Language switching problem with Server 2008 R2 RemoteApp
- [sorry for the formatting which was lost at the point of submitting this to the forum]
Hi All,
In a few words: language switching in any published RemoteApp works but more often doesn't work in an arbitrary way .
Below is a very detailed description.
All is setup up in an old (i.e. working smoothly) domain environment:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 build 7600 with English/Hebrew keyboard, serving as both RDS and Licensing server, no other roles;
- No strange problems noticed on the server side;
- All recommended updates for the server installed;
- 16 RDS 2008 R2 CALs installed “per user”;
- Office 2003 hebrew standard installed;
- Office applications and Wordpad published as RemoteApp programs;
- Windows XP SP3 Hebrew/English client PCs with SP3;
- All users of RemoteApp are configured in exactly the same way with the same permissions and group membership and are domain users in the same domain as the RDS2;
- Wordpad as RemoteApp has the same problem so the problem is not at all specific to the Office.
I can report the following observations after extensively playing with different options in order to get Hebrew/English keyboard switching to work:- No RDS user ever got floating (or any other) keyboard switch at the first use of the RemoteApp;
- Some users got floating keyboard switch after many operations of opening and closing RemoteApps and being reset on the server;
- No clear reason for why some users got the switch while others didn’t;
- Client XP PC: localized or not doesn’t make any difference to the problem, as well as latest updates;
- When switch appears for a specific user on one PC the switch may persist on that PC after session reset on server for that user;
- When switch appears for a specific user on one PC the switch may persist if the user is run on another PC;
- Sometimes user that already got the switch on one PC wouldn’t get it on another PC;
- Sometimes user that already got the switch will later not get it on the same PC;
- On the same PC some users might get the switch while others won’t;
- Permissions of domain admin or local admin have no consistent effect on users as far as switching is concerned;
- New RDC 7.0 for XP has no consistent effect on the problem as far as switching is concerned;
- No other client except for XP is of any interest at this point of time.
Local MS support refused to help requiring partnership or SA as a prerequisite.
I already met a colleague with the same problem which makes me think I'm not dealing with something totally stupid...I'll be very grateful for any help!
Answers
- Hi,
We are trying to figure out if there is any connection for the failing scenarios. So, can you please select a user/session where the language bar does not show up, and post the responses to my questions above? We do not seem to be able to reproduce the problem, so we are trying to rebuild the problem scenario based on your inputs.
"On the same client PC you may have language switching for one remote user and not have it for another remote user "- Please note that this may be possible if the 2nd user's profile for some reason does not have multiple languages set up on the server, or this setting is lost in a remote session.
Therefore, rephrasing my questions, it would be a great help if you could pick up any 1 failure case(even if it is just one-off and not consistent) and let us know the following:
- do you see both English keyboard and the hebrew keyboards (intl.cpl->keyboards and languages->change keyboards), or do you only see English?
- what happens if you add hebrew/another language here now, while in the remote session. Does the LB show up?
- does the same remote user get the language bar consistently if he starts a remote desktop instead of a remote App session.
Your inputs would be helpful in our troubleshooting this as soon as possible.
Thank you,
Debaprajna.- Marked As Answer byLionel Chen - MSFTMSFT, ModeratorFriday, November 27, 2009 8:30 AM
All Replies
- Thanks for bringing this to our attention! One quick question that will help us narrow this down. Do you see this only with RemoteApp or also with regular remote desktop sessions?
- I have almost the identical situation. When running Word or Wordpad as a RemoteApp, i cannot switch languages. If i run the same apps via regular remote desktop session i can switch between English and Hebrew as expected. Any suggestions would be appreciated. --Bob
Can you please try a quick check to determine if the languages are still available in the remote session?
Type Ctrl + alt+end->task manager->new task->intl.cpl. This should show the keyboard settings in the remote session.
Does this show all the languages set on the server?
Also, can you please let us know the exact configuration, viz.:
languages available on the server: (hebrew/english?)
default language on the server.
languages available on the client
default language on the client.
From your description, it appears that it doesnt matter what the configurations are, but it would be easier to troubleshoot if we were checking on as close a setting as possible.
Thank you.
Debaprajna.Q:
Can you please try a quick check to determine if the languages are still available in the remote session?
Type Ctrl + alt+end->task manager->new task->intl.cpl. This should show the keyboard settings in the remote session.
Does this show all the languages set on the server?A: No, only English. On the server English is the default and Hebrew is the second language.
Q:
Also, can you please let us know the exact configuration, viz.:
languages available on the server: (hebrew/english?)
default language on the server.
languages available on the client
default language on the client.A: Some computers had Hebrew as second and some as the default language.
- I didn't run regular remote desktops. But I'll try.
- Thanks for trying this out. I am possibly missing something in what you state in the underlined section.
Q:
Can you please try a quick check to determine if the languages are still available in the remote session?
Type Ctrl + alt+end->task manager->new task->intl.cpl. This should show the keyboard settings in the remote session.
Does this show all the languages set on the server?A: No, only English. On the server English is the default and Hebrew is the second language
So, rephrasing my question, do you see both English keyboard and the hebrew keyboards (intl.cpl->keyboards and languages->change keyboards), or do you only see English?
If you see both, and the language bar still doesn't show, that is a problem.
If you see only english, and the client default is also english, the language bar will not show by design. The client needs to have a different default language if the server default is english(and the server does not have any other input language) for the LB to show.
In case you see only english, as a test, please try adding the hebrew keyboard inside the remote session, and confirm if the LB shows up.
If for the same user, the console session shows 2 different keyboards, but the remote session shows only one, then we would need to look at that also.
Also, it would be interesting to know the results of trying this on remote desktops.
Thanks,
Debaprajna.- Marked As Answer byLionel Chen - MSFTMSFT, ModeratorFriday, November 13, 2009 8:28 AM
- Unmarked As Answer bybionX Tuesday, November 17, 2009 11:30 AM
- It seems like you are missing the point of my original posting. The behavior of RemoteApps is not a consistent one. On the same client PC you may have language switching for one remote user and not have it for another remote user . I described the phenomenon carefully and in great detail in the original posting and I'm really surprised to see your previous message marked as Answer by the Moderator while there is not a hint as to the problem resolution there...
The problem is there and I wonder if there is a single RDS installation with similar configuration that has no language switching problem... - Hi,
We are trying to figure out if there is any connection for the failing scenarios. So, can you please select a user/session where the language bar does not show up, and post the responses to my questions above? We do not seem to be able to reproduce the problem, so we are trying to rebuild the problem scenario based on your inputs.
"On the same client PC you may have language switching for one remote user and not have it for another remote user "- Please note that this may be possible if the 2nd user's profile for some reason does not have multiple languages set up on the server, or this setting is lost in a remote session.
Therefore, rephrasing my questions, it would be a great help if you could pick up any 1 failure case(even if it is just one-off and not consistent) and let us know the following:
- do you see both English keyboard and the hebrew keyboards (intl.cpl->keyboards and languages->change keyboards), or do you only see English?
- what happens if you add hebrew/another language here now, while in the remote session. Does the LB show up?
- does the same remote user get the language bar consistently if he starts a remote desktop instead of a remote App session.
Your inputs would be helpful in our troubleshooting this as soon as possible.
Thank you,
Debaprajna.- Marked As Answer byLionel Chen - MSFTMSFT, ModeratorFriday, November 27, 2009 8:30 AM
