Solutions to Computer Problems – Computer Repairs by IT Professionals

Go to an IT professional when you start to notice computer problems. Don’t wait. Procrastinating could mean the difference computer repairs costs.

It’s bound to happen, you buy a new computer, printer, scanner, etc. and it runs great for a while, but sooner or later you begin to notice things aren’t running as smoothly as they once did. Your computer may be running a little slower or your browsing window locks up occasionally. Should you try to troubleshoot the problem yourself, put off the problem until it’s unbearable, or ask a professional?

Trying to troubleshoot the computer repair yourself may make things worse. Repairing a PC nowadays means identifying and cleaning the PC's registry, spy ware and ad ware which spawn our PC computers. Even the most careful online users can unknowingly ignite computer problems. If you try to fix it yourself, you may be adding to the problem which in turn can add up computer repair costs.

Procrastinating until the problem gets worse can also increase computer repair costs. Act fast to resolve computer issues and be proactive to avoid troubles in the future. Simple troubles like registry errors may create bigger problems down the road. Letting the simple issues go could build a mountain of computer repair problems. To avoid troubles on your personal computer, keep your system updated with software changes. Ask your IT professional for programs that can help you fix a problem you know you can do yourself. That way, you have a recommendation you can fall back on in case a new trouble arises.

The best chances of keeping your computer system running smoothly is to have it looked at by a professional IT consultant who is skilled and experienced in the IT business. Computer repair services by a professional keeps you from wasting long hours trying to resolve a problem that an IT technician can solve in minutes. Asking for help from a computer repair company can also keep you from accidentally messing up your computer system any further, and you will often have peace of mind knowing that if the problem persists, you have an IT support team at your service when you need them.

No matter how big or small the computer problem is, check in with the IT professionals fast and soon so you can keep your business running at the pace you need it to.

Citrix Provisioning 5.0 with XenDesktop 2.0?

Citrix released Provisioning server 5.0 on Aug. 21 and has many different features worth upgrading, such as the database can now be an Microsoft SQL database, and uses Microsoft VHD format. The one problem I have seen so far is the last one, Microsoft VHD is not seen by Citrix XenDesktop.

Citrix will be releasing a newer version of XenDesktop 2.1?? but will it work with Provisioning server 5.0? Not sure, but why wait? You can still use Provisioning 4.5, but more importantly here is a way to use both!

If you have a Provisioning 4.5 server create another Provisioning 5.0 server and set your targets to use the correct server via DHCP. Meaning migrate your vDisk to the new format if you want to just keep your XenDesktops using the old Provisioning 4.5 server or install a Provisioning 4.5 server just for your XenDesktop 2.0 server. As a best practice you should already be creating an DHCP Reservation for your targets, just make sure to create one for your XenDesktop targets and modify the “Configuration Options” for the target’s DHCP Reservation to include the correct DHCP options:

066 Boot Server Host Name “hostname of Provision Server 4.5”
067 Bootfile Name ARDBP32.bin


Make sure that you have don’t have any “Scope Options” or “Server Options” set and your targets set to use DHCP and you are good to go. Then again you could also create a boot iso as a fall back!

Citrix Access Gateway 4.5.6 on VMware Server, huh?

So I have been wanting do some extra **training on a CAG. Unfortunatley I don’t have any spare CAG appliances to do so. I have a VMware Server 1.0.6 for Linux running on RedHat Enterprise Server 5. I searched and searched and found a couple of sites that do have instructions for CAG 4.2 on VMware Workstation. I tried that but I run into the issue of the express setup through VMWaregateway. There is no VMWaregateway for VMWare server for Linux!

After quite a bit of failures I finally got it and it is actually quite simple. Probably can use these same direction on VMWare Server for Windows.
Here we go!

Requirements:
VMWare Server 1.0.6
Citrix Access Gateway 4.5.6 CD or ISO (downloadable from mycitrix)
Serial port(DB9) on both the server and your client
Serial cable
40 GB hard drive space
512 MB of available memory

Installation Process:
1. Create new VM
2. Select “Custom”
3. “Guest Operating System” – Other & “Version” – Other
4. Name the VM anything you want (In this instance I’m going to name is CAG)
5. You decide whether you want it private
6. Again, decide how you want it to startup and shutdown
7. Select “One” for “Number of processors:”
8. As for memory I selected 512MB
9. Network connection doesn’t matter, just depends on what scenario you want. (I selected bridge)
10. Accept defaults for “I/O adapter types”
11. Now “Create a new virtual disk”
12. Select “IDE(Recommended)”
13. Disk Size is 40GB and “Allocate all disk space now.”
14. Name your “Disk File” – CAG.vmdk
15. Once that is done “Edit virtual machine settings”
16. Add a serial port – “Use physical serial port on the host”
17. Depending on your scenario Add what NICs and type you want
18. After that is done you need to edit the CAG.vmx or Other.vmx; add or replace these lines in the config:
ethernet0.virtualDev = e1000
ethernet1.virtualDev = e1000
19. Now you can boot to the CAG ISO or CD in your new VM
20. While that is running go ahead and connect your cable from client to server
21. Start your terminal emulation software (I used TeraTerm Pro):
9600-8-N-1 w/ no flow control
22. You should see the CAG Menu now.
23. Setup your IP and you are done!

Now these are the steps that I used that finally worked. You may be able to get different variations of settings to work for you.

**This is just for training. You cannot put this into production because you will violate Citrix EULA.

Have a Wonderful Day!

iSCSI, Switches and NICs Oh My!

A recent post by Marc Farley over at Equallogic brings to light an important fact, not all switches are created equal. In the fiber world, administrators are well aware of the cost of fiber switches, maybe painfully aware. Because iSCSI delivers the prospect of a lower TCO, some folks rush to the conclusion that any gigabit ethernet switch will do as they are not forced into a limited selection of vendors like on the fiber side, where Cisco, Brocade and McData seem to rule.

Unfortunately, many of them will come to the harsh realization that low end switches are not ready for production environments or environments which support a lot of IO. Couple the performance implications of switches with that of subpar NIC hardware and you have a recipe for disaster.

For example, the recommendations for iSCSI on an Equallogic device are to utilize flow control, jumbo packets and disable unicast storm control. In order for the switch settings to be effective, the NIC has to support the same options. Enabling jumbo packets on a switch does nothing if the NIC cannot support the setting. If the NIC does not support flow control, then again the flow algorithms will not be effective in controlling traffic from end-to-end. Additionally it is recommended that the NIC support a 2048 receive buffer, especially for applications like SQL, to ensure packets are not lost. If the NIC buffer is too small, packets may be lost during rapid network transitions.