MailBag Friday (#20)

Every Friday, we dedicate this space to sharing solutions for some of the most frequently asked questions posed to our ThinManager Technical Support team.  This weekly feature will help educate ThinManager Platform users and provide them with answers to questions they may have about licenses, installation, integration, deployment, upgrades, maintenance, and daily operation.  Great technical support is an essential part of the ThinManager Platform, and we are constantly striving to make your environment as productive and efficient as possible.

 

 

I’m observing a strange behavior with our Terminal Server operating ThinManager in a Virtualized environment. I have found the users profile is duplicating and haven’t found the reason.  There is no domain server, no change in server name, and no change in configuration. It’s just happening randomly in each thin client with the following message:

“…. The user manually logged off…”

The real problem is the app that the thin clients displays uses files stored in the profile folder to configure some parameters. So, every time this new folder profile is created… my app stops working correctly.  Any Ideas on what is causing this?

 

 

The problem is caused by a bug in the VMware tools “shared folder” feature. Such feature is installed when VMware tools are installed with the “Complete” option. When a user logs off, the Terminal Server tries to copy the hgfs.dat file back to the profiles folder but the operation fails because VMware keeps the file locked with exclusive access. When the user logs in again, a new and duplicated user profile folder is created.

You can view this page for more information:  http://www.desktapp.it/?p=120

-TM

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Our existing clients automatically connect/try to connect to the Thin Manager servers. Can we leave them running while performing an upgrade on the servers? I know they will be disconnected and will keep trying to reconnect, but when the upgrade is done will they re-connect themselves? 

 

 

Yes, it is possible to leave the thin clients on while Thin Manager is being updated. Once ThinManager becomes available, they will reconnect.

-TM

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I am having an issue with my Security Network policies restricting access to specific ports.  Is it possible to use a different port for TFTP? 

 

 

No. Port 69 is the standard port as defined in RFC 1350 for the TFTP Protocol.  Please see the enclosed link for further detail on TFTP.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1350

-TM

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There used to be an ACP enabled PCI card that could be installed in a PC to turn it into a thin client.  Is this still available for purchase?

 

You are referring to ThinAdaptor, which we no longer sell. We do support PXE booting as of ThinManager 5.0 which would turn any PC into a ThinManager ready thin client.

-TM

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