Planning for Intermediate Education in Andhra Pradesh

About Intermediate Education System in A.P.

• The Intermediate Education (also known as Higher Secondary Classes – HSC) is a two year course conducted by  Board of Intermediate Education Andhra Pradesh (BIEAP).
• The board currently offers a whole of #85 streams/courses (based on subjects you choose) that you can choose to study.
• The very common and widely known and opted streams include
  • MPC (Maths, Physics, Chemistry for Engineering),
  • BiPC (Biology, Physics and Chemistry for Doctors),
  • MEC (Maths, Economics and Commerce for Accounting professionals)
• The BIEAP controls the colleges and you can find the complete district-wise list of colleges affiliated to the BIEAP here.
• Only the registered/affiliated colleges will receive certifications from the board and only these students get eligibility for further entrance exams like EAMCET.
• There colleges run by the AP State Govt. which are affiliated to BIEAP. For your quick reference, below table liss the Govt Junior colleges in Hyderabad.
• Download: Application form for Admission in Govt. Junior Colleges or from
  Here

Planning for your Intermediate Education.

• One has to decide on the place where he/she wants to study, Hyderabad for special coaching’s?
• If it’s out of home town, plan for residential colleges
• Next to decide on the college to study, Govt, Private or Highly specialized/reputed colleges depending on your financial resources.
• For merit students, some private and reputed colleges offer free/concession-ed education
• Then to decide on stream which you would like to study this should purely come from your interest and career goal
• Then to decide on Special coaching you require for your career objective (IIT-JEE, AIEEE, BITSTAT, CA, etc,.)

Choosing your Intermediate Stream/Subjects.

• MPC:
  • The most common stream is MPC as it serves for eligible course for a broad spectrum of next level career path
  • MPC students can appear for Engineering (EAMCET) degree and for any open 10+2 positions and they achieve engineering degrees
  • MPC students can as well appear for degree courses
• BiPC
  • The BiPC students purely get into the Biology/zoology (Agri) degrees, they need to appear for EAMCET
  • The BiMPC students can get into pharmacy and bio-science degrees, they need to appear for EAMCET
• MEC
  • MEC students can’t appear for EAMCET, and have option to get into degree courses alone
  • MEC students can directly join in degree courses offered by Universities, these admissions into BCom, BBA/BCA are often 10+2 merit based and some universities conduct an entrance/eligibility test
  • After completion of degree, they can appear for The Integrated Common Entrance Test (ICET) held in Andhra Pradesh for admission to MBA and MCA courses in the state
  • Also, they can appear for COMMON ADMISSION TEST (CAT) into IIMs and pursue the MBA certification and settle at a managerial designation
  • They can also opt for Chartered Accountant degree

Fee details of Intermediate Education.

• Despite the stream/subjects you choose, on an average it costs you Rs. 7K-8K for admission in private colleges in rural areas whereas it ranges between 11K-15K in urban/Hyderabad area
• Any coaching for IIT, AIEEE, BITSTAT, etc, will incur you additional Rs. 20+K
• Residential makes it further addition of Rs. 20K
• Govt Colleges offers you all the infrastructure at minimal costs however, they are much known for not doing well in studies
• You can find a good break up of fees incur in Hyderabad colleges at the footer of this article or refer to lfjrc.com-fees page

Hyderabad Junior Colleges Contact/Seats details:

• Hyderabad College Directory
• Quick List of Intermediate Colleges in Hyderabad
• To find the latest contact information, refer to JustDial hyd

Govt. Junior Colleges in Hyderabad:

