During our spare time (trust me, not much!) we developed a small utility called RemoteApps Filter. It basically adds the capability to filter which RemoteApps users will see when using the Windows Server 2008 TS Web.

As you are aware of, Windows Server 2008 brings you seamless windows/application publishing (RemoteApps) and a Web Interface (TS Web). The problem is all users see all the applications, what is no good (not to say useless). That is where our RemoteApps Filter comes to the picture. With this simple utility your users will be able to see only the icons they have access to! Small and neat.

You can check it out here.

Enjoy!

CR

Hey All!

We have been discussing if we should release a plugin for ISA Server. In this scenario RecordTS would work directly at the ISA Server level, recording all RDP sessions as they go through the ISA firewall. How useful do you guys think this would be? I would love to hear some feedback on this feature! As always feel free to email me directly at CR (A T) TSFactory (D O T) com.

Cheers!

CR

As promised, build 236 is out and it fixes, among other things, the ‘connection not allowed’ that some Citrix customers were getting. It will be posted for download shortly.

Our apologies for the bugs introduced in the past couple builds. They should be all fixed now.

CR

As you guys can imagine, now that Citrix released their ‘SmartAuditor’ lots of people are asking me how RecordTS compares to that. So here you have my thoughts:

1. We are multiprotocol, recording ICA and RDP auto of the box. SmartAuditor records ICA only. Plus we can easily add support to other protocols like VNC, RXP, etc.

2. RecordTS does not have a single point of failure. As we have no fancy backend, there is nothing to break. With Citrix if the SQL backend dies of if the SmartAuditor Server dies, you are toasted.

3. RecordTS works on ALL Citrix products. If you have PS3, PS4, PS4.5 or even if you are still on Windows 2000 TS, we record it all. SmartAuditor is limited to PS4.5 FR1. Plus you MUST have a Platinum license what means big, BIG, bucks.

4. RecordTS has been on the market for almost a year now so we had the time to understand the implications of session recording on a TS environment, not only from a technical perspective. SmartAuditor is a new product, and if you are really into Citrix, you probably know their V1 of anything they release usually needs a little more work to become great. Remember their Universal Printing Engine? Now, years after the first release I agree it has become a very good solution. The point is, they improve over time but do you have the time to wait in case you need session recording NOW for security/audit compliance? Nope.

5. Apparently if SmartAuditor is running on your Citrix server, shadowing no longer works. RecordTS does not have that problem at all.

6. If you have a problem with RecordTS, you can CALL or email me directly. And I am the CEO of TSFactory! I can guarantee I will personally call you back or email you and get to the bottom of your issue. I am not sure if Mark Templeton would do that at Citrix… Based on my experience with large companies, your problem keeps getting escalated up on the food chain, until you get really mad and at that point they get someone that will finally do something for you. Not here. If I have to escalate your issue there is no one above me.

7. And finally, we have versions of RecordTS available for non-Terminal Servers (like Domain Controllers, Exchange, etc) and for VDI environments. SmartAuditor is a Citrix PS4.5 FR1 thing only.

Well if you need more reasons to buy RecordTS, feel free to email me and I will give you them!

CR

As some may know we had issues in the past with non-Win32 ICA clients. I can tell you I was affected by that (as I use Mac OS X) and not that happy. So I told the dev team that support for Macs was a top priority.

And they got that and a bunch of other things fixed! Great news.

Tomorrow we are planning on releasing a new build that fixes another ICA issue that some customers are experiencing (not being able to logon at all, with a message saying they are not authorized to login). This should eliminate all the issues we had on ICA so all of you, Citrix customers not on SA and without a Platinum license, can benefit from the best session recorder out there.

Cheers,

 CR

Ok guys! The v2 Player is now final and part of the main RecordTS 1.5 code. Note you will need the .NET framework 2.0 to make the v2 Player work.

As we did not want to send you a 30MB download, please download it off the Microsoft website in case you do not have it.

On another note, a MAJOR breakthrough happened today. We got RecordTS ICA working with non-Windows clients. So far I tested with my Mac OS X box and it works just great! This should help our customers out there with terminals and non Win32 machines.

A build with that fix should be out sometime next week once properly tested.

CR

Ok before you get all excited, this is NOT the final v2 Player build.

But you can give it a try. Supports RDP/ICA and has MANY improvements. You can download it here.

Make sure you download and install the latest .NET Framework 2.0 (as I think there are multiple builds of that) on your PC before installing the new player.

And please read this knowledge base article that explains how to install it.

Comments and feedback is always welcome and as usual you can reach me directly at CR at TSFactory.com.

CR

Hey guys,

Just a quick post to let you know we finally setup our web forums. You can reach it at http://forums.tsfactory.com. Please use it in case you have any question/issue/comment about RecordTS.

Thanks!

CR

Well it is not available YET but here you have a nice screenshot of what the new player looks like. Much improved and for sure a great enhancement for RecordTS.

Hope you like it.

CR

You can read the article here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/07/Toolbox/default.aspx

Short and great review of RecordTS. Although it covers only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ on what RecordTS can actually do and how it works, I do think it is great to see the attention our product is now getting on the market.

As I said due to the US regulations at one point every single company will need something like RecordTS! So why wait for it? Just give it a try and I am sure you will be impressed!

CR