ThinKiosk 4.5 is a big update, so without further ado, lets get right to it:

ThinKiosk Broker Service:

• HA features are now available in the ThinKiosk Broker.
• The Broker service can now utilise Microsoft SQL for the database and an easy migration utility can be utilised to do so.
• Brokers can now be load balanced via Citrix Netscaler or Microsoft DNS round robin.
• The ThinKiosk Broker can now deliver software updates directly to clients.
• The ThinKiosk Broker can now authenticate against active directory.

ThinKiosk Client:

• The ThinKiosk receiver functionality has been moved to the applications tab in our new ThinScale Connector functionality.
• The Client can now communicate directly with Microsoft RDS Broker services. Allowing customers using Microsoft RDS or VDI to use ThinKiosk to connect, enumerate and launch resources within ThinKiosk, without RDP files.
• The Client now supports password changing and legal notices for the ThinScale Connector.
• The Client now supports “auto launch” logic to specify which desktops to auto launch on logon.
• The Client now starts up at least 40% quicker than previous versions.
• The Client’s communication logic has been redesigned to allow management even when nobody is logged in.
• The Client now supports central software updates from the Broker, allowing push software updates.
• The Client now has an authentication API for use with Imprivata tap and go cards or similar technology.
• The Client is now smart enough to detect DNS round robin when connecting to a Broker and will use the list retrieved from DNS as a broker list to try when starting up.
• The Clients will delete stale or old user profiles periodically to keep machines clean.
• Many, many improved administrative features allowing ease of access to the system for administrators.

We’re extremely proud of this update and we look forward to hearing from you!

Thinkiosk Version 4.0 is the culmination of 9 months hard work, rebuilding ThinKiosk in a new development style to include the enterprise features many of you requested, adding a management server, secure key redirection technologies, local group policy control and a number of other features. After weeks of rigorous testing we’re delighted to announce the availability of ThinKiosk version 4… Today!

With the release of Version 4.0 we’re lifting the cloak on the company we’ve setup in order to support and further develop ThinKiosk, ThinScale Technology. We’ve set up ThinScale as a little software company to publish applications to the virtualisation community, tackling the smaller issues and annoyances we face day to day as consultants and administrators. More clever little products are in the pipeline, but for now enough about the company!

ThinKiosk Versions:

The largest change around ThinKiosk 4.0 is the version introduction. ThinKiosk will ship in two editions, Enterprise edition and Community edition. Remko and I took a look at the product back in October last year and identified area’s that the project needed investment in order to reach and fulfill it’s full potential. We also noted that a number of customers really wanted the support and functionality offered by a professional product. After much deliberation we took the decision at that point to invest the time and resources into the product to ensure it fulfils it’s potential, this in turn justified the need for a chargeable Enterprise product.

ThinKiosk Community Edition.

• The community edition is free and will always remain free, we want to make sure the community will always have the benefit of the product.
• The Community edition is still one of the most powerful Windows alternatives on the market, including paid for products.
• The Community edition is an extremely powerful piece of software with one or two limitations in comparison to the Enterprise product.
• The Community edition will receive functionality from the enterprise edition over time.

We’re extremely proud of the community edition and we do recommend it if you do not require the functionality of the Enterprise Version.

Enterprise Edition.

ThinKiosk Enterprise Edition will include all the current functionality you know and use in ThinKiosk, along with loads of additional features and benefits. The enterprise version of ThinKiosk delivers far more value than the competitor products and from a functionality perspective beats them hands down even in its first release.

An exact side by side comparison can be found along with pricing and details on the ThinScale Licensing page.

Some of the New goodies are listed below!

Central Management:

ThinKiosk 4.0 new central management server. With this central management console, you can:

• Manage off domain machines.
• Push updates.
• Perform remote power commands.
• Remote Control end users.
• Report on your current ThinKiosk hardware.
• and much more.

MagicFilter:

Allow me to introduce our new ‘dynamic key pass-through technology’ MagicFilter. Magic filter will now block local Ctrl + Alt + Del and windows + L keystrokes and “magically” send them on to the remote desktop environment as if the user is working locally. This gives the user an immersive, native feeling desktop experience from the ThinKiosk client.

We are extremely proud to say we are the only Windows Thin Client vendor on the market who can do this.

Integrated Browser:

ThinKiosk 4.0 is a fully fledged browser, so you can allow your users access to web resources without compromising on security. You can layer in as many bookmarks as you like to the browser or you can simply allow the users to browse the sites they wish via the address bar.