S NO	COLLEGE CODE	COLLEGE NAME & ADDRESS	CATEGORY	YEAR OF STARTING
1	22048	GJC, ALIYA,GUNFOUNDRY, HYDERABAD	Government	1972-1973
2	22052	GOVT JR COLL FOR BOYS NAMPALLY	Government	1969-1970
3	22066	BABU JAGAJEEVAN RAM GOVT JR COLLEGE [G]	Government	1974-1975
4	22173	MOULANA AZAD MEMORIALGOVTMODELJ/C/G,NAMPALLY	Government	1969-1970
5	22174	GOVT MAHABOOBIA JR COLL(G) GUNFOUNDRY	Government	1982-1983
6	22181	MAM GOVT MODEL JR. COLL (UM) GIRLS,NAMPALLY	Government	2006-2007
7	22027	KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA JR COLLEGE, HYDERABAD	Govt.of India	2002-2003
8	27027	GOVT JUNIOR COLLEGE KACHIGUDA	Government	1970-1971
9	27073	VIVEKANANDA GOVT COLLEGE VIDYANAGAR	Government	1981-1982
10	27136	GOVT CITY JR COLLEGE B/H HIGHCOURT	Government	1981-1982
11	27094	NEW GOVT JR COLLEGE MALAKPET	Government	1973-1974
12	27096	GOVT JR COLLEGE (OLD) MALAKPET	Government	1969-1970
13	27115	GOVT JUNIOR COLLEGE CHANCHALGUDA	Government	1981-1982
14	27140	GOVT JR COLLEGE FALAK NUMA	Government	1981-1982
15	27187	GOVT JR COLLEGE FOR GIRLS HUSSAINIALAM	Government	1981-1982
16	27204	GOVT JR COLLEGE FOR GIRLS, FALAKNUMA	Government	2007-2008
17	27205	GOVT JR COLLEGE FOR GIRLS, MAISARAM	Government	2007-2008
18	27120	Q Q URDU APRES JR COLL(BOYS) BARKAS	APRJC	1977-1978
19	23034	GOVT JUNIOR COLLEGE GIRLS MAREDPALLY,SEC-BAD	Government	1982-1983
20	23003	GOVT JR COLLEGE SP ROAD,SEC-BAD	Government	1983-1984
21	23004	NEW GOVT JUNIOR COLLEGE Y M C A, SEC-BAD	Government	1984-1985
22	23060	RAILWAY JUNIOR COLLEGE LALAGUDA, SEC-BAD	Railway	1982-1983
23	23046	APSWR JR CLG FOR GIRLS MAHENDRAHILLS,SEC-BAD	Social Welfare	1995-1996

 

Download the Excel sheet of the above table

Here

 

Little Flower Junior College Fee Structure:

Fees       Ist Year – Inter

S.No.   Particulars   M.P.C   B.P.C   M.E.C/C.E.C 1   Admission Fee 3000.00 3000.00 3000.00 2   Scholarship Fund   500.00   500.00   500.00 3   Dev. & Adm. Charges   500.00   500.00   500.00 5   Exam Fee   300.00   300.00   300.00 6   Recognition Fee     50.00     50.00     50.00 7   Contingencies    250.00    250.00    250.00 8   Computer Fee       –       – 2000.00 9   Ist Term Fee 2800.00 2900.00 2600.00   Total Payable at the Time of   Admission 7400.00 7500.00 9200.00 10   II Term Fee payable in the Month of   October 3400.00 3500.00 3200.00 11   III Term Fee payable in the Month of   February 3300.00 3400.00 3100.00   TOTAL FEE for I year  14,100.00 14,400.00 15,500.00

IInd Year – Inter ( Subject to revision )

S.No    Particulars    M.P.C    B.P.C    M.E.C/C.E.C 1   I Term Fee   3100.00   3200.00   2900.00 2   Dev. & Adm.Charges    500.00    500.00    500.00 3   Exam Fee    300.00    300.00    300.00 4   Poor Fund    150.00    150.00   150.00 5 Practical Exam Fee     75.00     75.00    — 6   Computer Fees     –     –    2000.00 7   Contingencies    175.00    175.00    175.00 8 Total Payable with I Term    4300.00 4400.00 6025.00 9   II – Term Fee payable in the Month of October   3200.00   3300.00   3000.00 10   III – Term Fee payable in the Month of January    3200.00    3300.00    3000.00   TOTAL FEE For IInd Year 10,700.00 11,000.00 12,025.00

Note:

1. Fee once paid is non-refundable.

2. The College does not collect any donation.

Application Behavior Analysis: Google Chrome

As it’s catching up the browser market, Chrome is one of the easiest installable browser. It doesn’t require any administrator rights for the end user as it get’s installed to a user profile folder instead of %programFiles% path.  Below is the command line where from Google Updater launches the Google Installer.

