Remko Weijnen's Blog (Remko's Blog)

About Virtualization, VDI, SBC, Application Compatibility and anything else I feel like

Archive for June, 2009

As you may know the 32 bit, also called x86, editions of Windows Vista cannot address more than 4 GB of memory. You may think this 4 GB is a limit of the processor but this isn’t true; using Physical Address Extension (PAE) it’s possible to address more memory

Enterprise Server versions of Windows (2003 and 2008) can already address more than 4 GB of memory so why can we not do that with Vista? The answer is: Microsoft doesn’t want that! It is all just a licensing matter, we can see this in the registry. Take RegEdit and goto HKLM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ProductOptions and doubleclick the Value ProductPolicy, scroll down a little until you see the value “Kernel-PhysicalMemoryAllowedx86”, next to it is the value 01 00 which corresponds to 4096 (1000 is the Hex of 4096):

RegEdit1

We can also see where this (and other licensing values) come from: if we look in %systemroot%\system32\licensing\ppdlic al license values are in XML files. The memory value is in Kernel-ppdlic.xrm-ms:

(more…)

  • 101 Comments
  • Filed under: General, Vista
  • Dell Systems Build and Update Utility DVD

    I was installing Dell Deployment Solution (the Dell branded version of Altiris) and at end of the installation you can choose to add drivers for scripted installed. If you do it asks for the Dell Systems Build and Update Utility DVD in order to install drivers for scripted install:

    Dell1

    I searched on the Dell site for this DVD but the only version I could find was a version of 20-11-2008 (5.5.1 AA00) with the filename OM_5.5.1_SUU_A00.ISO and it is not accepted by the installer:

    HelpfullErrorMsg

    What a helpfull message 😉

    (more…)

  • 4 Comments
  • Filed under: General
  • Delegated Management Console

    In this topic I just want to show(case) you something I created in the past. It is a management console that enables delegated management in a Terminal Server or Citrix environment.

    The console is launched by a small executable that check credentials (based on group membership) and then launches an RDP session with the actual console in it. The logic behind it is that the RDP session runs with an account with delegated permissions in Active Directory and the actual user account that logs in here doesn’t have any permissions at all.

    This is the login screen:

    login

    If you’ve passed the login screen you enter the Main Console which consists of a Treeview on the left with possible options and a work area on the right:

    mainscreen

    (more…)

    Citrix Desktop Switcher

    A while ago I wrote a small tool to assist in switching between a Full Screen Citrix Desktop and the local desktop. By default the Citrix client can switch from full screen to windowed mode (with the SHIFT F2 hotkey) but it doesn’t minimize the window automatically. So this always requires manually minimizing, do your local work, give focus to the Citrix client again and press the hotkey again to return to full screen.

    My idea was really simply: we write a little exe that runs locally and registers the SHIFT F2 hotkey. When the Hotkey is pressed we determine if we are in full screen or in windowed mode and reverse that. When going from Full Screen to Windowed we minimize the Citrix Client and notify the user (by balloon tip) that he is on the local desktop. I called it the Citrix Desktop Switcher (sorry I couldn’t come up with a more original name)

    So let’s see it in action!

    When you start the Citrix Desktop Switcher you are notified that the tool is running (it doesn’t matter when you start the Switcher, you can start if even if the Citrix Session is already running).

    Balloon1

    (more…)

  • 4 Comments
  • Filed under: Citrix
  • Today someone asked questions about a script I wrote back in 2007 to solve a bug in Outlook (2003 but at least Outlook XP has the same issue). If you have access to someone’s calendar and want to make a print of it Outlook wants to print it in it’s default view which is a combined view on calendar appointments and tasks. However if you do not have permissions to the other persons tasks folder Outlook refuses to print and displays the following error: The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the problem persists, restart Outlook.

    To resolve it you can go to the Calendar | Daily View | Print, then click Page Setup and under Include Options deselect Taskpad. I didn’t want to do this for all users that’s why I wrote the script.

    (more…)

  • 0 Comments
  • Filed under: script
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