And so much more!

I covered a lot of the functionality previews back in April in the feature teaser.

Want to learn more?

Remko and I will be doing a webinar with the good folks over in www.xenappblog.com next week, sign up to hear our story and get some insider information on the product road map!

And without further ado:

I’ve taken enough of your time for now, to jump right in click the download button below and we’ll send you everything you need to get started.

Everyone having a Good Citrix Synergy week? Some great new products announced! Ready for more announcements?

Great!

After 5 months of coffee, tears of frustration and hair pulling we’re absolutely delighted, thrilled and relieved to announce ThinKiosk 4.0 is nearly ready. Complete with my new partner in crime Remko Weijnen (I’ve been saying ‘we’ for ages, now you know who… awesome eh?) we’ve worked some long nights to get this version out the door.

With that out of the way, we’re proud to announce some of the new features coming in 4.0. Bear in mind this is just a preview, the final features and details of the product are still being hammered out, but below is a taster of some of the functionality you can expect to see shortly.

Back to the drawing board:

ThinKiosk 4.0 is a complete rewrite and refactor of ThinKiosk. It’s built on the 4.0 .Net framework which has brought a lot of simplicity and new features to our tool-set. ThinKiosk 4.0 was built with three main aims:

• Enterprise Ready.
• Fool Proof.
• Secure by Design.

With ThinKiosk 4.0, your setup time will go from days to minutes. Out of the box, ThinKiosk is ready for the following technologies without any local machine tuning:

• Citrix XenDesktop / XenApp.
• Citrix VDI in a Box.
• VMware View.
• Microsoft Remote Desktop Services.

For the exact details of each of these optimizations, follow the subsequent blog posts / documentation.

New Look and Feel:

Without further ado, lets start with the new look and feel:

ThinKiosk 4.0 has also been built on the industry leading graphical interface DevExpress giving us a really shiny, professional and sleek interface. Finally giving us an Interface we can be proud to put on your desktops.

ThinKiosk’s interface has been further improved giving you an Applications tab for Publishing desktops for VMware View, Microsoft Remote Desktop services or Citrix Desktops via ICA file or local applications.

This Applications tab has been modelled after the windows 8 Metro err, I mean Windows 8 UI. This provides a similar look and feel to the new Windows start menu and it really breathes new life into old hardware. With this tab, you can publish shortcuts to VDI Desktops or local applications making it a one stop shop for applications.

You can flick from one tab to another easily, or disable the one you do not wish to use.

It’s all about the customization!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder right? Agreed!

Themes:

 ThinKiosk 4.0 will ship with over 8 themes and wallpapers, customization of the splash screen, buttons… everything!

The Applications tab can also be completely customized to your tastes:

Lock down:

As with Previous versions of ThinKiosk, every button and object in ThinKiosk can be locked down to exactly what you wish, for example here’s a stripped back browser session:

Or a stripped back application window:

Anyway… Enough about the appearance, Lets talk tech!

Introducing the new ThinKiosk Broker Service and Management console:

The ThinKiosk Broker, Management Console and ThinKiosk clients use an all new ThinKiosk TCP protocol (I never ever, ever want to see a tcp socket again for as long as I live, writing this protocol was a killer!) to allow you to centrally manage, catalog and report on your ThinKiosk devices. The protocol is lightening fast and secure by design.

This new framework will form a long blog post itself, but some quick fire information is below:

• Complete off domain management.
• Auto device registration, just point ThinKiosk at the broker and it will check in and download the default profile.
• Remote Control / Shadowing of end point devices via the console.
• Device Grouping for profiling multiple devices or creating an organisation structure.
• Remote actions (power off, restart, update).
• Device Reporting.
• No Enterprise database software necessary.
• Audit logging.

Unlike other Thin Client protocols and software, ThinKiosk does not accept any inbound connections, in user or system context. Removing the ability to hijack thin clients… which is all too possible with certain vendors!

The console is simple, and quick to navigate:

Installation of the broker takes roughly 5 minutes and is ready to serve your Devices as soon as you configure the default profile.

New Profile Handler:

The ThinKiosk client has received an overhaul and with it we’ve streamlined the profile. ThinKiosk no longer requires group policies or the clunky offline config tool, we have a new profile system based on XML files with a fitting profile editor to match:

No more configuring 5 group policies for one url, the new policy manager is clean, self explanatory, full of new functionality and uses the same interface whether you are using the ThinKiosk management console or modifying the local profile.

