We have several remote apps that are deployed and working. When launching the RDP file itself the surrounding remote session is masked as expected. The user only sees the application and no indication that it is running in RDP.
We are working to use the newer delivery tool of RemoteApp Version 10.2.1817.0. The full desktops work well. However the remote apps open in a window that does not mask off the RD.
RemoteApp
Is this the expected behavior?
Related
We want to use a 3rd party software on Windows EC2/Cloud Instances, Windows Server 2022. The software requires GUI Interaction. When we close the RDP connection, suddenly our app crashes because of missing UI. Its not a valid option to modify the 3rd party software.
Is there a possibility to start running windows UI rendering without connecting via RDP to that machine before?
Briefly; lets say we started a new Windows instance, without connecting via RDP to that instance, is there a way to start GUI Rendering on that instance? It can be tested with some screenshot scripts, if they work fine without RDP connection on that machine.
As a workaround we do not directly close the RDP connection, instead we are running some scripts which keeps the UI still alive but closes only the RDP session. But with this solution we still need to connect to the machine via RDP first and run this command once. [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15887729/can-the-gui-of-an-rdp-session-remain-active-after-disconnect]
I am running several automated browser tests with selenium on our build server. There is no problems taking screenshots while running Chrome or Firefox driver, but when running Internet Explorer driver I just get a black screen.
Virtual Machine
Selenium version: 2.53.0
IEDriver: 2.53.0
OS:
Windows Server 2012
Browser:
Internet Explorer 11
I have gone through all the required configuration in the documentation https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/wiki/InternetExplorerDriver
I have also tried the third option here:
https://lostechies.com/keithdahlby/2011/08/13/allowing-a-windows-service-to-interact-with-desktop-without-localsystem/
I have also enabled service interaction globally:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms683502(v=vs.85).aspx
When I remotely access the build server, I can trigger running the tests manually. This works fine. So there must be a problem with our CI(TeamCity) setup interacting with the build server.
I am currently stuck and could need some help ?
This is the default behavior of Windows. since Internet Explorer is tightly coupled with Windows, it behaves this way but other browsers don't.
In order to have better resource utilization, when running on remote, windows detects that since session is running in remote mode and nobody is watching the screen, it takes away the resources required to show the screen and screen goes black. When you log into the machine, resources to show screen UI are deployed again.
Hence, when running in remote mode, since there is no screen being showed, screenshot comes out to be blank.
There are only workarounds, no solution.
Workaround:
Workaround 1: Use VNC server for your remote session instead of RDP since VNC keeps the remote session alive.
Workaround 2: Add this command to batch file : tscon rdp-tcp#1 /dest:console
It will switch the session to "1" which is active mode.
By default it will be running on "0" mode. It will disconnect your session and now you can run your test case.
I have installed QAD Netui Client (application with .exe executable) on Windows EC2 instance.
I would like to access that application through web browser or by any other way without the need of logging-in into windows instance.
The reason behind this requirement is that, I don't want users to get information about machine on which my application is installed.
Is there any way to achieve this requirement ?
Not likely. This appears to be a Window GUI application rather than something like a web application.
As a GUI application it needs a Windows desktop session to run. This is accomplished with remote desktop or other similar application that allows you to share a desktop with another client.
However, you can set up a Windows user profile that has much more restricted access to the machine. This is probably the closest you will get.
I'm looking to determine if our application is running on a XenDesktop session rather than locally. Here is what I have found so far:
We currently have code to detect a Citrix XenApp session similar to the solution mentioned by Helge Klein in "API for Determining if App is Running on Citrix or Terminal Services".
Sadly that solution in a XenDesktop environment is returning back a WTSClientProtocolType of 0 which signifies a local console session.
In response to the same question Josh Weatherly mentioned checking the sessionname environment variable.
However a quick console check with echo %sessionname% on the XenDesktop environment returns back 'Console'.
From "Detect citrix “application mode”?" John Sibly suggested a solution for detecting a remote session (not Citrix in particular):
GetSystemMetrics(SM_REMOTESESSION) however returns 0 which also means that it is a local session.