"C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Update\GoogleUpdate.exe" /handoff "appguid={8A69D345-D564-463C-AFF1-A69D9E530F96}&iid={FDC46DEC-52EC-57D4-E24D-40D463E18969}&lang=en-IN&browser=2&usagestats=0&appname=Google%20Chrome&needsadmin=false" /installsource oneclick

 

Thus, the main window/process of the Chrome browser runs from below location:

"C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"

 

Tabs get executed with below command line parameters by default:

"C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" –type=renderer –lang=en-US –force-fieldtest=CacheSize/CacheSizeGroup_0/ConnCountImpact/conn_count_6/ConnnectBackupJobs/ConnectBackupJobsEnabled/DnsImpact/max_500ms_queue_prefetch/DnsParallelism/parallel_14/GlobalSdch/global_enable_sdch/IdleSktToImpact/idle_timeout_60/Prefetch/ContentPrefetchDisabled/ProxyConnectionImpact/proxy_connections_32/SSLFalseStart/FalseStart_enabled/SpdyCwnd/cwnd16/SpdyImpact/npn_with_spdy/ –channel=5736.057E4300.822057191 /prefetch:3

 

When run in  incognito mode, it invokes a child process with below parameter change:

"C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" –type=renderer –disable-databases –lang=en-US –force-fieldtest=CacheSize/CacheSizeGroup_0/ConnCountImpact/conn_count_6/ConnnectBackupJobs/ConnectBackupJobsEnabled/DnsImpact/max_2s_queue_prefetch/DnsParallelism/parallel_7/GlobalSdch/global_enable_sdch/IdleSktToImpact/idle_timeout_60/Prefetch/ContentPrefetchDisabled/ProxyConnectionImpact/proxy_connections_32/SSLFalseStart/FalseStart_disabled/SpdyCwnd/cwndMin16/SpdyImpact/npn_with_spdy/ –channel=6476.05889180.792548923 /prefetch:3

• Even opening up a new Windows from Start Programs, yet runs under the main process which got started first.
• You can’t run Chrome for multi-users (say via runas) in a single logon session
• Chrome saves it’s current user profile settings in “C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default”
• A debug log file is maintened at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\chrome_debug.log
• Chrome saves much of it’s configuration files in SQLite Format
• Some of the critical files “…\User Data\Preferences” & “…\User Data\Bookmarks” are maintained in a JSON alike format

Know Your Drink

JFYI. The benefits of various drinks. Feel free to rate it accordingly

 

