Monday, February 13, 2012

Technotes: How to Disable or Customize the Virtual Desktop Agent Welcome Screen

Technotes: How to Disable or Customize the Virtual Desktop Agent Welcome Screen: How to Disable or Customize the Virutal Desktop Agent Welcome Screen

How to Disable or Customize the Virtual Desktop Agent Welcome Screen

Document ID: CTX129729 / Created On: Feb 11, 2012 / Updated On: Feb 11, 2012
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Summary

This article explains how to disable or customize the Virtual Desktop Agent (VDA) welcome screen that is shown by default to all users when they connect.

Requirements

Version 5.x of the Virtual Desktop Agent (VDA) software

Background

The following welcome screen is displayed for all users when connecting to a XenDesktop 5 VDA for the first time.

If users select the option “Don’t show the welcome screen again,” the following registry flag is written to their profile on the VDA based on the operating system of the client system used to connect.

HKCU\Software\Citrix\WelcomeScreen
Name:
WinOptOut (Windows) MacOptOut (Mac) OptOut (Linux and others)
Value:
12.1.0.30 (full client version)

Note: This setting will not be properly handled in some situations such as when using pooled random desktops and local profiles, where users connect to different machines and the changes do not persist to the virtual machine after logoff.

Procedure

Caution! This fix requires you to edit the registry. Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that might require you to reinstall your operating system. Citrix cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Be sure to back up the registry before you edit it.

Disabling the Welcome Screen

To completely disable the welcome screen, remove the VDA Welcome Screen shortcut file from the following location in your base images:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
(Windows 7 and Vista)

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start menu\Programs\Startup
(Windows XP)

Alternatively, it is possible to disable the welcome screen through Group Policy Object using the attached administrative template file name extension (ADM) template which writes the following registry setting:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Citrix\WelcomeScreen
Name:
DisableSplashScreen (String)
Value:
true

Note: The attached ADM template must be imported on a Windows 2008 Server or Windows 2008 R2 Server system. It does not work when imported on Windows 2003 Server.

Customizing the Welcome Screen

It is possible to change the content on the welcome screen to a local or remote Web page. This can be helpful by allowing administrators to provide company-specific information to their new users. To change the welcome screen, edit the following registry string value to point to a remote Web site or local HTML file:

HKLM\Software\Citrix\WelcomeScreen
Name:
URL (String)
Value:
http://www.citrix.com



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