Hotfix Rollup Pack 1 for XenDesktop 5.5

Citrix have released Hotfix Rollup Pack 1 for XenDesktop 5.5

Many customers will be happy about this hotfix package because it contains many new enhancements and hotfixes that people have been waiting for.

Companies that uses HDX 3D Pro will be excited about this release because, the hotfix package contains several hotfixes for HDX 3D Pro.

New Fixes and Enhancements in Hotfix Rollup Pack 1 for XenDesktop 5.5

This rollup introduces the following fixes that have not been previously released:

HDX 3D Pro	Printing
HDX MediaStream	Site Administration
HDX Plug and Play	Session/Connection
Installing, Uninstalling, Upgrading	Smart Cards
Logon/Authentication	System Exceptions

HDX 3D Pro

With HDX 3D Pro enabled, the Virtual Desktop Agent screen can become unresponsive at logon.
On Windows 7 Virtual Desktop Agents with the GPU codec and Auto quality mode enabled, user-requested changes to the image quality from Low to High take longer to take effect than on Windows XP Virtual Desktop Agents.
Switching a Virtual Desktop Agent to the CPU codec and then changing the screen resolution while in a dual-monitor session can cause temporary screen flickering before both monitors display the same quality. The issue is not present in single-monitor configurations. It is mostly observed on Windows XP Virtual Desktop Agents but can occur on Windows 7 Virtual Desktop Agents as well.
This enhancement allows switching between the codecs employed by HDX 3D Pro by creating keyboard shortcuts.The following keyboard shortcuts are allowed:
- Alt+Shift+1 – switch to CPU codec
- Alt+Shift+2 – switch to GPU codec
- Alt+Shift+3 – switch to Lossless codec
- Alt+Shift+4 – toggle between Fixed/Auto quality mode
This enhancement allows you to control the default image quality of HDX 3D Pro enabled virtual desktop sessions in the registry by setting the following key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\HDX3D
Name: HKLM_DefaultImageQuality
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: range of 0 -100** The range represents the image quality you see while using an HDX 3D Pro enabled Virtual Desktop Agent. This setting is typically a tradeoff between the responsiveness of the 3D application and the image quality it outputs. A lower value yields a lesser quality image display but a more responsive application. A higher value yields better image quality but the application is less responsive to user input.
Monitor blanking of the physical display of a Windows 7 Virtual Desktop Agent using an NVIDIA card with HDX 3D Pro enabled can fail on occasion.
When establishing an RDP connection to an HDX 3D Pro enabled Virtual Desktop Agent running on Windows XP, the local console display changes to 4-bit. The behavior remains the same even after disconnecting the RDP session and connecting locally.
On a multi-monitor host computer with the Virtual Desktop Agent for HDX 3D Pro installed and where the primary monitor is attached with a DisplayPort connector, switching the primary monitor off and then on again while a user is connected causes monitor blanking to fail on the host computer.
With HDX 3D Pro enabled, custom cursors in Adobe Photoshop CS5 and other graphics applications can render as black rectangles.

HDX MediaStream

Server-Side Content Fetching can exhibit poor performance in restrictive WAN conditions due to the lack of flow control in the Flash Virtual Channel. This fix corrects the flow control for the Flash Virtual Channel and provides smooth playback of Flash objects. For information about configuring server-side content fetching, see http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xendesktop-als/hd-flash-configure-server-ad.html.Note : To address this issue in its entirety, you must install hotfixes that contain Fix #LA0686 for each of the following:
- Citrix Receiver
- Virtual Desktop Agent
- HDX MediaStream for Flash
When reconnecting from a different client device to a disconnected session in which an audio file is playing, the player and the file resume as expected but the audio is not audible.
With server-side content fetching enabled, Flash content can take unexpectedly long (up to six minutes) to start rendering in the session.

HDX Plug and Play

When redirecting a Philips SpeechMike using a dongle, and then a DVD player in a virtual desktop session, Windows Explorer fails to recognize the latter USB device.
This fix provides webcam support for Adobe Connect and Skype 5.5 in virtual desktop sessions.

