terrywilson
MIS
Currently 90% of our clients run Win98 with Program Neighborhood and run everything as published applications from here.
We are looking at moving to terminals but have a few issues:
With WinCE based terminals we have tried (HP T5300, Wyse 3000) we have a problem with some published apps - example, if we launch a file attachment from an app (Lotus Notes email, but not limited to just this program) then the attachment launches Word or Excel (whatever it was created in) quite happily, however on the taskbar the launched application replaces what was there. (ie, if we launch a Word document from Notes then Word appears on the taskbar replacing the Notes icon, the only way to return to the parent is to close the launched application). We dont have this problem with XPe terminals or normal PC's.
A second issue is, even though session sharing is enabled, I found that when launching apps on the CE device it would go through several screens as it started the app launch process (just quick flickers of connecting to metaframe server etc). I think it would make our setup look very poor if we had terminal users suffering through 2 - 3 second delays while launching apps like that. Generally launching the same apps on a PC Citrix client through Program Neighborhood work fine.
I was wondering what sort of deployment strategies people are using? This is what I have come up with:
Web Interface
- Still leaves us with problem of WinCE taskbar issue. We can't use an IE kiosk mode equivalant because users require the taskbar (some run 5 ie session and 5 5250 plus other apps).
- I have heard that there is an app you can publish which will behave like a taskbar? I haven't seen thsi yet but it sounds like a bit of a kludge?
PN Agent
- Probably not suited towards the terminals we would like to move towards
Program Neighborhood
- We could pubilsh this as an app - does anyone know if publish that as an app means that when users launch items from the published app if they "nest" inside that or if the citrix server is intelligent enough to work out that its the equivalant of launching the app from an unpublished PN?
- Again, we have an issue with the taskbar (as described above) for CE clients.
- Probably not as easy to centrally manage?
Published Desktops
- I have considered moving towards published desktops instead of Published apps. I have identified several core apps and have considered that if we went this way we would do it in the following way...
- Build 8 servers identical with core apps (Notes, Office, 5250....)
- Build 2 "vertical" servers with non-standard apps.
- Remove application publication for the core apps, leaving non-standards published as apps
- Publish a Desktop, load managed across the 8 servers. Users would launch into this at the start of each day and do all work from here
- On the published desktop have Program Neighborhood available, from here users could launch non-standard apps. Again, does anyone know if launch pn from a published desktop creates any issues?
- How would I make the app available to users? Ideally I would like them to (in the near future) turn on their PC and have the published desktop application automatically load for them and present them with the Windows 2000 Login screen for the desktop. This I would want load managed.
Any ideas folks, also I would like to hear how other users are implementing Citrix in their environments? We are essentially all Citrix except for 10% of our workstations, and I want a solution that works well for us. thanks.
We are looking at moving to terminals but have a few issues:
With WinCE based terminals we have tried (HP T5300, Wyse 3000) we have a problem with some published apps - example, if we launch a file attachment from an app (Lotus Notes email, but not limited to just this program) then the attachment launches Word or Excel (whatever it was created in) quite happily, however on the taskbar the launched application replaces what was there. (ie, if we launch a Word document from Notes then Word appears on the taskbar replacing the Notes icon, the only way to return to the parent is to close the launched application). We dont have this problem with XPe terminals or normal PC's.
A second issue is, even though session sharing is enabled, I found that when launching apps on the CE device it would go through several screens as it started the app launch process (just quick flickers of connecting to metaframe server etc). I think it would make our setup look very poor if we had terminal users suffering through 2 - 3 second delays while launching apps like that. Generally launching the same apps on a PC Citrix client through Program Neighborhood work fine.
I was wondering what sort of deployment strategies people are using? This is what I have come up with:
Web Interface
- Still leaves us with problem of WinCE taskbar issue. We can't use an IE kiosk mode equivalant because users require the taskbar (some run 5 ie session and 5 5250 plus other apps).
- I have heard that there is an app you can publish which will behave like a taskbar? I haven't seen thsi yet but it sounds like a bit of a kludge?
PN Agent
- Probably not suited towards the terminals we would like to move towards
Program Neighborhood
- We could pubilsh this as an app - does anyone know if publish that as an app means that when users launch items from the published app if they "nest" inside that or if the citrix server is intelligent enough to work out that its the equivalant of launching the app from an unpublished PN?
- Again, we have an issue with the taskbar (as described above) for CE clients.
- Probably not as easy to centrally manage?
Published Desktops
- I have considered moving towards published desktops instead of Published apps. I have identified several core apps and have considered that if we went this way we would do it in the following way...
- Build 8 servers identical with core apps (Notes, Office, 5250....)
- Build 2 "vertical" servers with non-standard apps.
- Remove application publication for the core apps, leaving non-standards published as apps
- Publish a Desktop, load managed across the 8 servers. Users would launch into this at the start of each day and do all work from here
- On the published desktop have Program Neighborhood available, from here users could launch non-standard apps. Again, does anyone know if launch pn from a published desktop creates any issues?
- How would I make the app available to users? Ideally I would like them to (in the near future) turn on their PC and have the published desktop application automatically load for them and present them with the Windows 2000 Login screen for the desktop. This I would want load managed.
Any ideas folks, also I would like to hear how other users are implementing Citrix in their environments? We are essentially all Citrix except for 10% of our workstations, and I want a solution that works well for us. thanks.