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Hide Libraries and Network in Microsoft Office (x86) AND Windows Explorer (x64)

Problem:

We had hidden the Libraries and Network links in the explorer bar on our Citrix XenAPp 6.5 servers, but for some reason they continued to appear inside Office and some other applications.

Turns out the common element was 32bit apps were all still able to see libraries and Network locations etc particularly when saving files in Word or excel.

W7_Libraries_default_view

 

(screenshot shown above from windows 7 device, its exactly the same view we want to restrict however in terminal server / windows 2008 r2)

Solution:

There are two registry locations for libraries and network etc, 64bit and 32bit, edit them all as follows, be sure to assign permission to these keys as administrator first!

64bit Favorites key is:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}ShellFolder
Attributes: a9400100

64Bit Libraries key is:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}ShellFolder
Attributes:b090010d (hide)
Attributes:b080010d (default – show)

64bit Network key is:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}ShellFolder
Attributes: B0940064

HIDE 32 bit verison of the same for 32bit apps
32bit Favorites key is:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeClassesCLSID{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}ShellFolder]
“Attributes”=dword:a9400100

32Bit Libraries key is:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeClassesCLSID{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}ShellFolder]
“Attributes”=dword:b090010d

32bit Network key is:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeClassesCLSID{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}ShellFolder]
“Attributes”=dword:b0940064

XenApp6.5_LibrariesHidden

Citrix PVS 7.1 and AppV 5 applications crashing, launching once

This issue absolutely did my head in. I had to publish it for you all to save you the time if you ever come across it as I was close to QUITTING because I couldn’t get this to work.

Scenario:

  1. Windows 2008 R2, Citrix XenApp 6.5 and Microsoft AppV 5 SP2.
  2. Applications published globally to the XA Servers
  3. All Servers streamed from Citrix PVS 7.1
  4. User profiles managed with Citrix User Profile Manager

This article for the Citrix UPM was already followed and the AppV Exclusions were definitely set

https://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/user-profile-manager-5-x/upm-using-with-app-v.html

Some App-V packaged applications would launch once, then never again when the Package Installation Root was pointing to the Read Only PVS Image (%programdata%AppV) and ONLY when the server was in Read only mode. If I was editing the image in PVS maintenance mode to update the vDisk – the issue never presented itself.

Ideally I wanted the App-V cache to point to the ‘out of the box’ %programdata%AppV – and in conjunction with PVS you can guarantee its fresh everytime

A temporary work around was to move the Package Installation Root to the D: (Read Write Disk) < but we soon started getting errors with this as no amount of scripting and startup scripts would cleanly remove this directory 100% all the time. I.E:

Get-AppvClientPackage -All | Remove-AppVClientPackage

remove-item -Recurse -Force d:app-v

get-appvpublishingserver | sync-appvpublishingserver -Global

This script would only remove the currently published applications, too bad for any legacy packages that were no longer published to the servers,

AppV_D_Notrefreshing

and for whatever reason the SYSTEM account was unable to delete the d:app-v folder (access denied even though it was owner and had full rights) sporadically the folder wouldn’t update at all and no applications would be refreshed until a user logged into the server. (Poinless on a citrix server where the applications have to exist if delivered as published apps’  Citrix could not find / see the executable and the published app would not run.

Eventually App-V Clients services started failing unable to start.

appv_d_Error7024

The Microsoft App-V Client service terminated with service-specific error The system cannot find the path specified.. EventID 7024 (Update: After further troubleshooting it turn out this was because some of the legacy packages were referenced in the Windows registry)

There had to be a better solution.

Solution:

Change the PVS 7.1 Disk Cache mode to  “RAM with Overflow to Disk”, Return the Package Install Root to %programdata%AppV and generalise the AppV 5 Client before shutting down the image after each PVS update.

 

vdisk_properties_pvs7.1_appv5_Fix

 

AppV 5 Generalise:

c:admintoolspstoolspsexec.exe -s powershell.exe “Get-AppvClientPackage -All | Remove-AppVClientPackage”
regedit.exe /s “C:adminToolsAppV_Generalise.reg”

AppvGeneralise.reg Contents:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftAppVClientIntegrationPackages]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftAppVClientPackageGroups]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftAppVClientPackages]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftAppVClientStreamingPackages]

Articles / References:

http://discussions.citrix.com/topic/348198-app-v-5-client-citrix-provisioning/ – Explains the situation clearly, and finally provided me the solution to fix it once and for all. Much thanks to Carl Fallis!