BACARDI	Strengthens bones	Relieves colds	Aids digestion	Dissolves warts	Blocks diarrhea
BLACK LABEL	Promotes weight loss	Helps stops strokes	Lowers cholesterol	Combats Cancer	Controls blood pressure
BLACK WH IT E	Promotes weight loss	Protects your heart	Lowers cholesterol	Combats Cancer	Controls blood pressure
BLUE LABEL	Aids digestion	Lowers cholesterol	Protects your heart	Stabilizes blood sugar	Guards against liver disease
CHI VA S REGAL	Aids digestion	Battles diabetes	Protects your heart	Improves mental health	Boosts immune system
CLASIC RUM	Protects your heart	Promotes Weight loss	Combats cancer	Battles diabetes	Smoothes skin
DARK RUM	Protects against Prostate Cancer	Combats Breast Cancer	Strengthens bones	Banishes bruises	Guards against heart disease
DCSL EXTRA SPECIAL	Protects your heart	prevents constipation	Blocks diarrhea	Improves lung capacity	Cushions joints
DOUBLE DISTILLED	Battles diabetes	Lowers cholesterol	Helps stops strokes	Controls blood pressure	Smoothes skin
DRY GIN	Lowers cholesterol	Combats cancer	Battles diabetes	prevents constipation	Smoothes skin
FRANKLIN	Strengthens bones	Saves eyesight	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Controls blood pressure
GALETINE	prevents constipation	Combats cancer	Helps stops strokes	aids digestion	Helps hemorrhoids
GALLERY	Saves eyesight	Controls blood pressure	Lowers cholesterol	Combats cancer	Supports immune system
GOLD COIN	Protects against heart disease	Promotes Weight loss	Combats Prostate Cancer	Lowers cholesterol	Aggravates , diverticulitis
GOLD LABEL	Protects your heart	Boosts memory	Protects your heart	Combats Cancer	Supports immune system
GRANTS	Lowers cholesterol	Controls blood pressure	Combats cancer	kills bacteria	Fights fungus
GREEN LABEL	Protects against heart attacks	Promotes Weight loss	Helps stops strokes	Combats Prostate Cancer	Lowers cholesterol
HANNEPIER	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Stabilizes blood sugar	Boosts memory	Prevents constipation
HANSEN	Protects your heart	Combats Cancer	Ends insomnia	Slows aging process	Shields against Alzheimer’s
ILIC IT Y ARACK	Protects your heart	Battles diabetes	Conquers kidney stones	Combats cancer	Helps stops strokes
LEMON GIN	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Controls blood pressure	Smoothes skin	Stops scurvy
MENDIS	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Controls blood pressure	Smoothes skin	Stops scurvy
NAPOLEON	Heals wounds	Aids digestion	Guards against ulcers	Increases energy	Fights allergies
OLD RESERVE	Protects your heart	Quiets a cough	Strengthens bones	Controls blood pressure	Blocks diarrhea
ORANGE GIN	Combats cancer	Boosts memory	Regulates thyroid	aids digestion	Shields against Alzheimer’s
POT ARRACK	Combats cancer	Protects your heart
RED LABEL	Aids digestion	Soothes sore throat	Clears sinuses	Combats Cancer	Boosts immune system
RED RUM	Saves eyesight	Protects your heart	Prevents constipation	Combats cancer	Promotes weight loss
REMUS MARTIN	saves eyesight	Conquers kidney stones	Combats cancer	Enhances blood flow	Protects your heart
RICHORT	Controls blood pressure	Combats cancer	Strengthens bones	Protects your heart	Aids weight loss
R IT Z	Prevents constipation	Helps hemorrhoids	Lowers cholesterol	Combats cancer	Stabilizes blood sugar
SMIRNOFF	Supports immune systems	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Straightens respiration
V&A	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Helps stops strokes	Promotes Weight loss	Kills bacteria
VODKA	Reduce risk of heart attack	Combats cancer	boosts memory	Lowers cholesterol	Controls blood pressure
VSO	Combats cancer	Prevents constipation	Promotes weight loss	Protects your heart	Helps hemorrhoids
WH IT E DIAMOND	Combats cancer	Controls blood pressure	Saves your eyesight	Shields against Alzheimer’s	Slows aging process
WH IT E GIN	Controls blood pressure	Lowers cholesterol	Kills bacteria	Combats cancer	Strengthens bones
WH IT E RUM	Slows aging process	prevents constipation

 

Here is a 

Know-Your-Drink PDF

for easy reference and share!!!

Managing Registry via Powershell

PROVIDER NAME

Registry

DRIVES

HKLM:, HKCU:

SHORT DESCRIPTION

Provides access to the registry keys, entries, and values in Windows PowerShell.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The Windows PowerShell Registry provider lets you get, add, change, clear, and delete registry keys, entries, and values in Windows PowerShell.

Registry keys are represented as instances of the Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey class. Registry entries are represented as instances of the PSCustomObject class.