Installing, Uninstalling, Upgrading

After upgrading to Version 5.5 of the Virtual Desktop Agent, the HDX RealTime Webcam Video Compression and Windows Media Redirection features no longer work.
When upgrading to Version 5.5 of the Virtual Desktop Agent, existing firewall exceptions are not honored. As a result, connection attempts to the Virtual Desktop Agent will time out before a connection is established.

Logon/Authentication

When using a Web Interface site with pass-through authentication, the connection fails if the endpoint does not have a pass-through policy setting.
Attempts to connect to a Virtual Desktop Agent can fail and the following error message appears: “Error: You are not permitted to restart any more sessions for this resource.” The issue can occur when a user logs on to the agent console just after the agent restarts. In that case, a race condition can prevent attempts to connect to the agent remotely.
Attempts to unlock a Windows 7 Virtual Desktop Agent from a Windows XP endpoint with Citrix Receiver for Windows 3.0 by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del fail. The issue occurs because pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del fails to invoke the Agent’s Windows logon screen; instead, it invokes the local option to lock, log off, shut down, or change the password for the Windows XP endpoint.
When starting a Virtual Desktop Agent from a virtual disk (vDisk), the XenCenter Console displays a black screen instead of the Windows logon screen.

Printing

Third-party USB to COM port printer driver redirector software does not function in virtual desktop sessions: The printer driver fails to install correctly and the device is not successfully redirected.
With a printing policy configured to disable client printer mapping or if there a no client printers, session printers fail to be created.
If you change the default client printer while disconnected from a session and then reconnect to that session, the new printer is not added and the previous printer is not deleted as the default printer.
The policy to Create Universal Printer fails to create the universal printer upon session reconnection if the policy to Autocreate Client Printeris enabled and set to Do not autocreate client printers.
A race condition when launching or reconnecting to a session can prevent some session printers from being created.
A change of the default printer on the endpoint, made while a session is disconnected, is not reflected in the session after reconnecting.
The Citrix Print Service (CPSVC.exe) can exit unexpectedly while connecting to a virtual desktop session.

Site Administration

Virtual Desktop Agent registration fails for agents located in Active Directory sites that contain only read-only domain controllers and no writable domain controllers.
SmartAccess policies do not get enforced for sessions originating from Access Gateway in basic mode.

Session/Connection

When connecting from a Xenith Wyse client, users randomly get an “ICA connection refused” error when attempting to connect to a pooled and managed Virtual Desktop Agent. The issue occurs when using a Streamed Desktop Group where “ShutdownDesktopAfterUse=True.”
A race condition can lead to both the Establishing connection and Log off processes running at the same time, causing attempts to connect to the Virtual Desktop Agent to fail.
Users cannot restore the local monitors of a physical Virtual Desktop Agent from their power saving state. This happens when the virtual desktop session is disconnected while the monitors are in Sleep mode.
Setting the client system time can cause the Idle Timer to terminate the virtual desktop session unexpectedly, that is, before the actual session idle time has been reached.
Shutting down or restarting a Virtual Desktop Agent while applications are running with unsaved data can cause the Virtual Desktop Agent to become unresponsive until it is restarted.
When reconnecting to a disconnected session where the wallpaper is set using a group policy, the group policy is no longer honored and the wallpaper reverts to the default image.
When playing back WMV content over a WAN connection – where the available bandwidth is not adequate for the bit rate of the video – intermittent stuttering in the video playback can occur. As a result, the playback can freeze at a given frame and then jump ahead.
After clicking Log Off in a virtual desktop session but then clicking Cancel in a running application’s Save Changes dialog box, the session is logged off nonetheless. This can result in unsaved changes.This fix introduces support for the following registry that, when set, prevents a forced session logoff:On 32-bit Windows:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\Logon
Name: DisableForcedLogOff
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1On 64-bit Windows:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\Logon
Name: DisableForcedLogOff
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1
In deployments with numerous group policies configured, locking and unlocking a Virtual Desktop Agent can experience long delays. As a workaround, this enhancement allows you to configure the following registry key to disable group policy checking for session reconnects:To enable this fix, you must set the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\Logon
Name: NoGPCheckForExistingSession
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 1 (to disable group policy checking; any other value results in the original behavior)
This fix introduces additional filters to reduce the degradation of VoIP quality in sessions.
The physical display of a Virtual Desktop Agent might intermittently fail to blank out while a user is logged on to a session.
With HDX 3D Pro enabled, the mouse pointer in Adobe Photoshop and other 3D graphics rendering applications might appear as a black rectangle.To enable this fix, you must set the following registry key:
- On 32-bit Windows:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\HDX3D
  Name: EnableUnknownCursorHandling
  Type: REG_DWORD
  Data: 1
- On 64-bit Windows:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\HDX3D
  Name: EnableUnknownCursorHandling
  Type: REG_DWORD
  Data: 1
While using the command prompt, scrolling a large text file, or executing CLI commands, session performance can deteriorate.To enable this fix when Off Screen Surface (OSS) is enabled, set the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Virtual Channels\Thinwire Graphics
Name: DefaultOssOnScrollPixelsPerMs
Type: REG_SZ
Data: 0 (to disable) (The default maximum pixels per millisecond to scroll when OSS is enabled. Otherwise, a value in pixels per millisecond can be used as maximum allowed bandwidth while scrolling the command prompt window.)To enable this fix when Off Screen Surface (OSS) is disabled, set the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Virtual Channels\Thinwire Graphics
Name: DefaultOssOffScrollPixelsPerMs
Type: REG_SZ
Data: 0 (to disable) (The default maximum pixels per millisecond to scroll when OSS is disabled. Otherwise, a value in pixels per millisecond can be used as maximum allowed bandwidth while scrolling the command prompt window.)

