This short “how to” explains how to create a streamed profile of the OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 suite and stream it to server.
Profiling applications in Citrix’s jargon means creating a sort of box containing an application with all its files and registry entries. The application is then streamed, see delivered, to a server or a client and then executed into a kind of sandbox, almost isolated from the rest of the OS. This means that, for example, on one Windows server I can run multiple version of Microsoft Office at the same time, keeping them separated and avoiding any kind of conflict between them.
Well, after this little explanation… let’s go ahead and do the intriguing part!
Preparation
I’d say that you have to be familiar with application streaming but, actually, the process is straightforward and very easy to follow. There are only two details that need to be considered and they regard the first-run wizard and the default file format, we’ll look at this later in the article.
Of course the first thing to do is to make sure that we have the appropriate environment to make a working profile. The following is a checklist of the essential components we need:
- A Windows Server (2008 R2 in my case) configured exactly in the same way as your farm servers, this means same service packs, same patches, same language pack and same software installed (except for the offline plugin, that has not to be installed on the profiling server). The server may or may not be a member of the Citrix farm.
- The server must not be used to deliver applications, it will only be used as a Streaming Profiler, it should remain as clean as possible. Remember that if a software application is present on the streaming profiler and not on the farm server it will probably create you problems when streaming the application to your server.
- Citrix Streaming Profiler must be installed on the server, it can be found on the XenApp 6 DVD or directly downloaded from citrix.com.
- A copy of OpenOffice.org is required it can be downloaded here: openoffice.org.
- The OpenOffice installation files must be installed. Run the OpenOffice installer, extract the installer files into a directory of your choice and stop the installation process. The files we need to carry out the installation are those now located in the directory you choose, the original installer can be deleted.
Before creating the profile, we need to take care of two aspects:
- Default file format: by default OpenOffice saves files in its format, if you want to change the default behavior and make the application save files in the Microsoft format you have to make some adaptations and they are well described here.
- First-run wizard: if you don’t want your users to be annoyed by the first-run registration wizard you need to go to this page: openoffice wiki and download the oxt file for the version of OpenOffice you downloaded.Save it in a directory on the profiler server. On the same directory of the oxt file create a batch file (anything.bat) containing the following text:
cd \
“c:\program files (x86)\Openoffice.org 3\program\unopkg” add –shared c:\DisableFirstStartWzd_ooo321.oxt
pause
Profile creation
- On the server go to Start > All Programs > Citrix > Streaming Profiler > Streaming Profiler
- Click New Profile
- Click next
- Give a name and click next
- Leave User Updates check box clear and click next
- If you need to link additional profiles choose them now, otherwise click next
- Make sure that on the list of Target Operating Systems you see the system on which you will stream the package, if you are profiling on Server 2008 R2 x64 you’ll be able to stream the package on 2008 R2 x64 servers and maybe on windows 7 x64 clients
- Click next
- Choose Advanced Install
- Select “Run Install Program or command line script”
- Click browse and find the setup file for OpenOffice in the folder you extracted
- Click next and launch installer
- Enter company and user name and click next
- Choose custom and click next
- On-line Update, Windows Explorer Extensions and Quickstarter are not useful in a XenApp installation, uncheck them:
- Click next and clear the box to create a Start Link on Desktop
- Click Install and finish the installation
- Click Finish to return to the profiler
- Click Next
- Select Perform Additional Installations and click Next
- Select “Run Install Program or command line script”
- Enter the name and path of the batch file you created in the first text box and click next
- Click Launch Installer
- You should see the oxt installation:
- Click next and select Finish Installations
- You should now see a list of the main applications that you allowed at installation
- Try to run any of them to see if they work properly
- Click next, next, next and Finish
- When the process is completed and if you haven’t any modifications to make, you can save the profile on a file share
Application publishing
You can now publish the applications you just profiled.
- Open the Citrix Delivery Services Console and start to publish an application as you would do for a normal installed application
- Give it a name and the description you like
- When you have to choose the type of application to publish choose “Accessed from a server” and “Streamed to server”:
- Go ahead and click browse to find your profile on the share you previously saved it, then from the list of applications choose the one you want to publish (e.g. Writer, Calc, etc…)
- Go ahead and choose the servers on which to stream the application and the users that will have access to it
- Make sure that each XenApp server you are using to run the application has the offline plugin correctly installed (it runs as a service and you can find it in the services management console)
You can now access and run the application!
