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Daniel Nashed

 

Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

Daniel Nashed  2 June 2009 08:25:44

The installer in Notes 8.x and 8.5 is not Citrix aware and if you install the Notes Client on Citrix -- Specially when you apply MUI Packs for international languages you run into issues.
There are several descriptions in multiple technotes and there is also a description in the Citrix whitepaper.
Based on all this information and his own experience and testing in the field Christian wrote a VB script to automate the settings needed.
All this information has been send to IBM for feedback for 8.5.1 and there are plans to make the installer Citrix aware.
Meanwhile Christian's script is a great help to make your life easier when installing the Notes Client in a Citrix environment.

Here is Christian's short description and the script.

Huge thanks to Christian to share it with the community!!!

-- Daniel



 
VBScript was used, so no MSI packaging knowhow or a commercial/full version of packaging software is needed. 
The script is intended to fix Installation errors of Lotus Notes 8.5.x and 8.0.x releases. 
In the current version, no upgrades are supported! 
The script is intended to run on new Lotus Notes installations. 
It will create a new notes.ini, custom notes.ini entries won't be preserved

In addition, some recommended settings of the whitepaper "IBM® Lotus® Notes® 8.5 on Citrix XenApp 4.5: A scalability analysis" are set. 
It works with Single User and Multi User Installations and all Standard Client MUI Packs (G1, G2a, G2b, G3). 
The script is trying to figure out the correct settings by analyzing various files and registry settings, so nearly nothing is hardcoded. 
It builds a correct default notes.ini and adds DEBUG_GLOBAL_NAMESPACE_DISABLE=1.
It will delete the corrupt notes.ini files created by the Notes Installer. 
The notes.ini created by the script will be created in %AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Lotus\Notes\data for Multi User Installations, for Single User installations, the notes.ini is created in the data directory, not the program directory.

The corresponding MUI.DAT file is always created in the MUIFOLDER directory (C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\MUI by default). 
It is assumed that the final 8.5.1 version will use "8.5.1" as version string. 
The script tries to identify the installed languages and adds the corresponding entries to the MUI.DAT file. 
In version 1.0.0 the ReplaceLanguage parameter and REPL_ parameter ignored.

The script corrects HKCU\software\Lotus\notes\installer\vdir_ini for both kinds of installations, for Multi User installations, it corrects the MultiUser and DataPath values in the registry (HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes\, too.

If a Multi User installation is found, the script moves the directory domino\icons to the correct location and deletes the empty PROGDIR\data directory (Known bug: only if Notes was installed to the default location) 
The directory %AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Lotus\Notes\Data\Shared\workspace will be deleted after the files were move to the correct location.

The script is able to find the Java base directory and modifies the jvm.properties file as prosposed in the whitepaper, jvm.shareclasses.loc will be set to %Systemroot%\:/temp/xpdplat.

Finally, the script stops and deletes the services "Lotus Notes Diagnostics" and "Multi-User Cleanup service".

For further details see the comments in the script itself.

I'd like to thank Peter Birett and Daniel Nashed for their help and suggestions! :-)

Best Regards 
Christian 
Comments

1Geoff  11.10.2009 22:19:53  Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

Hi Daniel

This seems very useful thank you. I have a couple of questions being somewhat a novice at TS which I'd appreciate if you can help with.

In Windows 2008 TS, do I simply install Notes Basic 8.5 (as single or multi user?), and then run this script in each WTS user's session when they log on?

How will the Notes data area for each user in their terminal server home drive be set up?

Thanks for your help.

Geoff

2Mike  04.11.2009 16:28:42  Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

A simple solution for Terminal Services - Copied from an IBM Lotus Forum:

For those who want to try R8.5.1 muti-user installation on the terminal server 2003, may follow the below steps:

1)After installed the 8.5.1, search the notes,ini and it should not appear in the windows folder. Delete it if you found it there.

2) The notes.ini file should appears in c:\document & setting\All users\application data\lotus\notes\data\ and the content in it should be: (pls note the actual path shld be according to your environment)

[Notes]

KitType=1

SharedDataDirectory=C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Lotus\Notes\Data\Shared

InstallType=6

3) edit the following registry:

[HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes\DataPath] Remove the value.

[HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes\MultiUser] Change the value from 0 to 1.

[HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes\8.0\DataPath] Remove the value.

[HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes\8.0\MultiUser] Change the value from 0 to 1.

3Christian Henseler  25.11.2009 19:52:32  Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

@Mike: The solution you've re-posted is pre-8.5.1!

The errors mentioned in the forum do not occur with 8.5.1

By using my script for 8.0.2/8.5 you simply have to double click it.

4Christian Henseler  25.11.2009 20:00:00  Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

@Geoff:

Sorry for the late response.

If you can use 8.5.1 Multi-User Installation!

If you have to install 8.0.2 or 8.5 install Lotus Notes 8.x

After the installation has been finished, execute the Fix-Script once in the user context LN has been instaled.

It does not have to run in every user session.

5Oleksandr  29.01.2010 8:41:11  Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

Hi Daniel

Could you please clarify? I install Notes 8.5.1 and MUI pack (I am using 8.5.1 G2A) on Citrix. MUI folders with all the templates are in %Allusersprofile%\Application Data\Lotus\Notes\Data\Shared\mui but Citrix users can't see it, they are looking for MUI templates in C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\mui folder (as it's in registry by default).

How I can fix it?

6Roman  16.08.2010 15:59:08  Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

Hi Daniel,

Do you know how come the script includes the command to remove the Lotus Notes Diagnostics aswell as the Multi-User Cleanup Service?

7Christian Henseler   29.08.2010 20:09:01  Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

@Roman:

At the time of writing the scripts, I discussed the services issue with some collegues and we decided that it would be a good idea from the stability point of view, to remove the services.

Today (with 8.5.1 & 8.5.2), I would leave the services untouched.

8Christian Henseler  29.08.2010 20:11:42  Fix-Script for Lotus Notes 8.x/ 8.5.x Installation on Citrix/Terminal Services Servers

@ALL:

WARNING!

Don't use the script with recent versions of Lotus Notes 8.5.x.

IBM has fixed most errors that are handled by the script with 8.5.1, so use the script only, if you still have to deal with 8.0.x or 8.5.0 installations!

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