Manage Published Applications

Publishing an application

Publishing an application has been discussed earlier in this guide in the following sections:

• Publishing an Application from an RD Session Host
• Publishing an Application from a Guest VM
• Publishing an Application from a Remote PC

Configuring a published application

When publishing an application using a wizard, you specify multiple application parameters such as name, executable path, etc. You can modify these options after the application has been published.

To modify a published application:

1. In the RAS Console, select the Publishing category and then select the application in the Published Resources tree.
2. Use the tabs in the right pane to change the application options as described in the following subsections.

Publish from — configuring from which servers the application is published

You can specify RD Session Hosts from which an application is published on the Publish From tab. The following options are available:

• All Servers in Site. The application will be published from all servers on which it is installed.
• Server Groups. Select this option and then select one or more RD Session Host groups from which the application should be published.
• Individual Servers. Select this option and then select one or more individual RD Session Hosts.

Application — configuring application and server settings

The Application tab displays application- and server-specific settings.

You can modify the basic application settings (name, description, etc.) as needed. Select the Start automatically when user logs on option to start an application as soon as a user logs on. This option works on desktop versions of Parallels Client only.

The Server Settings section contains server-specific options that you can configure. If an application was published from multiple servers, the Server(s) drop-down list can be used to select individual servers and set Target, Start in, and Parameters values for a particular server. As an example, you should do this when different servers have the application installed in different folders, so that the Target and Start in field values would be valid on each server.

To save the currently displayed server settings as default, click the Save as Default Settings button. To apply the saved default settings to a server, click the Use Default Settings button. These two buttons give you the flexibility of using custom settings or defaults in different server configuration scenarios. Please note that when you save settings as default, Parallels RAS will check if this Site has applications with per-server settings and will display a message asking if you would like those servers to use the new default settings. If you say, "No", the servers will keep their unique settings. The defaults will still be saved.

To verify that the specified Target and Start In values are correct for all servers, click the Verify Target(s) button. The Target Verifier dialog opens listing each server and the verification status in the Progress column. If the application is installed at a different path on one of the servers, the Progress column will indicate an error. In such a case, close the Target Verifier dialog and then select the server in the Server(s) drop-down list. Specify new values in the Target, Start In, and (if necessary) Parameters fields specific for that server. Click Apply to save your changes.

The Target Verifier dialog can also be used to verify the targets for all published applications at once. To do so, right-click Published Resources (the root node of the Published Resources tree) and then click Verify Target(s) in the context menu. This time, the Target Verifier dialog will contain all published applications and their verification status.

The Quick Keypad section allows you to select a Quick Keypad template that should be assigned to this application. The Quick Keypads link below the drop-down list takes you to the Quick Keypad category in the console where you can configure Quick Keypad templates. If you don't see the Quick Keypad section, try to maximize the console window. For more information, please see the Quick Keypad section.

To replicate the currently selected application settings to all sites, select the Replicate settings option in the lower right-hand corner. This will make the default application settings on every Site to be the same as the displayed settings. If some of the servers on other sites use server-specific settings (not defaults), you will see a message asking if you would like those servers to use the default settings. If you select "No", the servers will keep their unique settings. The default settings will still be synchronized with the selected application settings.

Filtering

Filtering is comprehensively described in the Using Filtering Rules.

Shortcuts — configuring shortcut options for a published application

Click the Shortcuts tab to enable the creation of the application shortcut on the user’s desktop and in the Start and Auto Start folders. When the Auto Start option is selected, the application will start automatically on computer startup. To use Site default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. You can view or modify Site defaults by clicking the Site Defaults link. See Site Defaults (Publishing) for more info.

Note: Shortcuts are not available on all operating systems.

File extension — configuring file extension associations

To modify file extension association for a particular published application, click the File Extensions tab.

To add, remove, or modify an entry, select the Associate File Extensions option. To add a new extension to the list, click Add in the Tasks drop-down menu (or click the + icon) and specify the desired extension.

To modify an existing association, highlight the extension and click Properties in the Tasks drop down menu (or double-click the Parameters column) and type the parameter.

Licensing — configuring licensing options for published applications

Click the Licensing tab to configure the following licensing options:

• Disable session sharing. If this option is enabled, it allows you to isolate the published application to one session. Therefore if the same application is launched twice, the two instances of the application will run in two isolated sessions.
• Allow users to start only one instance of the application. If this option is enabled, a user can only launch a single instance of the application.
• Concurrent Licenses. Use this option to specify the maximum number of concurrent instances the application can run. E.g. if the license of the application allows you to only run 10 instances of the application, set the Concurrent licenses option to 10 so once such limit is reached, other users cannot initiate other instances.
• If limit is exceeded. From this drop down menu you can specify what action should the Parallels RAS take in case any of the above licensing configured limits are exceeded.

To use Site default settings, select the Inherit default settings option. You can view or modify the default settings by clicking the Site Defaults link. See Site Defaults (Publishing) for more info.

Display — configuring display settings for a published application

On the Display tab, you can configure the following options:

• Wait until all RAS Universal Printers are redirected before showing the application. Enable this option to wait for printers to be redirected before the application is loaded. You can also specify the maximum wait time (in seconds) for the Universal Printers to be redirected. Please note that redirecting a printer may take some time. To avoid confusion, a progress bar is shown to the user while the printers are being redirected.
• Color Depth, Resolution, Width, Height. Select the desired display settings for the application.
• Start the application as maximized when using mobile clients. This option applies only to Parallels Client running on mobile devices. When the option is selected, the application will start on a mobile device in the maximized state. This gives users the best experience while working with a remote application. This option gives the RAS administrator an easy way to always maximize an application without taking any additional steps.

Note that to specify custom display values, the Inherit default settings checkbox must be cleared; otherwise Site defaults settings are used. To view and modify Site defaults, click the Site Defaults link. See Site Defaults (Publishing) for more info.