PowerShell Script to backup files based on particular date

Here is a nice short PowerShell script I wrote up that can help system admins with backing up files based on their modified date. What this script does is recurse the directory you wish to scan for files based on a particular modified date and export their paths to a text file. The second line in the script parses the text file and removes all white spaces so that it is cleaned up to throw in to 7z, which is used to create a compressed zipped up file. Feel free to throw this in your scheduled tasks and test it out for your backups!

Get-ChildItem -Path E:\FilesToBackUp -Recurse | Where{$_.LastWriteTime -gt (get-date).AddDays(-1)} | Where{$_.PSIsContainer -ne $true} | Select FullName | format-table -HideTableHeaders | out-file E:\file_backup.txt
Select-String -Pattern "\w" -Path E:\file_backup.txt | ForEach-Object { $_.line} | Set-Content -Path E:\file_backup_cleaned.txt

# Use 7z Version 9.25 alpha or newer
7z a G:\BackupLocation\Daily%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%-%date:~10%.7z @E:\file_backup_cleaned.txt -spf 

 

Citrix XenApp 6.x Application Report

Here's a quick and useful one-liner for pulling an Application Report from Citrix XenApp 6.x+. No longer do you pull it from Report Center/Summary database like in Presentation Server now we get to use Powershell!

First run powershell as administrator from a XA65 server, and type in this first:

Add-PSSnapin Citrix*

Then :

Get-XAApplicationReport * | select ApplicationType, DisplayName, FolderPath, 
Enabled, HideWhenDisabled,ContentAddress, CommandLineExecutable, WorkingDirectory,
AnonymousConnectionsAllowed, AddToClientStartMenu, ClientFolder,
StartMenuFolder, AddToClientDesktop, ConnectionsThroughAccessGatewayAllowed,
OtherConnectionsAllowed, AccessSessionConditionsEnabled,
@{n="AccessSessionConditions";e={[string]::join(" ; ",
$_.AccessSessionConditions)}}, InstanceLimit, MultipleInstancesPerUserAllowed,
CpuPriorityLevel, AudioType, AudioRequired, SslConnectionEnabled,
EncryptionLevel, EncryptionRequired, WaitOnPrinterCreation, WindowType,
ColorDepth, TitleBarHidden, MaximizedOnStartup, OfflineAccessAllowed,
CachingOption, AlternateProfiles, RunAsLeastPrivilegedUser,
@{n="Servers";e={[string]::join(" ; ", $_.ServerNames)}},
@{n="WorkerGroups";e={[string]::join(" ; ",
$_.WorkerGroupNames)}}, @{n="Users";e={[string]::join(" ;
", $_.Accounts)}} | Export-Csv c:\app-report.csv

 

Check for your report at c:\app-report.csv

XenApp Powershell Script to Publish Apps from CSV

As part of this Citrix migration project I am currently working on I had the necessity to publish multiple apps and the process was very time consuming and tedious. In order to accelerate and make the process more accurate I developed this script to publish apps from a CSV file. I also included some error checking/handling in the script for errors that I had encountered. Also be aware that for the icons to be correctly identified you will need to run this off the XA server that hosts the exe file with the path as per the "CommandLineExecutable" field.

The CSV file structure was setup as follows:
BrowserName,DisplayName,WorkerGroupNames,Accounts,CommandLineExecutable,WorkingDirectory,FolderPath,ClientFolder
Example App, Example, Test Worker Group, mshorrosh, C:\windows\system32\notepad.exe, c:\windows\system32\, Applications/Test, Test\

And the script....

# Load the snapins 

Add-PSSnapin citrix* -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue 

#import the csv file

$apps = Import-Csv C:\apps.csv

#each line in the csv

foreach($app in $apps)

{

    #test if workergroup provided exists

    try{

        $WG = Get-XAWorkerGroup $app.WorkerGroupNames -ErrorAction Stop

     } catch {

        Write-Host "Error: " $app.BrowserName " resulted in " $_.Exception.Message " please create worker group first"

        break

     }

    #trying to get the executables icon from the CommandLineExecutable

    try{

        $EncodedIconData = Get-CtxIcon $app.CommandLineExecutable -index 0 

    } catch [Exception] {

        Write-Host "Error: Obtaining the icon failed: " $_.Exception.Message

    }

    #checking browsername length, found out it has a limit

    if($app.BrowserName.length -gt 36) 

    {

        Write-Host "Error: BrowserName for " $app.BrowserName " length is to long, must be less than 36 characters, please correct"

    }

    else

    {

    

        $success = $FALSE

        

