Microsoft Access 2013 on Server 2008 R2 SP 1 remote access through XenDesktop Screen Freeze

Solution

New Solution:

"Legacy Graphics Mode" is an option is Citrix Policy. Enabling this for the desktop group will stop Access from freezing, and doesn't break 'browse' 'save-as' etc. Unsure exactly what legacy graphics mode does, still trying to get someone to answer that for me, or why it doesn't work in the first place, but this is a less bad work around.

Appears to be some visual theme here that messes up the ICA connection. The "fix" - probably more of a workaround - is to run the program in compatibility mode (don't forget to set for all users). You'll want to select compatibility mode for windows 7 + disable visual themes.

Edit: People on Citrix forums claim that this effects office 2010 as well; I can't confirm that it does, or that this fix works for 2010 if the problem does exist, but there you go.

Warning: This workaround has been found to cause some other undesirable behavior. Notably: "browse" buttons will no longer launch the file browser to allow you to select files. This effects a number of things such as the "save as..." feature and "import from (excel/text/etc)" wizards. This is arguably less detrimental than the screen freeze but please be aware.

The Problem / Full story

As you may guess from the title, this is an insanely specific bug that we ran into in one of our labs. Students were trying to use MS Access (because we teach that for some reason) and their sessions kept on locking up. Here's the sequence of events:

Users log into Wyse Xenith 2 thin clients connecting to a 2008 R2 SP 1 terminal server type environment through XenDesktop (Citrix seems to refer to it as ServerOS connection, or Shared Published Desktops). This works great.

Users then open Access and everything seems to be working fine, but when they try to open a table in design view the screen freezes after a few seconds. At this point the machine is completely unresponsive, the mouse still moves, but no mouse clicks or keystrokes appear to have any effect.

I say "appear to have any effect" because they actually do the user just can't see them. If I use lanschool to remotely watch/control the user's session I can see them clicking around and typing things, and when I control I can interact with the session just fine; The user cannot see anything changing on the screen. It's totally bizarre. 

The only way I've found to restore functionality is to remotely log the user off so they could log in again. 

The really weird thing is that none of the factors individually cause the problem. Using Access on the same server but over remote desktop (RDP) works just fine. Using Access on a windows 7 machine over xendesktop works just fine. No other program I've used on the server over XenDesktop has exhibited this behavior.

I figured out the workaround above pretty much by trial and error. Then figured out the correct solution from citrix forums; Yay citrix forums!

"Display" pane for SAP analysis for Microsoft Excel 1.4 Doesn't open.

I've been having ever so much fun getting pre-office 2013 add-ins to work in Excel 2013. For the most part adding them to the XLSTART folder in the office install directory (so they load automatically with excel) has fixed the problem. This only really works with XLA/XLAM type add-ins though. The last couple of days I've been working with one that launches via an exe and shows in excel as a .dll.

The add-in is "Analysis for Microsoft Excel" version 1.4, it's an add-in associated with SAP. The add-in is launched via an executable (BiSharedAddinLauncher.exe) and shows up in excel > file > optionas > add-ins> as a .dll (bishared07addinshim.dll).

The Short Version

The problem ended up being the start page (the new office 2013 thing that displays a bunch of templates and adds extra clicks before you can actually get work done). Disabling the start page (through group policy, you'll have to download/"install" the office 2013 ADMX files from microsoft) allowed the add-in to load properly.

The Long Version

So when we tried to launch the add-in on most computers (worked on some, which was weird) we would see the add-in load, and the appropriate tab on the ribbon would appear. Most functions would also work. However trying to open the "Display" pane didn't work. The icon would light-up like it was open, but the panel would never show up. 

This problem occurred on windows 7 x86 with office 2013 x86 and on a windows 2008R2 with office 2013 x86 running RDS. 

After much reinstalling (including the entire office suite) I finally found that launching the add-in once excel was already open (file > options > add-ins > com add-ins > go ) worked. This suggested that, for whatever reason, the add-in was not fully loaded when it was launched at the same time as excel. Obviously, adding the add-in in this manor each time you wanted to use it would be much less convenient that clicking the executable from the start menu. 

On a whim, a whim fueled mostly by my hate of the start page, I decided to disable the start page and low-and-behold the problem stopped. The add-in and all of its features work like they're supposed to. I can't imagine why the start page in excel would keep an add-in from loading properly. 

Oh, on a semi-related note, the "excel is not the current default program for all spreadsheet files" dialog also blocks add-ins from loading; blocks them entirely, they never load, you have to click  "don't show this again" and re-launch the add-in to get around it.