USB Redirection - Slow logon

in AppPortal, under local resources, do you have Disk Drives and USB Devices enabled?

Hi,

I only have USB devices checked...along with clipboard and smartcards, and I'm using the Web Connector not the app portal.

...

I've still got this issue... Further investgation shows this event being logged in the Virtual USB Hub log on the Terminal Server...

Here a user logs onto TS into session id 3

24-Aug-2011 15:10:13 - 380:1836 - USBWTSSessionListener::ThreadProc failed to open the session System Event (sessionName=Global\USBGlobalWTSSystemEvent0) *** !!!

24-Aug-2011 15:10:13 - 380:1836 - SETTING Global\USBGlobalWTSSystemEvent1!!!

24-Aug-2011 15:10:13 - 380:1836 - USBWTSSessionListener::ThreadProc failed to open the session System Event (sessionName=Global\USBGlobalWTSSystemEvent3) *** !!!

24-Aug-2011 15:10:14 - 380:1836 - USBWTSSessionListener::ThreadProc failed to open the session System Event (sessionName=Global\USBGlobalWTSSystemEvent0) *** !!!

24-Aug-2011 15:10:14 - 380:1836 - SETTING Global\USBGlobalWTSSystemEvent1!!!

24-Aug-2011 15:10:14 - 380:1836 - USBWTSSessionListener::ThreadProc failed to open the session System Event (sessionName=Global\USBGlobalWTSSystemEvent3) *** !!!

Any further ideas before I go to support?

Hi Caleb,

Are the servers configured in Remote Desktop for Administration mode or full Windows Terminal Services?

Have you installed the vWorkspace Terminal Server features on the servers or just the PNtools components?

The reason I am checking is that we do not support USB redirection for Mass Storage Devices on vWorkspace Terminal Servers.

Regards

David

Hi Caleb,

In your original post you mention Windows 2003 R2 Terminal Servers, are these what the clients are connecting to with the USB device redirection enabled? Are these Terminal Servers or Windows Servers configured as VDI's with PNtools installed?

What version of the vWorkspace client are you using?

Regards

David

Okay...

These are configured in full Terminal Services mode and have the vWorkspace Terminal Server features installed.

Shame you don't support it as it does work really well except the slow logon...

Just to add, when installing the PNTools I do get this error.

Quest Tools for the Managed Desktop -- Error 1923.Service Quest Terminal Services Helper Service(Quest Terminal Services Helper Service) could not be installed.  Verify that you have sufficient privileges to install system services.

I do install the PNTools as a local administrator permissions.

Kind regards, Caleb

1. Do not install PNtools on the terminal server

2. Enable "Disk Drives" in the AppPortal confiuguration, not "USB Devices", this will map your drives, including usb connected drives.

Kelly

Hi David,

These are Terminal Servers, running the PNTools from the 7.2 MR1 Package.

The Clients are Windows 7 32bit running 7.2.303.468

Kind regards,

Caleb

Okay... I've tried that on another Terminal Server and indeed this does work, but not how I'd like.

I'm also assuming that other USB devices, scanners/barcode readers etc cannot be redirected to a Terminal Server?

Hi Caleb,

You are correct, we are not able to redirect devices such as scanners/barcode readers when using a Terminal Server connection. This type of USB device redirection is only available for VDI connections. The USB-IT components on a vWorkspace TS allow users to connect some models of Blackberry/Palm devices to the client PC and then synch these against TS hosted applications.

What is your concern regarding the redirected drives option that Kelly suggested?

David

Firstly, apologies for the late reply...

Okay the problem I have is we're the NHS and shoddy 3rd party clinical software is in the blood here... One piece of 'software' reads data from an dictaphone and then uploads this to a server ready for transcription. When used on a fat client, or a Terminal Server with USB device redirection, it does work, albeit with the slow logon for the TS. Using the directed drives feature it doesn't...

I guess this is a local applciation issue but I doubt the vendor/developer knows much or would be keen to fix as in my opinion, they are useless...

I do have an issue with local scanners which will not work with TS but I can work around that issue as that's a small client base, whereas the dictaphone is the majority of our clinical machines.

Hello Caleb,

Just to confirm the process, I assume from your description that the Dictaphone data is stored on the USB device and that this drive is not found when trying to upload it to the server, when using drive redirection?

Aside from the application issue are you able to read/write data from the USB device via the redirected drive when in Windows Explorer, is the device connected to the session correctly?

If the answers to the above are both yes then I believe the best way forward would be to setup a webex session with you to take a further look. If you would like us do this can I ask you to open a support case so that we can discuss this further offline.

Regards

David

Hi Caleb,

The issue with a terminal server is that USB devices appear in the global name space, that is they are visible to everyone logged on to the terminal server. This doesn't cause a problem with a single user terminal services session (VDI) but the lack of per-session isolation on a terminal server raises some ugly security concerns.

We used to support a limited USB redirection capability for terminal services, but it was for specific devices (Palm etc) that had custom drivers at both ends (USB > virtual channel > TS). That's pretty much the only way to session-isolate USB devices and there are just too many USB devices out there now to make this a viable way to go.

USB redirection on terminal servcies is almost a holy grail, but except for specific devices which have a custom driver both on the client and on the terminal server, no one has a full fledged multi-device multi-user USB redirection capability. It could be done if you could replace Microsoft's USB drivers with something that was session aware, but that simply isn't viable with Microsoft terminal services (RDSH).

But that doesn't automatically mean that USB redirection can't happen. An example is USB smartcards that are handled by a higher level driver. Another example is RemoteScan which was recently acquired by Quest. It does

a fine job of redirecting USB devices (scanners, webcams etc) by using higher level (WIA and TWAIN) redirection. So depending on the type of USB device, it might be possible to do what you want.

Also, it's always been possible to redirect USB mass storage devices into an RDP session, provided the mass storage device was plugged in when the session was started. This obviously wasn't terribly useful if the user plugged the device in while the session was active, because they'd need to log off and back on again. That at least has improved with RDP 7.x where you can dynamically insert storage devices and have them appear in your session (Local devices and resources > more > drives > drives that I plug in later).

There are some other possibilities depending on the type of USB device but I hope this kind of summarises things for you.

regards,

Rick

Rick,

I don't mean to be rude on Caleb's thread, but since you are so knowledgeable about USB redirection, could you offer some insight to this issue? http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/virtualization/vworkspace/f/4827/t/19554800

It would be a huge help. Thank you!