To set a scrolling limit on a per process basis, set the following registry key (this key can be used whether or not OSS is enabled):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Virtual Channels\Thinwire Graphics
Name: ProcessOssOffScrollPixelsPerMs
Type: REG_SZ
Data: < semi-colon separated list of maximum scroll speed per process> (For example, excel.exe:2000 defines a maximum scroll speed of 2000 pixels per millisecond for the Excel application.)
Launching a process with WinDbg.exe might fail on Virtual Desktop Agents. The issue occurs because mfaphook hooks the setting for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\<processname> and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\<processname>.To enable the fix, create the following registry key:
- On 32-bit Windows:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\CtxHook
  Name: EnableReadImageFileExecOptionsExclusionList
  Type: Reg_SZ
  Value: < List of executables to be excluded from hooking with respect to the Image File Execution Options setting, separated by commas without spaces. For example, windbg.exe,application_1.exe.>
- On 64-bit Windows:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\CtxHook
  Name: EnableReadImageFileExecOptionsExclusionList
  Type: Reg_SZ
  Value: < List of executables to be excluded from hooking with respect to the Image File Execution Options setting, separated by commas without spaces. For example, windbg.exe,application_1.exe.>
Session Reliability timeouts set by way of a machine policy do not take effect for Virtual Desktop Agents.

Smart Cards

Any smart card not used to log on to a session running on a Windows XP Virtual Desktop Agent is not available within the session.
This fix addresses the following issues:
- In double-hop scenarios, some applications are not able to access the smart card certificate.To enable this fix, you must set the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\SmartCard
  Name: EnableCtxCleanup
  Type: REG_DWORD
  Data: 1
  [#LA0502]
- Some applications within an ICA session can become unresponsive while attempting to access a smart card reader attached to the endpoint. [#LA0361]

System Exceptions

At times of heavy logon/logoff activity, one or more of the following can be observed:
- Applications can exit unexpectedly.
- During logon attempts, an Error 1030 appears on the endpoint.
- During logoff attempts, the Virtual Desktop Agent returns to the Logon screen and the endpoint continues to display the Desktop Viewer.
The Citrix PortICA Display Manager (DisplayManager.exe) can intermittently fail on VM hosted apps (VMHA).
A Virtual Desktop Agent with certain antivirus software installed might exit unexpectedly with bugcheck code 0x7F while or soon after a user logs in.
A Windows XP Virtual Desktop Agent with HDX 3D Pro enabled might exit unexpectedly with stop code 0x0000009F while the user attempts to shut down the system.
Firefox 9.0.1 running in a virtual desktop session can exit unexpectedly.

Source

Download Rollup 1 hotfix package for XenDesktop 5.5 here (x86 systems)

Download Rollup 1 hotfix package for XenDesktop 5.5 here (x64 systems)