Technology Notebook

Citrix/NT Terminal Server Optimization

From: http://www.purenetworking.net/NTTerminalServer.html

OPTIMIZING NT

Terminal Server and Citrix Metaframe


Microsoft Terminal Server is a totally different beast than your standard NT and although most of the tips mentioned in elsewhere there are a number of special considerations that need to be looked at.

SERVER SETTINGS

In Control Panel / Network / Services / Server / Properties. Set the option to Maximize Throughput for Network Applications. The system default is Minimize Memory and it was originally thought that Maximize Throughput for File Sharing was the best setting but testing has disproved this.


APPLICATION RESPONSE

Go to Control Panel / System / Performance and make sure the Best Foreground Application Response is set to maximum.


REGISTRY SIZE

Control Panel / System / Performance / Change set the Registry Size to at least 50MB. Many people say that it should be set to at least 4 times the default setting to allow for growth. But we believe that for many people this is too large. Our advice would be monitor the growth of your registry and set it accordingly, 50MB will be adequate for most people.


PAGE FILE

In Control Panel / System / Performance / Change make the Paging File 2.5 times the size of the system memory.


SCREENSAVERS

Do not give anyone access to screensavers. This can be done through system policies but we also recommend, once all the applications are loaded onto the system, doing a search for all files ending with a .scr and deleting them.


WALLPAPER

Stop people changing their desktop wallpaper. Again this is a system policy option but for Metaframe users why not go to Citrix Connection Configuration / Advanced and tick the Disable Wallpaper Option.


FONTS

In some cases, the logon process may be very slow due to an application searching for fonts. Applications such as Lotus CC:Mail and NWScript can cause this problem. To overcome this issue at Control Panel / System / Environment go to the System Variables section and click on the variable named Path. Add to the end of this string add ;%SystemRoot%\Fonts and click Set.


DISABLE SOUND

If you do not use audio in your thin client setup then disable this both on the client and the server. If you use Metaframe this can be done in Citrix Connection Configuration / Client, tick the Client Audio Mapping. However this only works for ICA clients not RDP and the sound is still played on the server even though the client can’t hear it. To disable this entirely go to Control Panel / Sounds and make the scheme No Sounds.


SUPERCACHE

Supercache is the new caching technique introduced by Citrix in hotfix ME180021.EXE for Metaframe 1.8, in ME100044.exe for Metaframe 1.0 and in hotfix SE17B099.EXE for Winframe 1.7.

SuperCache is a new caching technique that can result in a large improvement in usability and performance over a slow connection, or for applications that tend to redisplay a large area of the screen in response to small localized changes. Example applications that will show a large caching improvement over a slow connection are Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and Visual FoxPro.

Once the hotfix is installed SuperCache is still disabled and needs to be enabled to work. You do this by going to the Command Prompt and typing:

Keysync ICAThinwireFlags /Enable:2

To disable type:

Keysync ICAThinwireFlags /Disable:2

You will need to reboot inorder for these setting to come into effect.

When SuperCache is enabled, large bitmaps are displayed in a number of columns in left to right order, instead of top to bottom order. This is readily apparent when running a client over a slow line.