If you want to still use group policy to deploy configuration? No problem! just drop the file on the client via group policy preferences!

And the Client!

Lets talk about the 4.0 client.

Supported platforms:

Windows XP – Windows 8

Browser Ahoy!

ThinKiosk is now a fully fledged browser, complete with address bar. If you want to allow your users to browse around, now you can.

Browser improvements:

The ThinKiosk 4.0 browser will:

• Supress scripting errors.
• Allow you to add your sites to the trusted sites via policy.
• Auto tunes the browser for VDI portals.
• Auto circumvent silly SSL untrusted or mismatched errors (great for POC’s *cough* VDI in a Box *cough*)
• ThinKiosk now runs as an Internet explorer executable. No more flicking between iexplore.exe and thinkiosk.exe.

VDI Improvements:

Now to the nuts and bolts!

Local login pass through:

Now that you have the ability to add direct VDI connections. ThinKiosk will handle the log in experience and pass the credentials to the responsible technology:

This integration allows ThinKiosk to better manage the desktop experience and provide your users with a single login pane rather than the recurrent login screens you can experience with Microsoft / Citrix file connections.

These connection files can also be auto launched, to remove that pesky click first thing each day.

Citrix Technologies:

• Log off screen redirection for Web interface, storefront and VDI in a box.
• Log off the web portal when a desktop launches for the above platforms.
• Support for Adding ICA file connections.
• Auto configuration of Single sign on from local pc to remote desktop. (Nightmare previously).
• VDI in a Box auto browser tuning for compatibility.
• Optionally disable the Citrix Desktop viewer (CDviewer.exe).

VMware View:

• Support for publishing multiple pool connections
• Support for publishing multiple direct desktop connections.
• Support for PassThrough.
• Disables Certificate checking by default for quick POC’s.
• Pass through ctrl alt del / Windows + l (more on this later).

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services:

• Support for publishing multiple connections.
• Support for 2012 RDS and VDI.
• SSL Certificate warning suppression.
• Support for login once.

Improved local application handling:

ThinKiosk 4.0 has an improved local application engine, When you add an application to the Applications tab, it will automatically pull in the icon window and you can also specify to launch apps but hide them (think run key entries). If ThinKiosk is restarted via admin task, it’s smart enough to know not to relaunch them.

Environment variables for paths and arguments are fully supported and i’ve also added a variable for 32bit program files paths… I always wondered why Microsoft didn’t do this, but I digress.

Windows secure keystroke blocking and passthrough:

You asked… (and asked and asked and asked and asked). It’s done, with ThinKiosk 4.0 you will be able to block CTRL + Alt + Del, [Windows] + [L] etc.

Pass through of these keystrokes to the remote desktop is available for VMware View already and will be coming shortly after 4.0 for Citrix and Microsoft connections.

Group Policy Lockdown:

By default when you install ThinKiosk 4.0, it will arm the PC with the most restrictive policies via the local group policy engine, disabling access to all admin utilities and even local disks. This lockdown can be tuned or turned off via policy if required.

ThinKiosk performs privileged actions via the ThinKiosk Machine service which installs as part of the installation.

Auto log in account:

ThinKiosk will ship with it’s own user account for fast deployment. This account will be created on the local machine and gives you a quick an easy method to manage local accounts on non domain joined PC.

The accounts password is synchronized with the ThinKiosk unlock password you specify.

This account is completely optional and you can turn it off or substitute it with a domain account of your choice.

ThinKiosk will also manage the Windows Shell replacement policy itself via policy, so no more mucking around with local group policy or registry keys.

ThinKiosk also now encrypts the auto login account using LSA.

Active Setup:

With ThinKiosk as shell, you can now run Active Setup with ThinKiosk’s improved Active Setup Async.

Active setup Async is a utility we have implemented into ThinKiosk that will perform active setup 60% faster than standard Microsoft active setup via a threading and queuing engine, the end result is active setup support ( for example: HDX flash redirection) with a much faster (and prettier)  interface.

Start up Script:

ThinKiosk can now implement the local group policy engines start-up script to allow you to manage off domain PC’s. With the start-up script, you can install software, updates, disable services, uninstall software, delete files, profiles… anything!

The only limitation here is your own imagination or scripting abilities.

If the latter is a concern? worry not, we’ll be creating a scripting library where ThinKiosk enthusiasts can share and collaborate on similar tasks.

