Help with ThinXP

[cookie_monster]

Thin XP: This software turns XP into a thin client by replacing the Windows shell so it boots straight to a Citrix desktop.

ThinXP Documentation


I've been playing with ThinXP on some of our 'XP Home' wireless netbooks to make them wireless Citrix clients and it's fantastic but i've encountered one small problem. The program only runs the ThinXP shell (no explorer) so I can't launch any other apps, this includes the function key apps so the users can't control volume or the brightness keys.
I have managed to get around this by making ThinXP run a batch file at startup instead of PN Agent this batch file launches the PN Agent and then launches the function keys. Everything now works but now the next problem, at logoff ThinXP runs this batch file again and as the programs are already running it pauses with the cmd prompt showing and won't continue.

So far I have two ideas to try:

1. ThinXP replaces HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell\Explorer.exe with ThinXP.exe as I assume explorer.exe runs the user 'run' regeistry key this is why user app aren't launching so is there a way to make ThinXP run this? or would the function keys work if loaded by the system at bootup? I'll look into that.

2. Make the batch file check to see if the programs are running and skip them if they are, this might not be possible with batch files and might require a VB script so i'll need to think about that or post in the appropriate forum.

Anyone else have a better idea to get this to work?

Thanks for any ideas.

[mac_shinobi]

not sure if this helps and it's not related to the thin xp etc but what about a linux installation that looks like windows ie lindows or inspire or w/e its called along with opensource apps ie open office, firefox etc

[cookie_monster]

not sure if this helps and it's not related to the thin xp etc but what about a linux installation that looks like windows ie lindows or inspire or w/e its called along with opensource apps ie open office, firefox etc

I've looked into a few Linux distros in the past and have run into probs with wireless keyrings and so on, we don't need apps on board as they'll be thin clients and i'll then have to faff around locking it down like I did with our wired Debian thin clients.
As the ThinXP software is so simple and everyone here is familiar with XP i'd rather stick with that if I can just get around this one issue it will be perfect.

Cheers.

[jamesreedersmith]

Can thin XP be used as a normal thin client to a normal terminal server not a citrix box

[cookie_monster]

Can thin XP be used as a normal thin client to a normal terminal server not a citrix box

Give it a try you can specify the program to launch as the shell, if you point it to the RDP client it might work but without as many options.

[cookie_monster]

After a bit of faff in another thread I got it working. A batch file now launches the pnagent and the function keys. Nice little app.

tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq tray.exe" /FO CSV > search.log 
 
FOR /F %%A IN (search.log) DO IF %%~zA EQU 0 GOTO end 
 
"C:\Program Files\Citrix\ICA Client\pn.exe" /APP "Desktop"

start "" "C:\Program Files\Hotkey Utility\tray.exe"

:end 
 
del search.log

[cookie_monster]

I had a quick go earlier and it seemed to work fine with the mstsc (RDP) client.