The Registry provider lets you access a hierarchical namespace that consists of registry keys and subkeys. Registry entries and values are not components of that hierarchy. Instead, they are properties of each of the keys.

The Registry provider supports all the cmdlets that contain the Item noun (the Item cmdlets), such as Get-Item, Copy-Item, and Rename-Item, except for the Invoke-Item cmdlet. Use the Item cmdlets when you work with registry keys and subkeys.

The Registry provider also supports the cmdlets that contain the ItemProperty noun (the ItemProperty cmdlets). Use the ItemProperty cmdlets when you work with registry entries. You cannot use the cmdlets that contain the Content noun (the Content cmdlets) with the Registry provider.

Each registry key is protected by a security descriptor. You can use Get-Acl to view the security descriptor of a key.

CAPABILITIES

ShouldProcess, UseTransactions

EXAMPLES

Navigating the Registry

————————– EXAMPLE 1 ————————–

This command sets the current location to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software registry key:

Copy

set-location hklm:\software

————————– EXAMPLE 2 ————————–

This command gets an object that represents the current location:

Copy

get-location

Managing Registry Keys

————————– EXAMPLE 1 ————————–

This command gets each immediate subkeys of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software registry key:

Copy

get-childitem -path hklm:\software

————————– EXAMPLE 2 ————————–

This command creates the TestNew subkey under the HKCU:\Environment subkey:

Copy

new-item -path hkcu:\Environment\TestNew

————————– EXAMPLE 3 ————————–

This command deletes the TestNew subkey of the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment key:

Copy

remove-item -path hkcu:\Environment\TestNew

————————– EXAMPLE 4 ————————–

This command copies the TestNew key to the TestCopy subkey:

Copy

copy-item -path  hkcu:\Environment\TestNew  hkcu:\Environment\TestNew\TestCopy

————————– EXAMPLE 5 ————————–

This command gets all the subkeys of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software registry key:

Copy

get-childitem -path hklm:\Software -recurse

————————– EXAMPLE 6 ————————–

This command moves the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\testnewcopy registry key, its subkeys and their registry entries to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\testnew key:

Copy

move-item -path hkcu:\environment\testnewcopy -destination hkcu:\environment\testnew

————————– EXAMPLE 7 ————————–

This command renames the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\testnew registry key to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\test:

Copy

rename-item -path hkcu:\environment\testnew\ -newname test

————————– EXAMPLE 8 ————————–

This command gets the security descriptor of the specified registry key:

Copy

get-acl -path hkcu:\environment\testnew | format-list -property *

Managing Registry Entries

————————– EXAMPLE 1 ————————–

This command gets the registry entries in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment registry key:

Copy

get-itemproperty -path hkcu:\Environment

This command gets the Default registry entry only when it contains data.

————————– EXAMPLE 2 ————————–

This command gets the Temp registry entry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment key:

Copy

get-itemproperty -path hkcu:\Environment -name Temp

————————– EXAMPLE 3 ————————–

This command creates a PSTest registry entry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment key and sets its value to 1:

Copy

new-itemproperty -path hkcu:\environment -name PSTest -value 1 -propertyType dword

————————– EXAMPLE 4 ————————–

This command changes the value of the PSTest registry entry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment key to "Start" and changes its data type to REG_SZ (string):

Copy

set-itemproperty -path hkcu:\environment -name PSTest -value Start -type string

————————– EXAMPLE 5 ————————–

This command renames the PSTest registry entry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment key to PSTestNew:

Copy

rename-itemproperty -path hkcu:\environment -name PSTest
-newname PSTestNew

————————– EXAMPLE 6 ————————–

This command copies the PSTestNew registry entry from the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment key to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\testnewcopy key:

Copy

copy-itemproperty -path hkcu:\environment -destination hkcu:\environment\testnewcopy -name pstestnew

————————– EXAMPLE 7 ————————–

The command moves the pstestnew registry entry from the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\environment\testnewcopy key to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\environment\testnew key:

Copy

move-itemproperty -path hkcu:\environment\testnewcopy -destination hkcu:\environment\testnew -name pstestnew

————————– EXAMPLE 8 ————————–

This command clears the value of the pstestnew registry entry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\testnew key:

Copy

clear-itemproperty -path hkcu:\environment\testnew -name pstestnew

You can use the Clear-Item cmdlet to clear the value of the default registry entry for a subkey. For example, the following command clears the value of the default entry of the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\testnew registry key: clear-item -path hkcu:\environment\testnew

————————– EXAMPLE 9 ————————–

This command deletes the pstestnew registry entry from the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\testnew registry key:

Copy

remove-itemproperty -path hkcu:\environment\testnew -name pstestnew

————————– EXAMPLE 10 ————————–

This command changes the value of the default registry entry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\testnew key to "default value":

Copy

set-itemproperty -path hkcu:\environment\testnew -name "(default)" -value "default value"

You can also change the default value of a registry key by using the Set-Item cmdlet. For example, the following command updates the default value of the testnew key: set-item -path hkcu:\environment\testnew -value "another default value"

DYNAMIC PARAMETERS

Dynamic parameters are cmdlet parameters that are added by a Windows PowerShell provider and are available only when the cmdlet is being used in the provider-enabled drive.

Type <Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind>

Establishes or changes the data type of a registry value. The default is String (REG_SZ).

This parameter works as designed on the Set-ItemProperty cmdlet. It is also available on the Set-Item cmdlet in the registry drives, but it has no effect.

Value	Description
String	Specifies a null-terminated string. Equivalent to REG_SZ.
ExpandString	Specifies a null-terminated string that contains unexpanded references to environment variables that are expanded when the value is retrieved. Equivalent to REG_EXPAND_SZ.
Binary	Specifies binary data in any form. Equivalent to REG_BINARY.
DWord	Specifies a 32-bit binary number. Equivalent to REG_DWORD.
MultiString	Specifies an array of null-terminated strings terminated by two null characters. Equivalent to REG_MULTI_SZ.
QWord	Specifies a 64-bit binary number. Equivalent to REG_QWORD.
Unknown	Indicates an unsupported registry data type, such as REG_RESOURCE_LIST.

 

Cmdlets supported:

• Set-Item
• Set-ItemProperty

Reference: Registry Provider

Registry Settings to Suppress Adobe Reader License Agreement Prompt

Adobe Reader License Agreement Prompt Registry Setting:

Adobe Reader saves it’s License Agreement status in below registry path for system and user specific respectively. 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AdobeViewer
    EULA    REG_DWORD    0×1

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AdobeViewer
    EULA    REG_DWORD    0×1

 

Conflict Behavior:

By default Windows loads System level settings and on top of that uses the User level settings for given user session. With this, User level settings always going to be the effective setting for the end user.  However, Adobe Reader is a special case where it checks if the license key is set to be accepted at system level or user level and doesn’t prompt it’s in one of the places. It prompts only when the EULA is not accepted neither at System nor User level.

Tabular presentation of the prompt behavior:

HKCU	HKLM	Prompt Status
0	0	Prompt
0	1	No Prompt
1	0	No Prompt
1	1	No Prompt

 

PowerShell Code to Automate Registry Setting:

System Context:

set-itemproperty -path "HKLM:Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AdobeViewer" -name EULA  -Type DWORD -value "1"

User context:

set-itemproperty -path "HKCU:Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\AdobeViewer" -name EULA  -Type DWORD -value "1"

Windows Application Behavior Analysis

…is a very critical part of setting up application for the enterprises according to their needs and infrastructure.  This is an highly untaught process and requires extreme attention and diligence.  Any incorrect analysis can cause you designing an incorrect architecture for your application infrastructure.

So, I start explaining this skill with a question as

What is Windows Application Behavior Analysis?

Is a process of skillfully investigating into an application behavior to understand it’s launch and break points so to control the application behavior as per your needs. This activity saves big money for the IT essentially for the levels of enterprises.