Local session control:

ThinKiosk 4.0 offers you the ability to control local volume, printers, screen saver and even background color.

Improved debug logging:

ThinKiosk logs everything, every action, command, hiccup… everything.

If something isn’t quite working as expected, chances are the debugging window will announce in triumphant glory exactly what is broken!

Redundant profile management:

ThinKiosk takes a copy of it’s profile on each check in to an FTP server or Broker server.

In the event of the server being offline ThinKiosk attempts five times to connect before failing back to the local profile allowing your users to continue working without an outage.

If the broker server becomes available again throughout the day, ThinKiosk will check back in to allow management but will not disturb the user.

And so much more!

I’m not going to go on and on, but as you can see… It’s awesome!

Check back in a few weeks for the release as we ready the build.

I’m absolutely delighted to announce that ThinKiosk has made it’s way into the Norskale User Environment
Management (UEM) stack: VUEM (or Virtuall User Environment Management). It will be appearing as an additional module named “Transformer”. This has been in the pipeline for some time now and it’s great to be finally ready to talk about it!

About Norskale, in my opinion:

For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Norskale are the new up and coming stars in the UEM market. Norskale is the technical brain child of Citrix CTP, community expert and all round nice guy Pierre Marmignon. Pierre brings over a decade of user virtualisation experience to the table. Pierre is acutely aware of the failings in the UEM/ Remote Desktop market and is using these to great effect, creating a lean, extremely fast and easy to use end user management solution at a good price to boot.

Pierre is backed by extremely clever development / marketing and management teams and with their help, Norskale is making serious waves, just in their first year, shaking a market segment that was somewhat dormant for many years.

How did this transpire?

Pierre reached out to me late last year about a potential partnership between ThinKiosk and Norskale. Funnily enough Pierre reviewed the code of ThinKiosk 1.0 and as quite a new comer to this community,Pierre has always been an idol of mine in the Citrix community. It was because of Pierre and a handful of other guys in this community I decided to start blogging and release free tools.

With all this in mind, when Pierre reached out, I jumped (backflipped) at the possibility to work with him!

And how has it turned out?

I’ve worked closely with the Norskale development team as they completely refactored ThinKiosk’s code to make their own VUEM integrated version that would suit their application framework and leverage all the functionalities they were already providing.I’ve been blown away with the results. Norskale VUEM is already a fast, feature rich and clever offering, but with a ThinKiosk style Workstation to ThinKiosk conversion they now can offer a unique end to end solution for user virtualisation in VDI and Server Based Computing (SBC).

Keeping simplicity as key, it’s a matter of a checkbox to convert a pc to a Thin Client using Norskale, and just as simple to roll back completely should you need to. The Norskale solution has been written, debugged and signed off by a team of wizard developers and I couldn’t be more proud of the results.

So now you can instantly roll out any VDI or hosted desktop initiative in a snap and without heavy investment in traditional thin client hardware. And you are getting the best level of performance and manageability one can think off.

And the nitty gritty?

With Transformer, Norskale now have a ThinKiosk style solution as an add on to VUEM, their UEM solution which has all the features of the ThinKiosk product (and much more) to offer to it’s customers.

Norskale’s Transformer will be maintained and evolving as a separate product entirely. But as part of our partnership, all improvements, features and solutions I add to the ThinKiosk solution will be available to Norskale for use in their own product. With this they get all of the benefits of their enterprise solution, along with the innovations ThinKiosk customers and aficionado’s are driving.

What about ThinKiosk?

ThinKiosk will remain free to use, will continue to be developed… I have a massive release coming out shortly. Worry not!

ThinKiosk is not going anywhere and if you are a Norskale customer, or considering becoming one you will get the benefit of having their end to end solution and any features I add to the ThinKiosk product, all with Enterprise grade support and scalability. It really is a win/win solution for all involved.

Going forward.

Norskale has a big, big future. It was an absolute blast to meet their development team and work with them on this project, I’m honestly looking forward to working with them again on new idea’s and solutions.

Got an idea of your own?

If like me you had a unique idea but struggled to see the bigger picture go speak to Norskale, NOW. They will help you leverage your idea, bring it to market and help you add to a game changing solution. They understand the space, the challenges of creating a product on our own and then trying to monetize it.

With great pleasure I’m announcing the general availability of ThinKiosk 3.1. Quite a bit of change under the hood and some nice features added to match.

New features:

VMware View enhanced support:

VMware View has gotten some love in this update, A big thanks to Jarian Gibson for the help.