        #try to publish new app

        try {

        

            $NewApp = New-XAApplication  `

            -ApplicationType "ServerInstalled" `

            -EncodedIconData $EncodedIconData `

            -WorkerGroupNames $app.WorkerGroupNames `

            -BrowserName $app.BrowserName `

            -Enabled $TRUE `

            -Accounts $app.Accounts `

            -WorkingDirectory $app.WorkingDirectory `

            -CommandLineExecutable $app.CommandLineExecutable `

            -FolderPath $app.FolderPath `

            -ClientFolder $app.ClientFolder  `

            -WindowType "100%" `

            -ColorDepth Colors32Bit `

            -InstanceLimit "-1" `

            -AddToClientStartMenu $false `

            -AnonymousConnectionsAllowed $false `

            -DisplayName $app.DisplayName `

            -ErrorAction Stop

            $success = $TRUE

        } catch {

             Write-Host "Error: " $_.Exception.Message

        } finally {

            if($success)

            {

                Write-Host $app.BrowserName "added successfully."

            }

        }

        

        

    }



    

}

VBScript to rename Program Neighborhood Paths

The client I was working at had a multi-farm XenApp environment so I ended up needing a script that would run on XA 4.5 as well. This is essentially the same script I wrote in powershell translated to vbscript, edit appropriately as you need for your environment.

option explicit

Const MetaFrameWinAppObject = 3

Const MetaFrameWinFarmObject = 1

Dim aMFApp, hMFAppTemp, aMFTemp

Dim MFFarm : Set MFFarm = WScript.CreateObject ("MetaFrameCOM.MetaFrameFarm")

MFFarm.Initialize(MetaFrameWinFarmObject)

Dim mode, count, strReplace

mode = "Debug"

count = 0

Dim objECA, objAPAC, objAGLNG

Set objECA = New RegExp

Set objAPAC = New RegExp

Set objAGLNG = New RegExp

With objECA

                .Pattern = "ECA\\"

                .IgnoreCase = True

End With

With objAGLNG

                .Pattern = "AGLNG\\"

                .IgnoreCase = True

End With

With objAPAC

                .Pattern = "APAC\\"

                .IgnoreCase = True

End With

For Each aMFApp in MFFarm.Applications

Set hMFAppTemp = CreateObject("MetaFrameCOM.MetaFrameApplication")

hMFAppTemp.Initialize MetaFrameWinAppObject,aMFApp.DistinguishedName

hMFAppTemp.LoadData(True)

Set aMFTemp = hMFAppTemp.WinAppObject2

                If objAGLNG.Test(aMFTemp.PNFolder) = True Then

                                count = count + 1

                                strReplace = Replace(aMFTemp.PNFolder,"AGLNG\","")

                                If mode = "Debug" Then

                                                Wscript.Echo aMFTemp.AppName & " - old: " & aMFTemp.PNFolder & " new: " & strReplace

                                Elseif mode = "Real" Then

                                                aMFTemp.PNFolder = strReplace

                                                aMFTemp.SaveData()

                                End If   

                ElseIf objAPAC.Test(aMFTemp.PNFolder) = True Then

                                count = count + 1

                                strReplace = Replace(aMFTemp.PNFolder,"APAC\","")

                                If mode = "Debug" Then

                                                               

                                                Wscript.Echo aMFTemp.AppName & " - old: " & aMFTemp.PNFolder & " new: " & strReplace

                                Elseif mode = "Real" Then

                                                aMFTemp.PNFolder = strReplace

                                                aMFTemp.SaveData()

                                End If   

                ElseIf objECA.Test(aMFTemp.PNFolder) = True Then

                                count = count + 1

                                strReplace = Replace(aMFTemp.PNFolder,"ECA\","")

                                If mode = "Debug" Then

                                                Wscript.Echo aMFTemp.AppName & " - old: " & aMFTemp.PNFolder & " new: " & strReplace

                                Elseif mode = "Real" Then

                                                aMFTemp.PNFolder = strReplace

                                                aMFTemp.SaveData()

                                End If   

                End If

Set aMFTemp = Nothing

Set hMFAppTemp = Nothing

Next

Wscript.Echo "Total applications updated : " & count

Powershell script to rename XenApp Program Neighborhood Paths

Recently there was a organizational change in a company I was working at that required us to change all the program neighborhood paths for all the apps in the XenApp environment. The script below iterates through all the apps in the farm and examines their initial folder in the path for the "Client Folder" aka Program Neighborhood folder and removes the folder from their path. You may edit the different fields that we were inspecting for to suite changes you may need to make in your farm. This script should work for XenApp 6.0+.

