New Technote: Secrets of PWRGATE.EXE

A new article has been posted in the Technote Library.  The subject is an obscure little executable, called PWRGATE.EXE, which is part of PowerFuse. In the 2010 release, you are able to do many interesting things with this program, such as launching many of the PowerFuse components directly. You are now also able to lauch the User Installed Applications (formerly known as Partially Managed Workstations) wizard directly, so users don’t have to go through the old PowerPanel. Of course they are still able to do that if enabled, that is. As a part of this article, I have created buildingblocks which you can import into your own environment to get access to these apps.

Click here to view the article.

Manage multiple config sets for 1 app!

Another technote has been published in the Technote Library. This one will teach you how to configure PowerFuse to prompt users for settings when they launch an application. This is extremely usefull for prod/test/dev scenarios, where you would like to avoid having multiple definitions of the  same application to maintain. The whole thing revolves about the usage of workspace containers, so if you’ve been dodging learing what workspace containers are about, with the release of PowerFuse 2010 it ’s a good time to grab the bull by it’s horns. If you still feel a bit in the dark about what Workspace containers are and what they can be used for, have a look at this other article, which is a work in progress as we’re constantly adding new uses for these objects.

The new article, called RG023 Managing multiple config sets for  one app, also describes how to use the new Registry Tracer feature in PowerFuse 2010.

Click here to read the full article

PRINTERS.LST – The forgotten feature

From the Technotes-R-Us Dept. A new technote RG022 has been submitted to the library. This time the topic is a special file, which actually has been with us for several years, the PRINTER.LST file. What it does is allow you to completely independently of existing printerserver naming conventions, to build a tree of well known geographical or physical locations to which the users actually can relate, when selecting a printer with Printing Preferences (formerly known as PowerPrint). The end result can look like this example, I’ve created here on the right.

Go read the full article here.

Bye-Bye SetShell!

From the thank-god-for-small-favors dept. One of the really cool things that RES Software has put into PowerFuse 2010, is the ability to centrally toggle PowerFuse on/off, on the target machines. This is a huge advantage from using the old Setshell stand-alone utility, as you can do it on more than one computer at a time. The only other way to do this currently is utilizing the Set Shell task of RES Wisdom.

This new feature of PowerFuse 2010 is evident when you it on a target computer for the first time. Here you will get a (somewhat) interesting question, wheather you want to launch the Workspace Composer automatically or manually. What the installer is asking you (in the oldschool terminology) is “Do you want to set PowerFuse as the Shell now?”.  The dialog box looks like this:

So what’s this deal with a Workspace Composer, you may ask? Well, it’s new branding for the Workspace Manager (pfwsmgr.exe) I don’t believe the process name itself has changed though. So just to make sure we are all on the same page, let’s get the terminology straight:

Automatic = Set the value of HKLM\…\Winlogon\Shell to pwrstart.exe, i.e. start a Powerfuse session at logon.

Manual = Set the value of HKLM\…\Winlogon\Shell to explorer.exe, i.e. don’t start PowerFuse

Out of the  box, the value for the installer is manual. The overall idea is for you to be able to dunk PowerFuse into an existing environment, and then centrally switch PowerFuse on across the estate in the tempo you’re comfortable with. Note: When installing RES PowerFuse unattended using a command line, it is now possible to apply the public property AUTORUNCOMPOSER. I presume you set it = YES, but I will have to check.

So great, we can set the shell uppon install, but what about later in the console? That’s also possible. In order to use this, do the following.

1. Start the PowerFuse console and navigate to Setup|Agents
2. Select one or more agents and rightclick on them
3. In the context menu, go to Run Workspace Composer and select Automatic or Manual.

Let’s say you’ve changed an agent to Manual, thereby disabeling PowerFuse. When you’ve changed the setting, the status in the Run Workspace Composer column for the agent, will change to Manual (pending). This means that the agent has not yet picked up the configuration change. The agent will check for the status of the shell in the database and then in turn write the new shell value to the registry locally. This should however happen as quickly as any normal configuration change. You can hit F5 in the agent view at any time to update the status.

New technote: PowerFuse in the Cloud!

From the Technotes-R-Us dept. With the imminent release of PowerFuse 2010, here is an interesting tidbit for you. PowerFuse 2010 supports Microsoft SQL Azure cloud databases! You would be well in your right to have a few questions you would want answered, such as:

• What the heck is Azure?
• Why would I want to consider that?
• What does it do for PowerFuse?
• What would all this cost me then? Are there any savings?
• Right, so how do I setup the darn thing then?

All these questions and more, are adressed in a brand-spankin’ new Technote RG021, which is available for your reading enjoyment in the library.

Click here to read the full article

Cache This! (Technote)

Here’s a solution to an annoying little problem which has been bugging more  than a few people out there recently. This was originally posted in the Guru’s Forum but it seemed to make sense to make an article out of it. Here’s the skinny: You’ve just installed PowerFuse 2008 for the first time and everything seems hunky-dory in the console. Then you try to log into a session as a user and get this little number (click it to enlarge):

Click here to read the full article.

New technote: Preventing access to Admin shares

Here’s a tech-tip straight off the press. You might find yourself in the situation that you need to permit users to have the right to browse UNC paths on the network. This may be the case if you have users with elevated priveledges, such as users who are local administrators and are allowed to install software using the Partially Managed Workstation feature of PowerFuse.

Click here to read the new article RG019 on this subject

Thanks to Scott Taylor and Roy Woods at Fujitsu Services, UK. You guys rock!

Got Skeletons?

A technote was published in the technote library in late March. This one will help you clean up any embarrasing log entries, which you need to clean out for one reason or another. Suppose you are running PowerTrace with WebTrace enabled in your environment and you or somebody else manage to surf to a webpage which everybody just rather forget about, then you need to find a way to surgically remove the skeletons from the closet, as you may want to retain the remainer of your PowerTrace logs.

In order to do this, you need to have the proper credentials for the PowerFuse datastore.

The article available here, will show you how to deal with this problem. A nifty buildingblock for Wisdom has also been included in the article.

Integrating InstallFree with PowerFuse

Here’s something really useful. Sylvester de Koster over at CDG,  did some crunch time together with the nice folks over at RES to find a way to integrate PowerFuse with InstallFree, which is an application virtualzation technology vendor. Until now it’s been somewhat difficult to get stuff to run inside the virtual bubble of this platform. Together these  awesome guys managed to figure out how to integrate Installfree’s Full Bridge with PowerFuse! What follows is the no-frills how-to.  Later we will perhaps make a nice article with screenshots and everything. For now her is just  the raw info – Just as you like it! :)

Click here to read the full article

Secret Tools of the Common Crow…

This posting was really supposed to have be called Secret tools of the RES Engineer, but then all of a sudden, an old Gary Larson cartoon came to mind, and ruined everything… Damn you Mr. Larson!! ;-)

Okay… so maybe a spatula isn’t gonna make the 10 o’clock news, but perhaps some other tools which are little known, which are really nice to know about would peak your interest. There is just one catch to this. You’ll have to ask around for the utilities in this article as they were really only written for internal use, but several customers and integrators got copies of them. Please do NOT contact RES Support for these tools.

Nevertheless, you ought to know about them as they can help you speed up a troubleshooting session by having the information available. Perhaps RES will make these things downloadable in the future. If this happens, stick around, RESguru will let you know.

Click here to read the article.