You can now enforce end of session options for VMware view:

You can also now choose to wipe the last users details from the Kiosk between View sessions:

FTP policy management:

With ThinKiosk 3.1, you no longer are tied to manage the thinkiosk devices by Group Policy or local registry settings, you can now also use an ftp server with a shared xml configuration file:

Just configure a Device as you would like it to appear, unlock the admin menu and you can export the configuration to xml:

Then move it to your ftp server!

Encryption:

The unlock password in group policy can now be encrypted to save it appearing in plain text to anyone capable of viewing the policy. ThinKiosk 3.1 ships with a password encryption tool you can use to encrypt your password.

You can also test reversing the password to plain text to make sure you get it right before applying it en-mass and locking yourself out!

This encryption functionality has now been added to both the offline configuration tool:

And by default the FTP password will be encrypted too!

Battery Awareness:

ThinKiosk is now aware of batteries in laptop devices and will report their status.

When the battery begins to run out, ThinKiosk will throw a warning in the foreground as below:

You can additionally disable this functionality with the offline configuration tool.

Pre launch Citrix Receiver:

A rare issue seen with the latest versions of the receiver was a bit of a hang, pause or complete lock up as receiver came to life. To combat this, you can now choose to early launch the receiver for Citrix, allowing it to gracefully start up in the background before the user requires it.

Early launch process:

A number of customers needed to have third party software launched as soon as ThinKiosk started each day. I’ve now added the ability to early launch a process 

You can also choose to launch this process as hidden, away from the user.

Browser navigation buttons:

ThinKiosk can now act as a locked down browser by adding back and forward buttons.

AM / PM clock:

This feature was asked for quite a few times, so now you can set the clock to 12 hour.

Debug Mode:

A fully fledged debug window has been added to help timing issues. The debug menu can be accessed via command line (-debug) or via the admin menu in ThinKiosk.

Zorder awareness:

In rare situations (and I’ve been unable to reproduce it) ThinKiosk can jump above the citrix session when a log off of the web interface happens or during the login process.

Zorder awareness will tell ThinKiosk to send itself to the back of the Zorder when the browser finishes rendering. It will also display a hide button, which will send ThinKiosk to  the back in this rare event.

Please use this setting as a troubleshooting tool, not a production setting. If this setting fixes the issue for you, please drop me an email and I’ll write it in. As I’ve been unable to reproduce this issue, it’s a bit rough around the edges.

Citrix Storefront timeout screen:

ThinKiosk is now aware of the timeout screen and will automagically redirect back to the login screen if it see’s it.

Hide ThinKiosk when a desktop is active:

If you wish to outright hide ThinKiosk while a desktop is active, you can now do so!

Even More sites:

Support for up to 20 sites has been added, thanks Martijn!

Sticky Home Page:

A request came through to allow the home page always be site 1, this has now been included.

Bug Fixes:

• support for environment variables in custom tools and prelaunch commands. (thanks Nathan).
• Offline config tool not setting password correctly.
• VB Powerpack accidentally bundled with ThinKiosk 3.0
• In process launch mode, power options were intermittently being applied.

And it’s still free!

ThinKiosk development has taken quite some time and it takes time to support you via email. If you use ThinKiosk in your environment or appreciate the savings its made for you, please consider making a donation or paying for enterprise support to help me keep this project alive… I would really appreciate it as it will allow me to invest in better development tools to make the product look and feel even better!

ThinKiosk Updates:

• ThinKiosk will now better handle url’s typed incorrectly (i.e. two full stops) Thanks Geert.
• ThinKiosk will now correctly supress script errors, Thanks Dane / Igor.
• ThinKiosk will no longer allow you to specify a url on first launch, as it was close to impossible to correct due to policy settings.

Offline Configuration tool

• The Offline Configuration tool will no longer allow non administrators run the application when UAC is turned off.
• The Offline configuration tool has been updated to include an option to log off the desktop when a remote session ends.

Caffeine integration is still not quite finished, so expect it in 2.3.

ThinKiosk development has taken quite some time and it takes time to support you via email. If you use ThinKiosk in your environment or appreciate the savings its made for you, please consider making a donation to help me keep this project alive… I would really appreciate it! 

Before I launch into my little discovery, here’s something I want to share:

Since ThinKiosk was released in January, It’s been downloaded over 5,000 times and I have counted (only from those who have contacted me) that there are well over 10,000 instances running in customer environments to this day. Version 1 was released with just 700 lines of code and version 2.3 is just shy of 6,000. This is absolutely amazing to me, seeing an idea that I thought was a “Publish and Forget” blog post be embraced so passionately by the community. So for this, I just wanted to thank you guys for all your help, support and idea’s.

