Preparing the RES Wisdom Agent for Cloning

When you are using RES Wisdom as a management and deployment tool, you know that it is set up to use Agents on the Servers/Workstations/Thin Clients you want to manage. You can use the RES Wisdom Management Console to remotely install the Agent on the target device. A methode that still requires manual actions

Even when you use the built in Prepare Agent for Image option in the RES Wisdom Console, the Agent will be linked to the unique GUID of the Dispatcher (or Management Console) that initiated the task.

Luckily I found a new option to be more flexible for the preparation of the RES Wisdom Agent to be used with VM Templates or other Imaged OS solutions.

I found this great article on the internet RG017 RES Wisdom – Tips & Tricks that explained another option that abled you to enter a RES Wisdom Environment name instead of the unique GUID.

All it takes is a:

• Prepared4Embedded registry key
• Clearing of the Agent WUID registry keys

The Prepared4Embedded needs to contain the RES Wisdom environment name which can be found in the RES Wisdom Management Console (Infrastructure – Datastore – Settings – Global Settings => Environment name) and is by default a combination of the database name and servername. You can use the wildcard * to specify only a part of the Environment name (in case the servername might vary while the database name is always the same).

As each RES Wisdom Agent uses a unique identifier, called a WUID, to register itself with the dispatcher, you’ll need to clear the WUID registry keys on the Agent before you image or clone the machine. When the Agent Service is started, it will look for it’s WUID in the registry. If the key holds an empty string a new (random) WUID will be generated. This way systems built from the same image or clone will all have a uniquely generated WUID and register themselves as a new Agent with the dispatcher. Else you might just end up with only one visible Agent in the RES Wisdom dispatcher that is linked to multiple machines with the same WUID and not know which job will start on which Agent.

An example of the registry keys that were used on a 64-bits Windows Server 2008 is:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WUID]
@=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\RES\WISDOM\Agent]
"Prepared4Embedded"="$[environment_name]"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\RES\WISDOM\Preferences]
"WUID"=""

Notice how there are 2 keys on different locations in the registry that hold the WUID of the RES Wisdom Agent.

Esther Barthel

Solutions Architect at cognition IT

Esther has been working in different roles and functions as an IT consultant ever since she finished her Masters degree in Computer Science in 1997. She has worked as a web developer, database administrator, and server administrator until she discovered how Server-Based Computing ( SBC ) combined servers, desktops, and user experience in one solution. Esther has been specializing in virtualization solutions such as SBC, VDI, application, and server virtualization for over eight years now and is currently working as a Senior Consultant at PepperByte, where she designs and implements Citrix® solutions for both small-business and large-enterprise infrastructures scaling from 100 to 15,000 users.
In january 2014 her first book Citrix XenApp 6.5 Expert Cookbook was published by Packt Publishing.

Esther is awarded as a Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) from 2015 - 2017.
Esther is awarded as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in 2017.

Esther is a Citrix Certified Expert – Virtualization (CCE-V), Citrix Certified Professional – Mobility (CCP-M), Citrix Certified Professional – Networking (CCP-N) and RES Software Certified Professional (RCP).