Add-PSSnapin Citrix.XenApp.Commands 

$apps = Get-XAApplication
$mode = "Debug" #Change to Real to make changes
$count = 0

foreach($app in $apps)
{
                if($app.ClientFolder -match "AGLNG\\")
                {
                                $original = $app.ClientFolder
                                $temp = $original -replace "AGLNG\\", ""
                                $count +=1

                                if($mode -eq "Debug") 
                                {
                                                Write-Host $app.DisplayName "would have " $original " changed to " $temp 
                                                
                                }
                                elseif($mode -eq "Real")
                                {
                                                Write-Host "Changing " $app " to " $temp
                                                Set-XAApplication $app -ClientFolder $temp
                                                
                                }              

                }
                if($app.ClientFolder -match "ECA\\")
                {
                                $original = $app.ClientFolder
                                $temp = $original -replace "ECA\\", ""
                                $count +=1

                                if($mode -eq "Debug") 
                                {
                                                Write-Host $app.DisplayName "would have " $original " changed to " $temp 
                                                
                                }
                                elseif($mode -eq "Real")
                                {
                                                Write-Host "Changing " $app " to " $temp
                                                Set-XAApplication $app -ClientFolder $temp
                                                
                                }

                }
                if($app.ClientFolder -match "APAC\\")
                {
                                $original = $app.ClientFolder
                                $temp = $original -replace "APAC\\", ""
                                $count +=1

                                if($mode -eq "Debug") 
                                {
                                                Write-Host $app.DisplayName "would have " $original " changed to " $temp 
                                                
                                }
                                elseif($mode -eq "Real")
                                {
                                                Write-Host "Changing " $app " to " $temp
                                                Set-XAApplication $app -ClientFolder $temp
                                                
                                }

                }
}

Write-Host "Total of" $count "applications effected by the PN Folder change."

Uninstall IE9 and install IE8 on Windows Server 2008 R2

I had to do this recently on a XenApp server to publish IE8 for compatibility support for legacy web apps and found out that this was not the most straight forward thing to do, however I found a really simple solution for it.

Simply go to Control Panel -> Windows Update -> Installed Updates -> and scroll down to find the IE9 update and click remove, it's as easy as that, reboot and IE8 is back.

Hope this saves someone the headache.

XenApp 6.5 Load Balancing Policies applied to specific applications

I spent some time working with XenApp 6.x's feature of application load balancing that allows you to route users based on certain filters to specific worker groups of servers. The interface is fairly simple and it that allows you to first pick how you want to filter the users, which is done by either Access Control, Client IP Address, Client Name, or User. After you've chosen your filter you simply pick the Load Balancing Policies you want to set, which is either by Worker Group Preference or Streamed App Delivery. All of this is managed via a node in AppCenter called  Load Balancing Policies. There are some benefits and some disadvantages I've found through using this feature which I will explain through my implementation scenario.

In my scenario I was working to implement a Global Office 2010 Silo distributed over 3 data centers, for this post I'll just name them worker groups DC1, DC2, and DC3 which are all servers containing office 2010. I setup the policies as follows:

Policy 1 
Name: DC1 Priority
Filter: Filter based on user, with user location based AD groups with fastest connection to DC1
Policy: Worker Group Preference, with priority in order lowest to highest DC1, DC2, DC3 (based on link speeds between the three).

Policy 2
Name: DC2 Priority
Filter: Filter based on user, with user location based AD groups with fastest connection to DC2
Policy: Worker Group Preference, with priority in order lowest to highest DC2, DC1, DC3.

Policy 3
Name: DC3 Priority
Filter: Filter based on user, with user location based AD groups with fastest connection to DC3
Policy: Worker Group Preference, with priority in order lowest to highest DC3, DC2, DC1.

After getting everything setup I quickly found out that the Application Load Balancing had no way to apply the policy to specific applications, meaning that it affected all applications that were published. So if a user's account was in a AD Group "DC1 Employees" he was subject to Policy 1 and XenApp would try to search the Office 2010 worker groups even if he was trying to run something like FireFox, this was causing applications to fail that were processing these policies. This was going to be a problem because I wanted to get away from having to publish different applications for different regions which makes administration a nightmare. Digging around on google I found this which Citrix gives mention of the idea to add a Worker Group with all the servers added at the last priority for the apps, this way if the application is not contained as part of the load balancing worker group set it will still launch where it is available. After making the "All Servers" worker group and adding that as last priority on all the LB Policies, everything was working just as planned.