For XenServer 5.6 Feature Pack 1

Citrix XenServer 5.6: CTX137481 – Hotfix XS56E018 – For XenServer 5.6

Citrix XenServer 5.5 Update 2: CTX137480 – Hotfix XS55EU2016 – For XenServer 5.5 Update 2

Citrix XenServer 5.0 Update 3: CTX137479 – Hotfix XS50EU3016 – For XenServer 5.0 Update 3

Read the original KB article here.

How to disable specific client drive mappings

Ever wanted to disable certain client drives in your XenApp or XenDesktop environment?

Here’s a good way to disable certain client drive mappings through either the registry or the Web Interface.

Disabling Specific Client Drive Mappings at the registry

XenApp 6.5 servers reboot when not part of a reboot policy

XenApp 6.5 servers are rebooting and they are not attached to a reboot policy. Servers may reboot when a reboot policy is created, but there are no servers assigned to the policy. The following entry in the eventlogs are written.

Continue reading “XenApp 6.5 servers reboot when not part of a reboot policy”