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Andrew138
10 discussion posts
Hi,

I know Citrix is not supported by DisplayFusion so I'm not going to fret about this, but nonetheless thought you might be interested!

We have a site license for DF, and have it installed on all our work computers without much drama. For a while we were also running DisplayFusion 3.3.1 on our Citrix Xenapp 6\Windows Server 2008 R2 server purely for the window switching buttons. Worked a treat for quite a while, but at some point it developed a really strange bug where the buttons would not draw on active application windows, but would draw on the inactive ones!

I decided to try out 3.4.0 Beta4, being the latest release at the time, and that solved the problem. Soon after though it stopped drawing buttons on the windows completely (I made sure DF was running and configured) so then I moved to Beta12.

This one has been the most stable by far - the buttons draw and stay drawn, and the window moving works as it should!

On recieving the recent prompt to upgrade from Beta12 to final, I decided to install 3.4.0 final. For some reason window moving no longer works properly - on some users it simply refuses to move the window. On others, the switch button causes the window to... just disappear? I didn't look too far into it - I've now rolled back to Beta12 and things are working again.

Again I don't expect DF to work on Citrix perfectly, but I'd be interested to know if there was some correlation between the changes made from Beta12 and the problem described!
Oct 6, 2011  • #1
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
Interesting! That is definitely good to know. We're actually working on testing some other stuff with Citrix XenApp 6, so we'll check this out as well and I'll be sure to update you when we have more info.

Thanks!
Oct 7, 2011  • #2
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
Quick question, when you're using DisplayFusion on Citrix Xenapp 6, are the users connecting directly to the Desktop, or are they using Published Applications?
Oct 13, 2011  • #3
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Andrew138
10 discussion posts
They're all using published apps - mostly Internet Explorer 8, MS Office 2007 Word\Excel\Outlook and various versions of MYOB.
Oct 13, 2011  • #4
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
Ok cool, and you have DisplayFusion installed on the XenApp server, set to startup for all users? Did you put it in the Start > All Programs > Startup folder, or in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run?
Oct 14, 2011  • #5
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Andrew138
10 discussion posts
I believe I had it running on user login using UsrLogn.cmd - I will be back in the office tomorrow so I'll give you a better answer then. But I know the usual methods to make programs run on startup (like ticking the box in DF to enable startup, putting it in the Startup folder for All Users, pushing it out to the registry key) don't work on my server.
Oct 17, 2011  • #6
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Andrew138
10 discussion posts
Ah sorry, I completely forgot to follow this up!

Anyway this is just to confirm the above: I have DF starting up with user logins via a CMD file that is run on login from the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\AppSetup.This key contains the following: CtxHide.exe UsrLogon.Cmd,UsrLogn3.cmd,cmstart.exe - DF is launched from UsrLogn3.cmd

This Citrix article kinda-sorta explains it: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX104352.
Nov 13, 2011  • #7
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
Awesome, thanks Andrew! I'll give that a go and see what I can find out.
Nov 15, 2011  • #8
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
If you get a chance, could you try the latest beta version (3.4.1 Beta 4)?

It can be downloaded here: http://www.displayfusion.com/Download/Beta/

Thanks!
Nov 25, 2011  • #9
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Andrew138
10 discussion posts
Hi again,

No I didn't forget this! Just had too much work on my hands, and then subsequent holidays.

Anyway by the time I got around to this, 3.4.1 stable was out so I tried that instead (also you don't appear to have betas avaliable at the moment). Unfortunately it exhibits the same problems as before - windows either fail to switch (most common) or just disappear upon switching but are still running (rare).

And then the sky fell on us - after an hour of normal load, suddenly my Citrix server had massive memory spikes from sources unknown - I scoured through Resource Monitor to try and find the culprit, but couldn't find anything unusual besides having too many DisplayFusion.exe processes (but even then the mem usage didn't add up). The spikes were starting to hit 100% and causing hard faults, so I ended up logging everyone off, rolling back DF to 3.40 beta 12 and restarting. So far, no faults.

A post-disaster scouring of system logs revealed nothing but errors from other programs failing due to the memory problems.

So in conclusion... 3.4.1 stable didn't fix it.
Jan 19, 2012  • #10
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
Ok, thanks for the update Andrew! I unfortunately haven't had any luck with my testing here, but I'm wondering if I'm not launching DisplayFusion correctly from the UsrLogn3.cmd file.

Is there anything special required in the UsrLogn3.cmd file, or do you just put the path to the DisplayFusion executable in the file, and then add it to the registry key that you posted earlier?

Thanks!
Jan 20, 2012  • #11
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Andrew138
10 discussion posts
Fair enough, OK well the exact way this is set up:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\AppSetup needs to have UsrLogn3.cmd in it after CtxHide.exe but before cmstart.exe

UsrLogn3.cmd, located in C:\Windows\System32, contains the following:

Code

@echo off

REM This is to call startup items on Citrix Login

ECHO Please wait, calling startup programs...

CALL "C:\Scripts\launcher.vbs"

EXIT

launcher.vbs, located in C:\Scripts contains the following:

Code

'Run programs here

Set Shell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Shell.Run """C:\Program Files (x86)\DisplayFusion\DisplayFusion.exe""", 0, false
Set Shell = Nothing

Wscript.Quit


Yep, the registry key calls the cmd file that calls the vbs file that calls DF... there might have been a good reason for that but I don't recall it right now. Might be something to do with synchronous/asynchronous program execution (the 'false' up in that VBScript tells it not to wait for DF to finish running before continuing the script).
Jan 24, 2012 (modified Jan 24, 2012)  • #12
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Sheldon Guenther
1 discussion post
Hi I'm going to add myself to this thread. I've also been trying to run DisplayFusion on a "2X" server. It functions much like Citrix with published apps. I've noticed the same behavior. I've also published just the DisplayFusion application, open DF and then open another app, without a result. I've also tried the 3.5.0 beta without success.

Sheldon
Jan 26, 2012 (modified Jan 26, 2012)  • #13
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
Thanks Andrew! My Citrix test environment got kind of messed up, so I'm going to set it up from scratch again next week and I'll try it out using your steps.

Sheldon, good to know about 2X. I've never heard of that product before, but I'll try and test it out as well.
Jan 27, 2012  • #14
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Andrew138
10 discussion posts
Hi Keith,

Just noticed something interesting - I recently updated my own client PC to DF 3.4.1 and I see that DF now recognizes and paints monitor switching buttons on published Citrix apps. I appreciate where this is heading - being able to switch Citrix published apps using the local copy for DF would be GREAT as I wouldn't have to hack DF into running on our Citrix server, and the less load on our Citrix server the better!

Unfortunately the buttons as of now do not do anything. But just thought I'd let you know that if you guys could get DF switching Citrix windows on the client PCs, then don't worry about getting it to run on the Citrix server itself - anyone running a Citrix server in a workplace should be buying site licenses anyway due to having multiple users, so they should just install DF on the client PCs.
Feb 23, 2012  • #15
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
Yeah, we had started working on those and did get them to show up on the streamed apps, but couldn't get any farther in making them actually move to the next screen :(

We're still planning to have a go at it again in the future though, so I'll be sure to keep you posted on any updates.
Feb 23, 2012  • #16
Keith Lammers (BFS)'s profile on WallpaperFusion.com
@Andrew: We haven't been able to get support for Citrix published apps with DF installed on the local client working yet. However, I was wondering if you're still running 3.4 Beta 12 on the Citrix server itself? If so, would you be able to try 5.0 Beta 1 to see if it works for you, or if you still lose the TitleBar Buttons after updating?

Thanks!
Nov 16, 2012  • #17
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