What Windows Application Behavior Analysis consists of?

It consists of observing, monitoring, tracking of application activities so that you know where from its starting, where it’s saving it’s settings depending on these data points you can modify them such that application launches with the settings you need.

Are there any Best Practices for Windows Application Behavior Analysis?

Below are some best practices I use and recommend:

1. Go through the application/patch install/release notes
2. Refer to the application install, admin and user guides to get better idea of how is it supposed to work
3. Always install the applications with verbose logging enabled
4. Have a video capture of the application installation in GUI mode, take close look at what actions application performing during the application install
5. Use procexp and procmon to investigate the application behavior
6. Look for system level (HKLM) and user level (HKCU) software setting for the application
7. Look for program level (Under installdir and %programdata%) and user level (%userprofiles%, %appdata%) setting files of type .INI, .Conf, .Dat, .XML, etc,.

What includes in Advanced Windows Application Behavior Analysis?

1. Analyzing application for all users (local users, local admins, domain users and domain admins, service profiles)
2. Identifying and resolving conflict operations for the application on the system
3. Getting application setup for a complex infrastructure which includes various desktop platforms, server platforms, virtualization platforms
4. Ensuring consistent setting for all the platforms for all user types
5. Integrating applications with server technologies like SQL DBs,  IIS, Cluster & load balancing, Citrix, VMware, Windows Core, etc,.
6. Automating various regular operational tasks via scripting and policies
7. Ensuring security and reliability of the application infrastructure
8. Configuring for disaster recovery and high availability

Windows PowerShell Features from Microsoft

Windows PowerShell Features from Microsoft

This topic lists the Windows PowerShell features that are offered by Microsoft and provides links to descriptions of the features and to information about how to install them. These features enable you to use Windows PowerShell to administer, maintain, configure, and develop new features for Windows.

Technology	Description	Links
Windows PowerShell Core	Describes the cmdlets, functions, and providers that are installed with Windows PowerShell. Includes Getting Started, User Guide, and About topics on features and the Windows PowerShell language.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=108518
Windows PowerShell Cmdlets Gallery in Bing Visual Search	A visual display of Windows PowerShell core cmdlets that you can search, sort, and filter.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=190436
Active Directory (AD) Cmdlets	Describes the cmdlets in the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=165546
Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0 Cmdlets	Describes the Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) cmdlets for Windows PowerShell. You can use AD FS cmdlets to manage all aspects of the AD FS 2.0 Windows service, including establishing trusts between claims providers and relying parties, configuring claims issuance and claims transformation, and issuing Information Cards.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=177389
Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) Cmdlets	Describes the Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) cmdlets. One set of AD RMS cmdlets deploys and configures AD RMS; the second set administers an AD RMS cluster.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=165547
AppLocker Cmdlets	Describes the AppLocker cmdlets, which author, test, maintain, and troubleshoot an AppLocker policy.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=164470
Best Practice Analyzer (BPA) Cmdlets	Describes the cmdlets in the Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) module for Windows PowerShell.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=165548
Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) Cmdlets	Describes the cmdlets in the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) module for Windows PowerShell.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=137645
Exchange Management Shell	Describes the Exchange Management Shell, which is based on Windows PowerShell, and the cmdlets that enable you to manage every aspect your Microsoft Exchange Server organization.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=149930
Failover Cluster Cmdlets	Describes the failover cluster cmdlets in Windows PowerShell.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=164471
Forefront Identity Manager Cmdlets	Describes the Forefront Identity Manager cmdlets in the FIM Automation Module. You can use these cmdlets to manage your FIM 2010 configuration.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=186772
Group Policy Cmdlets	Describes the cmdlets in the Group Policy module. You can use these cmdlets to maintain Group Policy objects (GPOs), associate GPOs with Active Directory Services (AD DS) containers, set inheritance and permissions on AD DS organizational units (OUs) and domains, and configure registry-based policy settings and Group Policy preferences.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=164472
Network Load Balancing Cmdlets	Describes the network load balancing cmdlets, which provide an alternative interface for actions that you might otherwise perform with command-line commands or the Network Load Balancing Manager snap-in.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=137651
Remote Desktop Services Provider	Describes the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) provider for Windows PowerShell, which presents a hierarchical view of the configuration settings for an RD Session Host server in the Windows PowerShell RDS: drive.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=206966
Server Manager Cmdlets	Describes the cmdlets in the Server Manager module for Windows PowerShell.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=166273
SQL Server Master Data Services Cmdlets	Describes the cmdlets used to create and configure Master Data Services databases.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=191714
SQL Server Provider and Database Engine Cmdlets	Describes how to use the SQL Server PowerShell Provider and management object models to manage SQL Server databases. Describes how to use the Database Engine cmdlets to run Transact-SQL scripts and evaluate policies.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=193258
System Center Service Manager	Describes the cmdlets in the System Center Service Manager module for Windows PowerShell.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=201846
System Center Virtual Machine Manager	Describes the Windows PowerShell – Virtual Machine Manager command shell and includes sample Windows PowerShell scripts that you can use to manage your virtual system infrastructure.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=128920
Web Server (IIS) Administration Cmdlets	Describes the Internet Information Services (IIS) cmdlets that enable you to manage IIS configuration and runtime data.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=137650
Web Server (IIS) Administration Provider	Describes the Internet Information Services (IIS) provider, which creates an IIS: drive with directories for application pools, websites, web applications and virtual directories.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=179517
Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration with Windows PowerShell	Describes how to import multiple modules and snap-ins at one time.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=148916
Windows Server Backup Cmdlets	Describes the Windows PowerShell cmdlets for Windows Server Backup. You can use these cmdlets to create and manage backups in Windows Server 2008 R2.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=137655
Windows Server Migration Tools Cmdlets	Describes the cmdlets in the Windows Server Migration Tools module for Windows PowerShell.	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=166274