Anyway, back to it. While reviewing my emails recently, it struck me that there are many, many customers using ThinKiosk, not on old PC’s which I had written the program for, but on Thin Clients from top vendors… Now this doesn’t bother me one bit, as the more people using this tool the better, but why aren’t these people using Linux Thin Clients? I’m a large advocate of linux based thin clients in my day job, hell, they’re much cheaper, easier to manage and in most cases boot faster… Why choose Windows?

So confused and curious, I decided to perform a little poll on Twitter:

"Monday morning poll, why do you choose Windows based thin clients?"

And to my surprise, the feedback was great, below I’ve included the top reasons why community members choose Windows Thin Clients:

• HDX Redirection (Aero, Flash, Printing, Scanning)
• Better feature set on Windows / Future proof for upcoming features.
• Central Management via Active Directory / Group Policy.
• Driver support (proxy card’s, smart card’s)
• Familiar User Interface.
• Familiar support platform / Unified support platform / No in house linux knowledge.

So all this got me thinking, even with a list that long of why Windows based thin clients are preferred, why are these guys using ThinKiosk on out of box Thin Clients? Surely a paid for solution will be an end to end solution?

Well not really and why is this? Citrix receiver.

Citrix receiver for Windows (Previously the Program Neighbourhood agent) has been designed for published applications running inside of the users local desktop session, not for Thin Clients connecting to virtual desktops and this is very clear when you consider that Receiver will by default place your published desktop on the start menu or desktop of your session.

This approach will normally lead you to have to log the user into the Thin Client as themselves, which you would prefer to be locked down in the first place. This also leaves you with the challenge of how do you log them off after their desktop session has ended!

Sure Citrix have added some additional desktop related functionality along the way (Desktop Viewer) but even desktop viewer itself is designed for running inside a users session allowing the user to jump back to the local device via the home button.. which can’t subsequently be locked down sadly.

Citrix did also release the desktop lock tool, which is good for very small use cases, but lacks the functionality of multiple desktops, workspace control, user customisations etc… Hence why ThinKiosk came to be!

Thin Client vendor work around?

Most Thin Client vendors will allow you to present glorified shortcuts to ICA files on the desktop of the Thin Client device, or auto launch them on boot… But this approach eliminates the benefits of Workspace Control, XenApp preferencial load balancing and requires trickery to get pass through authentication to work… Not only this but managing these shortcuts in a multi desktop and multi language environment where users roam from country to country is a complete administrative nightmare!

But What about the web access products from Citrix?

Now the obvious alternative to the Citrix Receiver is the Citrix’s web access platforms… The web interface or Cloud Gateway, unlike the desktop lock, or ica files offers multiple desktops, workspace control, load balancing policies etc. You can also leverage web interfaces built in password changing feature for the user with them having to be logged in to the local device and even allow them to reset their own password or unlock their account with Citrix Single Sign on!

And the best part is? the users will already be very familiar with this interface if you have an access gateway or Secure gateway for remote access.

Aha! now it makes sense!

I accidentally provided an easy to use, unified access approach across all windows devices…and I feel blind for not seeing it before!

What ThinKiosk also accidentally addressed, was allowing this web access platform to be leveraged with ease, security and minimal configuration… from any windows platform, Thin Client or old pc.

So in short, I think this was the success story for ThinKiosk I hadn’t considered… so much so that I’ve changed my own approach and mindset for Linux based Thin Clients too, locking down a local copy of  Firefox and presenting the Web Interface or Cloud Gateway.

So if you’re considering rolling in windows Thin Clients for your current or next VDI project… Consider using ThinKiosk, it’ll save you alot of pain, will work seamlessly with all your clients (thin or fat), and will save you time in management in the long run!

It’s ready!

I’ve uploaded a copy of ThinKiosk 2.0 for you to start testing, Its available on the downloads page. A full list of new features can be found in my previous preview blog.

When you start testing, again use a new OU and Group Policy Object, I’ve changed it again (last time, Promise!)

A few quick Points:

• Find a bug?
• Want a new feature?
• Want some help?

Drop me an email  on Andrew(at)andrewmorgan.ie or leave a comment below and we’ll have a quick chat.

Want to help translate ThinKiosk?

