SIMS - RemoteApp - Minimises on opening

[mullet_man]

Hi all,

 

Has anyone experienced any issues with SIMS as a remoteapp? Am finding that after logging in SIMS loads but minimised. Sometimes clicking the icon in the taskbar brings SIMS on but not always is it usable you have to double click the application bar for it to go full screen and then the app then becomes usable.

 

The shortcut is pointing to pulsar.exe and not SIMSload. Other remote apps seem to load fine.

 

Any ideas?

 

thanks.

[HereIGoAgain2601]

Yes we have this issue never got to the bottom of it. Upon testing it did appear to be most prevalent on high resolution displays. I contacted capita who offered no help whatsoever! Would be interested to know if anyone else has coke across this or solved it.

[mullet_man]

Yes we have this issue never got to the bottom of it. Upon testing it did appear to be most prevalent on high resolution displays. I contacted capita who offered no help whatsoever! Would be interested to know if anyone else has coke across this or solved it.

 

Am glad it's not just me then, having previously used Citrix which worked fine am not sure if this is a 2016 thing? Be interested to know if others have similar issue or fixed it like you say.

[Tefters]

It’s on normal desktops too, I’ve had the issue on desktop PC’s with hi res, mine does it sporadically 1440p

[HereIGoAgain2601]

We saw the issue in 2012 R2 as well so it's not a Server 16 problem. There must be a resolution as Capita are really pushing their hosted SIMS / FMS and that uses Microsoft Remote Desktop on 2012 R2 hosts

[Steve21]

Is this on Win7 still by any chance? There was a hotfix a long time ago about it opening up behind other windows. Might be worth a shot on one if so to test it. (it is an old hotfix so no idea if it was integrated into normal updates etc nowadays or not)

 

Haven't had the problem at all with SIMs on RemoteApps but then we don't particularly force high res either

 

Steve

[mullet_man]

Is this on Win7 still by any chance? There was a hotfix a long time ago about it opening up behind other windows. Might be worth a shot on one if so to test it. (it is an old hotfix so no idea if it was integrated into normal updates etc nowadays or not)

 

Haven't had the problem at all with SIMs on RemoteApps but then we don't particularly force high res either

 

Steve

 

So far I've only been testing on Windows 10 - most of the tests will have been on higher res's I guess.

 

We've still got a few Win 7 machines floating around so I could test to see if it's a W7 or W10 issue. Am wondering if the hotfix is available for Windows 10.

[ChrisMiles]

I had this issue too, and fixed it by wrapping the pulsar exe in a bootstapping executable with a hidden window. The issue seemed to revolve around the SIMS window being the first to open. You can try it if you want, I've attached it here. Set your remote app to open this exe instead of pulsar.exe and pass the path to pulsar.exe as an argument to this exe. Worked for us for years. Don't blame me if it blows up your computer and runs off with your car keys though!

 

On a completely new Server 2016 build we didn't seem to need this anymore though, but you might as well try it! Also bear in mind that if SIMS goes non-responsive in RemoteApp it can stop windows coming up properly, you can increase the timeout for non-responsive apps with a registry setting on the host.

 

Milesoft.SIMS.Bootstrap.zip

Edited November 14, 2017 by ChrisMiles

[HereIGoAgain2601]

Thanks for this we will try and see if it solves it for us much appreciated

[mullet_man]

I had this issue too, and fixed it by wrapping the pulsar exe in a bootstapping executable with a hidden window. The issue seemed to revolve around the SIMS window being the first to open. You can try it if you want, I've attached it here. Set your remote app to open this exe instead of pulsar.exe and pass the path to pulsar.exe as an argument to this exe. Worked for us for years. Don't blame me if it blows up your computer and runs off with your car keys though!

 

On a completely new Server 2016 build we didn't seem to need this anymore though, but you might as well try it! Also bear in mind that if SIMS goes non-responsive in RemoteApp it can stop windows coming up properly, you can increase the timeout for non-responsive apps with a registry setting on the host.

 

[ATTACH]46209[/ATTACH]

 

Thanks Chris - I’ll check this out and let you know if it works.

 

I’ve found that if i open Sims as a remote app on a pc in school it will load minimised and be unresponsive until you fiddle with app bar but opening externally just minimises but the app is responsive.

 

But I’ll Give your wrapper a try. Thanks

[mullet_man]

I had this issue too, and fixed it by wrapping the pulsar exe in a bootstapping executable with a hidden window. The issue seemed to revolve around the SIMS window being the first to open. You can try it if you want, I've attached it here. Set your remote app to open this exe instead of pulsar.exe and pass the path to pulsar.exe as an argument to this exe. Worked for us for years. Don't blame me if it blows up your computer and runs off with your car keys though!

 

On a completely new Server 2016 build we didn't seem to need this anymore though, but you might as well try it! Also bear in mind that if SIMS goes non-responsive in RemoteApp it can stop windows coming up properly, you can increase the timeout for non-responsive apps with a registry setting on the host.

 

[ATTACH]46209[/ATTACH]

 

Chris,

 

Doesn't seem to be working for me, although am guessing I've set it up wrong?!?

 

So should the target should be like this?

 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net\Milesoft.SIMS.Bootstrap.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net\Pulsar.exe"

 

cheers

[HereIGoAgain2601]

Chris,

 

I managed to get it to work for us - pass the argument to the remote app when configuring the deployment.

However, we are still having issues. The screen is showing all white and dragging around the top bar works fine. Curious as to why this is happening!

Do you require users to logon to SIMS or have it use SSO? Trying to work out what it could be.

