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Most commonly, Virtualized Applications share following characteristics:

 

•Application Window and Controls are streamed

•No Desktop Environment

•Connection/Session is handled by a Specific Agent

•Load Balancing on Server Farm/Cloud

 

These characteristics have to be taken into account when configuring the Infoclient for such environments. In the following, you will find information on how to configure the Infoclient in such an environment.

 

Session Initialization: No default Windows Shell in Virtualized Applications

 

Because most Virtualization Frameworks utilize their own Shell instead of the default Windows Shell, it is necessary to set NoDefaultShell=true in the Infoclient's configuration file Infoclient.ini. This causes that during the initilization of the session, the application Progman.exe submits the user-data from the Virtual Application session correctly to the Infoclient. This option e.g. must be set when using Citrix as Virtualization Framework (Virtualized Desktop and Applications).

 

Banner can't be displayed as Taskbar in Virtualized Application Sessions

 

When using a Virtualized Application, the Infoclient can't display the banner as a taskbar, because only a Desktop Environment can display the banner as a Taskbar. In this case, you will need to deactivate the display of the banner as taskbar by setting the item Taskbar=false in the Infoclient.ini.

 

 

If Application Virtualization with load balancing on a serverfarm/cloud is in use, then a user most probably will have several application sessions on multiple servers. This causes, that generally for each individual session an Infoclient will be started as well. In order to avoid, that for each user more than one licence is consumed, following methods are available: Allow only one Infoclient Instance per User and Operate Infoclients in Passive Mode.

 

Method 1: Allow only one Infoclient Instance per User

 

With this method, only one Infoclient instance per user is accepted by the Infoserver. This means that while a user has one active Infoclient in any of the Virtual Application sessions, any additional instances will be stopped by the server. Therefore, each user will consume only one licence. This method can be applied by utilizing the items NotAllowedDuplicateUserlist and NotAllowedDuplicateComputerlist in the App Serverboard (System -> Serverboard). This method should be the preferred choice in case Dynamic Channels are not in use.

 

 

NotAllowedDuplicateUserList=Username (Computername | Address | Domain)

 

Through a combination of one or more specific keywords (comma-separated stringlist) you can create a rule, which allows you to disable multiple instances of the Infoclient per user, respectively per keyword combination. If two or more keywords are used, then these are linked with a logical AND. Following keywords are available: Username, Comutername, Address (IP address of the Virtual Application Server) and Domain. The rule configured in NotAllowedDuplicateUserList will also be applied, if a user already has an Infoclient on a regular Desktop / Fat Client. This means, that if the rule applies for a user, then any instances of the Infcolient in a Virtual Environment will be terminated while the user is logged onto a Fat Client. In case a user is logged on to more than one Fat Clients simultaneously, then the Infoclients on each Fat Client remain active in general. Yet, Infoclients on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 10 pose an exception to this general rule, because these Operating Systems provide an isolated environment for the logged on user, just like a Terminalserver. This means, that if a user is logged on to more than one Fat Clients, then the rule defined in NotAllowedDuplicateUserList will be applied for Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 10 computers as well. The application of this rule can be deactivated for affected computers by setting the item IAmFatClient=true in the app Serverboard (System -> Serverboard) of the respective Infoclients.

 

Example:

 

NotAllowedDuplicateUserList=Username,Domain -> For each unique combination of username and domain, the Infoserver will allow only one instance of the Infoclient in a Virtual Environment, all additional instances of the Infoclient with the identical credential in a Virtual Environment will be terminated by the Infoserver.

 

NotAllowedDuplicateComputerList=DOMAIN\servername Here you can insert a comma-separated list of hosts, for which the setting NotAllowedDuplicateUserList exclusively applies. Computers must be defined with prefixed domain, e.g. CORDAWARE\wts_srv_arp32.

 

Automatic Reactivation of a terminated Infoclient Instance in a Virtual Environment

 

In case a NotAllowedDuplicateUserList-rule is active and a user has terminated the session in which the active Infoclient is running, then a new instance of the Infoclient does not start automatically in any other active sessions. A new Infoclient-instance will only then be initiated, if a copy of the Infoclient.exe by the name ScanInfoclient.exe exists in the installation directory. Attention: The ScanInfoclient.exe always writes its activites to the debug-logfile of the Infoclient. In case this is not wanted, the process can be halted by providing an empty textfile by the name nodebug.txt in the installation directory.

 

Method 2: Operate Infoclients in Passive Mode

 

When in Passive Mode, the Infoclient connects to the Infoserver with the user-credentials from the session and is able to receive messaged, yet the messages won't be displayed and Infoclients in Passive Mode don't consume a licence. The advantage of the Passive Mode is, that the Infoclient is still able to execute Dynamic Channels and can be configured to forward the messages from Dynamic Channels to a defined recipient / group. Additionally, Infoclients which are generally in Passive Mode can become temporarily active (TempActive), meaning that the Infoclient will display any message. The handling of Passive and TempActive can be activated on the Infoserver, thus allowing to do basically the same as with NotAllowedDuplicateUserList without terminating any Infoclient instances.

 

Infoclient Settings for Passive Mode

These settings can be made via the app Configuration (Clients -> Configuration).

 

Passive=false/true (default: false)

 

With the item Passive in the Infoclient.ini, you can generally enable the Passive Mode for ALL Infoclient instances on the respective host.

 

PassiveOnPublishedApplicationOnly=false/true (default: false)

 

With the item PassiveOnPublishedApplicationOnly you can enable the Passive Mode only for Virtualized Applications sessions. This option can only be used, if the Passive Mode is generally enabled (Passive=true).

 

TempActiveAllowed=true/false (default: true)

 

With the item TempActiveAllowed you can enable the Infoclient to become active in case the Infoserver is set to handle the Passive Modes of the Infoclients.

 

Infoserver Settings for Passive Mode

These settings can be made via the app Serverboard (System -> Serverboard).

 

HandlePassive=false/true (default: false)

 

With the item HandlePassive you can enable the Infoserver to control the switch between Passive and TempActive Mode of Infoclients in Passive Mode (Passive / PassiveOnPublishedApplicationOnly). This item is disabled (HandlePassive=false) by default. When HandlePassive is enabled, then the Infoserver will identify all Infoclients in Virtual Environments (Virtual Desktop and Applications) that were initiated with identical credentials from one remote host. For this, the Infoserver uses the items Domain, Username and SessionClientName from the Connection Overview. Then the Infoserver checks which Infoclients are in Passive Mode in a RemoteSession and if they are enabled to become TempActive (TempActiveAllowed=true). If no local Infoclient session is available on the host from which the remote session was started, then the first Infoclient of a user to which the session-data applies (Domain + Username + SessionClientName + RemoteSession +TempActiveAllowed) will be set to TempActive Mode.

 

HandlePassiveClientOnly=false/true (default: false)

 

This options requires that HandlePassive is activated. Setting HandlePassiveClientOnly to true, the passive-mode of the Infoclients is handled only with the Computername and the SessionClientName. The domain and the username are not used.

 

HandlePassiveWithUserDomain=false/true (default: false)

 

The option HandlePassiveWithUserDomain can be used in case the connection data of an Infoclient can't provide a proper SessionClientName, as it can be the case for example with Citrix Published Applications from the Citrix Web Interface. If HandlePassiveWithUserDomain is enabled, then only the Domain and Username of a Infoclient connection will be used, not the SessionClientName.

 

Examples for Passive Mode