Drop me an email on  Andrew(at)andrewmorgan.ie to let me know you’re awesome and want to help, then download a copy of the language file from the downloads page. All translators will be forever immortalised on the Credits page.

Don’t worry if you’re language isn’t already in the worksheet, add an additional column and fire away.

Note: Please don’t reorder the tabs or sorting.

Want to help further development of ThinKiosk?

If you have access to any of the following environments, I’d be very interested in talking to you about doing some testing.

• Web access portal to Windows Remote Desktop services.
• a MEDV environment.
• a web portal to a VMware View environment.

If you have another web based access to an SBC or VDI environment I’m also happy to test also.

And, of course, any such testing will also result in aforementioned immortality.

Want to give back?

I have a donate button over there —->

Version 2.0 is a complete rework of the code as I adopted some standards, a big thank you again to Pierre Marmignon for taking the time to point me in the right direction!

With that out of the way, I’m delighted to announce the functionality to be included in version 2.0!



ThinKiosk 2.0 Layout:






Without further ado, lets get to the goodies:



Customisable title:



The title for ThinKiosk can now to updated to include your corporate slogan, company name or consulting company, whatever you like.

A simple registry key entry will allow you to change this title to deliver a once off, professional solution to your customer or users.


Random: Current CCIA’s will probably shudder at that title, I still do.

Site Selection:



If you wish to present a list of websites to which the user can login to, ThinKiosk will now cater for this with a simple selection box at the bottom of the screen. You can optionally populate this list (or not, its up to you) with up to five websites.

The label’s and url’s are configurable via registry or group policy putting you in full control of the appearance.



Home Button:



A quick and easy home button has been added to allow access gateway users to log in after timeout without having to reload their browser. Simple but effective.



Custom Tools:



A frequent request I received was to allow the users access to certain commands from the Kiosk, these requests ranged from TeamViewer, to Remote Desktop, to printers, to EWF access to Installing windows updates and I was beginning to worry things might get out of control if I attempted to integrate them all… So I didn’t!

With the custom tools menu, you can populate up to five commands you wish to allow your users access to. The command line and label’s for each command are fully customisable so you can do what you wish with them.



Local Printer Management:



So one of the coolest, yet understated features in the Citrix receiver is the printing channel right?  Single driver for all, compressed and quick printing popping out on your local machine? Awesome Right?

Yeah, feedback dictated that thought too so I set about integrating the local windows printing control panel items into ThinKiosk. But, alas I hit a fairly big stumbling block, calling the printers display window was also calling explorer.exe… which pretty much circumvents all of ThinKiosk’s advantages.

Undeterred, I decided to write my own Printer control menu!




From this menu, you can:

• Add a printer (this can be restricted)
• Open a printers queue to dispatch stuck jobs
• Open and configure printers properties
• set your default printer

Power Management:

Power Down at a certain time:

Power down when not in use:

Offline Configuration tool:

One last thing?

ThinKiosk will, always, remain free to use!

How can i get a copy of the beta?

this post is a reference to the 1.0 release, please go to http://www.andrewmorgan.ie/thinkiosk for the latest information or use the menu’s above.

With alot of uncertainty in the Citrix Thin Client market (Citrix SoC), the increasing demands for client offloading (HDX redirection) and the abundance of suitable hardware in your current infrastructure, there has never been a greater need for hardware recycling.

Using current defunct hardware to provide a better experience to the user can slash the cost of new customer roll outs and also provide a stop gap solution as we all patiently wait to see what Citrix will deliver with their System on Chip design.

With this in mind I recently set about evaluating products in this market. I tested both Linux based distro’s and the Citrix Desktop appliance lock.

• The linux devices had driver related issues and didnt support the full feature list of Citrix’s HDX technologies.
• The Citrix Desktop Appliance lock (although great) lacked control and flexibility.

Ultimately, not satisfied with my options I decided to develop my own solution to this Problem

ThinKiosk:

The product I have developed, ThinKiosk, is a lightweight .Net framework application designed to replace the shell of the pc it runs on. ThinKiosk is free to use and the source code will also be available for further development.

ThinKiosk is a secure browser window that is designed to leverage the configuration and flexibility provided by the Citrix Web interface. Thin Kiosk allows the users to use multiple desktops, applications etc and adds additional configuration options to empower the user. Allowing users to configure screen resolution, keyboard, audio etc without allowing too much access to the pc.

With ThinKiosk you can present multiple desktops or individual applications to whoever logs into the kiosk.

