WS_FTP Professional with Citrix or Microsoft
Terminal Services?
Product: WS_FTP ProfessionalVersion: 2007 and higher
Platform: Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server
Problem/Question: Can WS_FTP Professional be served via Citrix or Microsoft Terminal Services? If so, are any additional steps necessary?
Answer/Solution: Yes. WS_FTP Professional can be served to
terminal
services clients in a Citrix or Microsoft Terminal Server environment. However,
before the application can be used by a client, you need to make two registry
changes on the server. You can do this using a Windows Script Host (WSH)
VBScript file that you can use to automate the registry changes. The remainder
of this document explains the problem and how to run the script.
When you install WS_FTP in a single-user environment, the installation creates
per-user registry entries in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive. These
settings include an entry that specifies the WS_FTP data directory.
In a Terminal Server or Citrix environment, when a terminal server client opens
WS_FTP for the first time, the server automatically populates that client user’s
HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive with the user registry settings created by
the application installation. Typically these are the system administrator’s
settings. The problem with this behavior is that the installation sets the
WS_FTP
user’s data directory to the administrator’s WS_FTP data directory when the
server populates the registry. The user typically doesn’t have permissions to
access the administrator’s directory and, in a multi-user environment, every
client would be pointed at the administrator’s directory.
During application installation, Terminal Server and Citrix both monitor
registry
changes made during the installation process and then create a “shadow”
registry key. In this case the user registry entries of the administrator. This
shadow key mirrors the application’s HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive
entries. The shadow key for WS_FTP is located under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal
Server\Install\Software\Ipswitch\WS_FTP
When a client starts WS_FTP, the server checks to see if the user’s
HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive is current, and populates the WS_FTP
registry entries if needed. If the user’s HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry is
populated with the administrator’s entries, WS_FTP will not execute correctly.
The recommended solution for this problem is to delete the shadow registry
entries for WS_FTP. This will prevent the administrator’s settings from being
placed in the each client’s user registry settings. The server will not attempt
to
populate the client user’s HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive if the shadow
registry entries don’t exist for WS_FTP. WS_FTP is designed to check for and
create (if necessary) the correct user registry settings and their corresponding
directories. So it will create the missing registry entries and directories.
The second requirement for a successful deployment of WS_FTP in a Citrix or
Terminal Server environment is to add or change a registry entry to enable
multiple instances of WS_FTP. The registry value that needs to change is
located at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Ipswitch\WS_FTP\AllowMultipleInstances
This value needs to be set to 1.
Document #: WS-20071128-MB01.htm
Revision Date: 07/22/09