Adding Client Printer Redirection for Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux to your Citrix Master Image

Today I learned: Citrix Printer Redirection for Mac and Linux is not available Out-Of-The-Box on the Citrix Master Images I install. In this blog post, I will detail the steps I’ve taken to add this missing piece to all of my Master Images.

Introduction

Although quite rare in Germany, a few of our customers use MacBooks at home for the home office. Last week a customer created a ticket, that he couldn’t print on his home printer, although printer redirection was allowed for him in Citrix Studio. At first, I suggested the usual troubleshooting steps, like updating the Citrix Workspace app for Mac and checking the local preferences of the app. Obviously, both didn’t help. I then checked the problem myself and didn’t find an obvious problem. A quick search then led me to two Citrix KB articles, which revealed a knowledge gap on my side:

Client Printing from Linux/MAC is not available on Windows Server 2016 and 2019 (out of the box)

The following Citrix knowledge base articles explain what’s necessary to activate that feature:

  1. CTX283355: Client Printing from Linux/MAC is not working on Windows Server 2016 and 2019
  2. CTX140208: Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux fail to Redirect Local printer to Citrix Sessions

Summary of the knowledge base articles:

  1. Download the HP driver update for HP Color LaserJet 2800 Series PS driver from Microsoft Update Catalog.
  2. Inject the driver into the operating system.
  3. Add the printer driver to the printer driver store.
  4. The next time the user logs on, it will just work.

Continue reading “Adding Client Printer Redirection for Citrix Workspace App for Mac and Linux to your Citrix Master Image”

#virtualexpo: Create unattended Setups with AutoIt when no silent setup switch is available

When creating automated (Citrix) Master Images for MCS or PVS, you often encounter software for which no MSI and EXE silent switches are provided – and the vendor refuses to cooperate.
In this session, Marco Hofmann will show you how to write simple unattended AutoIt installation scripts that can automate installations for tools such as the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.

Today is the #virtualexpo hosted by Trond E Haavarstein. I registered a slot as a speaker, to talk about my struggle to include apps in my Citrix MCS Golden Master Images, which I built with the Automation Framework Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), when the vendor doesn’t include silent setup switches in their setup files.

For this purpose I’m giving an example, about how to solve this issue with AutoIt.

I you want to hear my speech and all the other great speakers, take a look at the agenda and register!

Continue reading “#virtualexpo: Create unattended Setups with AutoIt when no silent setup switch is available”

I did become a CTA – How did that happen?

tl;dr: Create a blog, check out Twitter and follow the community.
Share content, even if you’re no Pro, everybody needs to start somewhere.

A few years ago I was thinking about which path I should take in my IT career. My key competences were clear for some time. During and after my apprenticeship at my employer ANAXCO GmbH, I was on several instructor-led Citrix classroom courses. One of my main tasks in our company is the design and configuration of Citrix virtual apps and Desktops Sites (formerly XenApp & XenDesktop Farms) for the provisioning of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 / 2012 / 365. There is a reason our company’s name is “AN AX COmpany”. So my work with CVAD and Citrix Gateway  (formerly NetScaler Gateway) was already settled. Besides that I had the opportunity to go to a brilliant deep dive classroom course for Microsoft Group Policy at NT-Systems in Germany. Continue reading “I did become a CTA – How did that happen?”

WordPress Blog isn’t on Google: Possible Yoast SEO sitemap error

A few months ago I discovered, that MeineKleineFarm.Net is not findable on Google anymore. This resulted in dramatically decreased visitor statistics, despite the fact the new content was created by me. I suspected a wrong sitemap configuration to guilty. Let’s find out!

A few months ago I discovered, that MeineKleineFarm.Net is not findable on Google anymore. This is really bugging me, since the purpose of this blog is to share knowledge. But a blog that is not findable doesn’t bring value to anyone. On the other hand, search engines like Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yandex index an rank this blog.
I suspect the Yoast SEO sitemap to be guilty. Let me explain why. Continue reading “WordPress Blog isn’t on Google: Possible Yoast SEO sitemap error”

Blog Language transition from German to English

After nearly four years and 108 articles for this blog “My little Farm” I suddenly realized why I never reached more than ~20 daily visitors. Sometimes ‘Captain Obvious’ is your worst enemy. Now that I look back, it just makes no sense to write IT focused blog posts in any other language than English.

So from this week on, I will write future blog posts always in English.

Twitter Analytics proofs me right on this, as my two English blog articles from the Weekend about Citrix WEM had a drastic impact on my stats:

I took a brief look around the blog, the menu and different articles. 95% are in German, but I will slowly transfer to English. First with the most important parts like the language of the WordPress installation and the menu. Later maybe some old articles that I still like enough to bring them up once more.