ThinKiosk allows companies to leverage all of the Citrix HDX components, along with the Branch repeater plugin on top of hardware capable of client side rendering, at no additional cost.

As ThinKiosk will run on Windows devices, you can use your current antivirus and Windows Update products to manage these devices. No extra configuration, no messing.

Licensing:

ThinKiosk is free to use for any individual or business. So feel free to use it!

That being said, I don’t consent to ThinKiosk being used as follows:

• Included as part of a bundle package.
• Integrated into a “paid for” service
• Sold as a service.

Deployment:

ThinKiosk can be deployed using an MSI and a very simple Group Policy ADM file.

ThinKiosk has been designed to replace the windows shell option using the Group Policy Custom User Interface option. This allows you, as the administrator to replace the shell based on computer or user policies, Allowing quick fall back to the native desktop during testing.

Tested Configurations:

The below operating systems have been tested with HDX  and Flash redirection:

• Windows XP.
• Windows Thin PC.

• Windows Media Player 11
• Internet Explorer 8 & above
• Adobe Flash Player 11
• Citrix Receiver Enterprise 3.1
• Microsoft .net framework 2 to 3.5 sp1.

.net framework 4.0 has mixed results

Setup:

ThinKiosk can bedeployed to an auto login account, domain or local. Thin Kiosk can also be configured to run as the end user. The setup options are flexible to how you wish to deploy it.

A recommended configuration for ThinKiosk would be to configure an auto login account on the PC’s, so when the PC boots it auto logs in presenting the web interface for the user to log in as themselves.

This allows for quick boot times, removes any complications provided by the users group policies and allows users to fall back to their own profile in the event of missing functionality during initial testing.

Group Policy Configuration options:

Below are the configuration options available in the ADM file:

URL – The Web Interface URL.

E.G. http://citrix/Citrix/XenApp

ShowAdminMenu – Displays an admin menu in thinkiosk.

This admin menu contains cmd, explorer, a custom url and resizing options. These tools are handy for troubleshooting

ShowLogOff – Displays the LogOff button to the users.

Allowing a user to log off.

WindowMode – Displays ThinKiosk in a window instead of fullscreen.

Window mode allows users to stack open applications at the bottom of the screen, handy for users who need multiple applications.

WindowModePercent – The percentage of the primary monitor to be used by ThinKiosk.

e.g. 90%

Auto Login Options:

As part of the Group Policy template, I’ve configured options to make configuring the default login as part of the policy. These options aren’t currently available in Microsoft Group Policies and have been provided for extra value. These settings Dont need to be used.

Registry control:

All configuration of ThinKiosk is via the ADM file, but the corresponding registry keys will be published for non domain use below:

ThinKiosk checks both machine and user keys on load in that preference.

Machine keys take preference over user keys.

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREThinKiosk
• HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREThinKiosk

Recommended Group Policy:

Citrix Web Interface Considerations:

Below are some quick fire recommendations to make the web interface configuration faster and easier.

Dedicated web interface site for ThinKiosk:

As a number of the configuration options needed for ThinKiosk will not suit a standard web interface site, I suggest you configure a dedicated site for ThinKiosk.

Session time out:

As users will be authenticating on this web interface then most likely launching a desktop, I suggest a session time out as low as 5 minutes.

Default ICA file options:

Below are a few Default ICA options that are useful for ThinKiosk:

Forcing the use of the desktop viewer:

[ApplicationName]
....
connectionbar=1
TWIMode=Off

Force the Citrix receiver to use full screen:

[Application]
...
DesktopViewer-ForceFullScreenStartup=true

Download:

head over to the downloads page for more information.

Known issues:

1. The first login after installing the receiver causes ThinKiosk to hang on client detection.

Update: this issue only happens with < Web interface 5.3, Web interface 5.4 works fine. If this does happen, just restart the endpoint.

Future Improvements:

1. Multi User language packs for Spanish, Greek and French are being developed.
2. Central management for Shutdown and Boot options.
3. Keystroke to enter admin mode. This is in progress and expected soon.
4. Auto add the Web interface to Trusted Sites.

Feedback:

I’m really interested in feedback and your use case for ThinKiosk, drop me an email on andrew [at] andrewmorgan [dot] ie and let me know what you like and more importantly, what you need.

Credits:

A big thank you to@shanekleinert for initial testing and feedback.

Translations:

A big thank you to the following people for providing translation help:

• Dutch Language and ADMX files  – @dennis_van_dam