Sharefile SAML AD Authentication Fails on Chrome and Firefox

After configuring our ShareFile to integrate our AD accounts using AD FS 2.0 and SAML for login, we found several user could not log in with Chrome or Firefox.  They would go to the SAML login URL and then enter their correct AD credentials.  The login would then fail.  Using IE with the same credentials was successful.  After investigation, the issue was linked to AD FS 2.0 and Chrome/Firefox, not ShareFile.

The Solution below was found at http://exitcodezero.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/adfs-authentication-issues-with-chrome-and-firefox/

To correct the issues, disable Extended Protection in IIS on your ADFS server

1. Open IIS Manager on your ADFS Server
2. Expand your ADFS Server
3. Expand Sites
4. Expand Default Web Site
5. Expand adfs
6. Click to select ls
7. Double-click Authentication 
8. Right-click Windows Authentication and select Advanced Settings… 
9. Set Extended Protection to Off 
10. Restart IIS or perform an iisreset

Unable to add Sharepoint Connector after enabling the feature on StorageZones Controller 2.0

I upgraded my Storage Center from 1.1 to the new StorageZones Controller 2.0 recently released from Citrix.  This version is supposed to integrate connections for on-prem storage, network share connectors, and ShareFile connectors.  I was excited to set up the Sharepoint access for my mobile users so I enabled just the Sharepoint feature on the controller install and logged into the ShareFile portal to create the connectors.  However, in the portal under the Connectors tab, it told me that No Connectors-enabled StorageZones have been created…

I double-checked my configuration and everything looked right.  I contact Citrix ShareFile support and apparently there is a bug in the current release.  You must enable both Sharepoint and Network File Shares, even if you plan to use only one of the features, in order to create the connectors in the portal.  Once I did this, the portal gave me the option to start creating connectors successfully.  The bug is supposed to be fixed in the next update.  Of course, I then later found out, 2 hours into troubleshooting and another call to Citrix later, That the Sharepoint connections will not show up for mobile devices for another week.

Exchange Infostore will not start because of Vmhost time setting?

We recently had several clients whose exchange servers went offline for seemingly no apparent reason.  The servers were up and there were no connection or permissions issues, but we kept getting a strange error in the logs.

Error: Unable to initialize the Information Store service because  the clocks on the client and server are skewed.   This may be caused by a time change either in the client or the server,  and may require a reboot of that computer.   Verify that your domain is properly configured and  is currently online.

After investigation, we found that the Vmhost running the exchange server did not have the correct time set up.  We changed the time on the host (we actually enabled NTP to match the domain controller), and rebooted the exchange server.  The exchange server came up and the infostore started without error.  Everything was then fine in the world again.

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Enable Alt+Tab Application Toggling in a Citrix XenApp Desktop Session

I recently had a request for a user to be able to toggle between different applications inside their Citrix desktop session with alt+tab. The Citrix receiver provides this functionality with a registry change. There are a couple ways to send the hot key combo of Alt+tab to the Citrix session, but below I will show how to pass the physical hot key combo of Alt+tab from the client workstation to the Active Citrix session window (non-fullscreen mode).
This work will be done on the Client workstation and I am assuming the client has Windows 7 with Citrix receiver installed.
My background information was found here:
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX118974
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/ica-settings/ica-settings-transparentkeypassthrough.html
1. Open regedit on the client device to edit the registry
2. Navigate to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE\Citrix\ICAClient\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Virtual Channels\Keyboard\
3. Open Key: TransparentKeyPassthrough
4. Set the value to: Remote

5. Exit the Citrix receiver if it is started and log back into your Citrix desktop.
6. When the Citrix desktop session is the Active window, you will be able to toggle between the applications in that session with Alt+Tab