 

Thanks

[ChrisMiles]

We use SSO here, sorry it didn't help I'd love to help more as I did have the same issues. So with the bootstrapper app, you can see the window now, but it's all white? Hmm, does the SIMS/Capita splash screen show OK prior to the main window opening? Also, do you use increased DPI settings in windows? What version of windows are the clients running? Is the RDS host a physical machine or a VM? What hypervisor? Any hardware graphics involved? Edited November 15, 2017 by ChrisMiles

[HereIGoAgain2601]

We don't use SSO so perhaps that could be it. We get the dialog box to login and then the splash screen OK. It's just the SIMS home / dashboard that doesn't seem to work it goes all white. We aren't using any DPI in Windows, and are running Windows 10 1703. Currently testing on a physical machine that we are intending to use remote app with. Just using the onboard graphics on the host. Have tried it on VMWare hypervisor previously and had the same issues

[mullet_man]

Chris,

 

I managed to get it to work for us - pass the argument to the remote app when configuring the deployment.

However, we are still having issues. The screen is showing all white and dragging around the top bar works fine. Curious as to why this is happening!

Do you require users to logon to SIMS or have it use SSO? Trying to work out what it could be.

 

Thanks

 

 

We require logins to SIMS not using SSO.

 

How do I configure the deployment?

 

 

This is all I can do, I can't edit the command line?

[ChrisMiles]

We require logins to SIMS not using SSO.

 

How do I configure the deployment?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46233[/ATTACH]

 

This is all I can do, I can't edit the command line?

 

You just need to add the path to pulsar in the Parameters section.

[ChrisMiles]

We don't use SSO so perhaps that could be it. We get the dialog box to login and then the splash screen OK. It's just the SIMS home / dashboard that doesn't seem to work it goes all white. We aren't using any DPI in Windows, and are running Windows 10 1703. Currently testing on a physical machine that we are intending to use remote app with. Just using the onboard graphics on the host. Have tried it on VMWare hypervisor previously and had the same issues

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46231[/ATTACH]

 

Hmmmm, I have an idea, did you install the "Desktop Experience" extensions on the hosts? This caused us all sorts of issues on the old 2012 R2 servers, so I left it off this time. It doesn't allow truancy call to work properly though, but I hosted that on different servers.

Edited November 15, 2017 by ChrisMiles

[mullet_man]

We don't use SSO so perhaps that could be it. We get the dialog box to login and then the splash screen OK. It's just the SIMS home / dashboard that doesn't seem to work it goes all white. We aren't using any DPI in Windows, and are running Windows 10 1703. Currently testing on a physical machine that we are intending to use remote app with. Just using the onboard graphics on the host. Have tried it on VMWare hypervisor previously and had the same issues

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46231[/ATTACH]

 

This is what happens with us - on loading up after entering your user/pass SIMS will flash on the screen correct - full screen but then disappear minimised, opening it back up from the taskbar will show you this. Which is similar to your issue. We have to click top left for it to become available.

 

[mullet_man]

OK am getting somewhere with this problem.

 

I've found there are a few command lines for Pulsar exe.

 

One is called /START which you can use to open SIMS to a specific page, if I use /START:"HOME"

 

SIMS loads fine and doesn't go white or minimises on loading - but doesn't open the home page as I've not got the correct page selected, its a slight win I guess.

 

Anyone know a document which lists menu item names for SIMS? If we tell it to open the homepage it might work?

Edited November 21, 2017 by mullet_man

[mullet_man]

Actually scrap that above - it seemed to load perfectly in school but still wobbles at home. Still minimises after entering your login details for SIMS.

 

Does everyone who has SIMS + RemoteApp have this issue? Am sure someone has cracked it?!?

[HereIGoAgain2601]

I have logged a ticket with Capita to see if they can shed any light.. not sure how helpful they will be but I know they use remote app SIMS

[mullet_man]

I have logged a ticket with Capita to see if they can shed any light.. not sure how helpful they will be but I know they use remote app SIMS

 

Please keep me updated, am very interested to see what they say.

 

If they use RemoteApp they must have seen this issue and must have some workaround in place?!?

[mullet_man]

I have logged a ticket with Capita to see if they can shed any light.. not sure how helpful they will be but I know they use remote app SIMS

 

Any news from Capita?

 

Been playing with compatibility settings on the app to see if it makes any difference. If I change to XP SP3 it seems to load minimised but clicking the app opens fine no white box. (haven't tested at home yet)

 

The only issue is you get a UAC prompt before SIMS opens.

 

 

Obviously I need to test at home.

 

Cheers.

[HereIGoAgain2601]

Nothing helpful yet.. this was their response.. I have gone back to them.

 

In regards to the blank screen issue you are experiencing, can I ask that you ensure the user has the appropriate permissions to SIMS.

 

 

Please also check the screen resolution of the monitor as this could be causing the screen to appear as it is. Please adjust the resolution accordingly to fit your monitor

 

 

If the issue persists, can I ask that you rename the sims .net folder and redeploy the sims release to the workstation effected via Solus 3. If you are not using solus 3, please run simsapplicationsetup.exe from the setups folder to reinstall the client.

 

 

Finally, please ensure you have run full windows updates on the workstations.

[mullet_man]

Nothing helpful yet.. this was their response.. I have gone back to them.

 

In regards to the blank screen issue you are experiencing, can I ask that you ensure the user has the appropriate permissions to SIMS.

 

 

Please also check the screen resolution of the monitor as this could be causing the screen to appear as it is. Please adjust the resolution accordingly to fit your monitor

 

 

If the issue persists, can I ask that you rename the sims .net folder and redeploy the sims release to the workstation effected via Solus 3. If you are not using solus 3, please run simsapplicationsetup.exe from the setups folder to reinstall the client.

 

 

Finally, please ensure you have run full windows updates on the workstations.

 

Nothing helpful in that really. I suspect they won't be any help but you never know.