Custom Errors in SharePoint 2010

I was getting errors in SharePoint 2010 when trying to run an audit report, but the error message was not helpful. It told me I needed to turn off custom errors in the web.config file, but didn't tell me where that file was located. Fortunately, with the help of the Internet and a blog article by Greg Galipeau, I found the answer.

The file is located here on the web front end servers: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\web.config

I made the change, ran iisreset /noforce, and SharePoint errors were suddenly much more descriptive.

Enable Seamless Windows in XenApp 6.5 To Use Custom Window Color Scheme

After migrating an application from XenApp 5 on Windows Server 2003 to XenApp 6.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2, I got complaints from end users that the color scheme for their application on the new servers was hurting their eyes.

It turned out that the default grey color used by Server 2008 is lighter than in 2003, and it strained the eyes of the users and made it more difficult to see objects, such as text boxes, on the screen. After finding documentation on Citrix.com about a registry entry called SeamlessFlags, I added the value that is supposed to allow synchronizing of the system colors with the colors in the Citrix session, but it did not work. I actually found two separate Citrix KB articles with conflicting values. One said to use a hex value of 0x10 and another said 16 in decimal. Neither one worked.

I then downloaded a utility from Citrix called FarmTWIHelper, which is a GUI that helps configure the Seamless flag settings. I set the "Enable Color Sync" value, which added a value to the registry of 10 in hex and 16 in decimal, like I tried before. This still did not work.

I ended up playing with different settings and setting the decimal value to 10 (a in hex) finally worked, although I'm not sure why:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\wfshell\TWI]

"SeamlessFlags"=dword:0000000a

Now I use a group policy to set the color values in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors. The only problem I am still having is getting the custom colors to apply on a user's first logon. Currently, the user gets the default colors first, but the custom colors on all future logons.

References:
Seamless Configuration Settings
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX101644

Case Study: Troubleshooting Seamless Flag - Custom Application
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127043

FarmTWIHelper - Seamless Configuration Helper Tool
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX115146

How to create a "New Document" link for SharePoint 2010 document libraries

I needed to create a link on a SharePoint site that users could click on to launch a document template that is associated with a document library. This would be much easier than using the "Documents" tab and then clicking the "New Document" button.

Thankfully, Srini Sistla posted instructions on how to create new document shortcuts for Word 2010, Excel 2010, and PowerPoint 2010 on his blog: http://www.srinisistla.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=214

It worked great for me and I was able to put a shortcut on our team sites home page to allow users to open a new Word document template without going to the document library first. This definitely saves time and makes it easier to create documents.

Increase Session Graphics Memory Limit

I recently found out that the maximum memory limit for Session Graphics in Citrix XenApp 5 on Windows Server 2003 can be increased above the 8 MB limit that is seen in the Delivery Services Console. Here is a link to the Citrix document explaining how to increase the limit: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX114497

Basically, all you need to do is change the value "MaxLVBMem" located at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Wds\icawd\thin16" to a higher number. I used the decimal value of 16777216 and this allowed 16-bit color for applications at much higher screen resolutions than before.

After making the change, you must also change the permissions on the "thin16" key to deny "set value" access to the SYSTEM account. This prevents the SYSTEM account from changing the value back to a lower limit.

Web Interface Trusted Sites Issue

My company uses a Citrix Secure Gateway server with the Citrix Web Interface installed on the same server. If the address of the gateway is not in the end user's Trusted Sites list when using Internet Explorer, the user gets a message telling them how to add it.

However, since the Secure Gateway uses the address "localhost" to communicate with the locally installed Web Interface, the address the user is told to add to their trusted sites is http://localhost. This confuses some users, and if they follow the instructions it won't fix the problem. I needed a way to change the address to the actual URL of our Secure Gateway. Here's how to fix the problem:

1. Back up the file changeZoneHelp.inc (the default location is: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\XenApp\app_data\clientDetection\include), and open with Notepad. Add the following line after line 1 (replace with your URL):
<% viewModel.siteURL = "https://csg.company.com/"; %>
2. Restart the Citrix Secure Gateway service (this will close any open sessions).

That's it! The users should now see the correct URL.

Citrix "Protocol Driver" error when launching an application

One of our Citrix Xenapp 5 servers wouldn't allow applications to be launched, giving a "protocol driver" error. After following the instructions on Citrix's web site (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX108698) and rebooting the server, the server started working again.

Here are the steps I took, in short:

1. Disabled session reliability for the server in the Citrix Delivery Services Console
   
2. Deleted the ICA-tcp connection in Terminal Services Configuration on the effected server
   
3. Recreated the ICA-tcp connection
4. Re-enabled session reliability
5. Rebooted the server

I didn't have to recreate the LHC like the Citrix article says.

Services.exe using large amount of memory

I noticed several of our Windows 2003 servers were performing poorly and found that the process "services.exe" was using between 200 and 400 MB of memory, compared to 6 to 10 MB on servers that were performing normally.

I fixed the problem by simply clearing all event logs. I have no idea why this worked, but it did and almost instantly brought memory usage back down to around 6 MB.