Does anyone know of a way to detect that it is a XenDesktop session? So far as you can see all my attempts are returning that the session is a local console session.
I'm using XenDesktop Express 5.5, accessing the desktop using the Citrix Receiver Web Plug-In.
If you are using XenDesktop for VDI, then as far as the application is concerned, the application is executing locally. VDI, or virtual desktop infrastructure, consists of delivering the GUI from a full featured desktop operating system to a remote device. Typically, the desktop O/S executes in a virtual machine on a hypervisor in a data center, and the GUI is transmitted to the remote device using Citrix' ICA stack. For example, this happens in the pooled desktops scenario.
XenApp offers virtual desktops, which is a slightly different concept. Again, the desktop is delivered to a remote device using the ICA stack. However, the desktop is no longer running on a dedicated O/S. Rather, it is one of a number of user sessions on a single Windows Server. There may be any number of users logged on to that server. This places limits on the applications that can be run, which is why applications might want to know that they are on a multi-user O/S.
What you might try to do is determine whether the GUI is being delivered remotely using the ICA stack. A simple check would involve looking for the "ProticaService", which is responsible for implementing the ICA stack.
Alternatively, you may be trying to determine if your machine is running in a VM or native to a machine. Besides the pooled scenario described in the first paragraph, XenDesktop can deliver desktop running native. This overcomes limits on virtualision I/O devices such as graphics cards used by CAD applications. In this case, you need to rule out the presence of a VMM, or hypervisor.
I have updated my answer linked to in the question with a description of how to determine the remoting protocol type in XenDesktop sessions.
You need the (not really well documented) function WFGetActiveProtocol from Citrix' WFAPI SDK. Proceed as follows:
Download the SDK (link)
Install WFApiSDK64-65.msi
In your C++ project include wfapi.h and link to wfapi[64].lib
Use the undocumented function WFGetActiveProtocol
More detail and sample code here.
I'm writing a server running as a Windows service that by request invokes Firefox to generate a pdf snapshot of a webpage.
I know it is a bad idea to run a GUI program in service mode, but the server nature of my program restricts from running it in the user mode. Running a user-level 'proxy' also is not an option, since there might be no interactive user logged-in on the machine with the server running.
In my experiments Firefox successfully produced pdf when the service was running under a user account that was already logged-in. Obviously it didn't work in other cases: for Local System and user accounts that weren't logged-in. Under LocalSystem with 'Allow service to interact with desktop' option enabled I could see the Firefox started that reports that it's unable to find a printer.
Since it wouldn't be practical to require an opened user session for the pdf server to run, is there any workaround for this except running the whole thing from a virtual machine?
UPDATE: I figured that the problem wasn't really with account permissions, but with an invisible modal dialog that FF was waiting on while running in the service mode.
However it's still unable to create a pdf when FF is running under the LocalSystem account. FF says it can't find a printer and I'm wondering if this is a permission that could be somehow enabled?
You might want to try a different approach where you'd include some .NET PDF library (PDFsharp is a good, open source, choice) in your project and than use that in conjuction with WebBrowser control you'd also include in your project to render the PDF.
Don't forget to use STAThread attribute if you try this.
I've been through a similar conundrum with the MS Word running unattended. What you need to do is to login as the user you set up to be used to run firefox process and go through the process of setting up printers.
It is possible that just logging in as that user will be enough - there is some stuff performed during the first logon.
I apologize I was not clear enough - I mean you have to logon interactively using that account, configure the default printer, logout, and then run your service
Can you run the program as a Scheduled Task instead? The task can be assigned to a given user account which should work around the service limitations.
A couple of year ago I had a related issue: Shared Network Printer on pseudo-device starting up Ghostscript for PS->PCL translation and printing to real printer. The print-spooler service ran as Local System and the pseudo-device driver hat troubles executing Ghostscript from the service-mode. I was able to solve the problem by copying a couple of registry keys from the HKCU-hive to HKLM.