 

Reference: Windows PowerShell Features from Microsoft

PS 1.0 Comparison and Containment Operators

Windows PowerShell Comparison Operators

These operators work both with string and number based values assuming that you are comparing like with like (it is not meaningful, for example, to compare a string with numerical value). In terms of working with strings and characters, both case-sensitive and insensitive operators are supported.

 

Operator	Description
-eq	Equal to (case insensitive)
-ieq	Equal to (case insensitive)
-ceq	Equal to (case sensitive)
-ne	Not equal to (case insensitive)
-ine	Not equal to (case insensitive)
-cne	Not equal to (case sensitive)
-gt	Greater than (case insensitive)
-igt	Greater than (case insensitive)
-cgt	Greater than (case sensitive)
-ge	Greater than or equal to (case insensitive)
-ige	Greater than or equal to (case insensitive)
-cge	Greater than or equal to (case sensitive)
-lt	Less than (case insensitive)
-ilt	Less than (case insensitive)
-clt	Less than (case sensitive)
-le	Less than or equal to (case insensitive)
-ile	Less than or equal to (case insensitive)
-cle	Less than or equal to (case sensitive)

 

 

Windows PowerShell Containment Operators

In addition to the comparison operators, a set of operators referred to as containment operators are provided for the purpose of identifying whether an array or collection contains a specific value. The containment operators provided by PowerShell are listed in the following table. As with the comparison operators, both case sensitive and insensitive options are provided.

 

Operator	Description
-contains	Group of values in left hand operand contains value specified in right hand operand (case insensitive)
-icontains	Group of values in left hand operand contains value specified in right hand operand (case insensitive)
-ccontains	Group of values in left hand operand contains value specified in right hand operand (case sensitive)
-notcontains	Group of values in left hand operand does not contain value specified in right hand operand (case insensitive)
-inotcontains	Group of values in left hand operand does not contain value specified in right hand operand (case insensitive)
-cnotcontains	Group of values in left hand operand does not contain value specified in right hand operand (case sensitive)

 

 

Reference: Windows PowerShell 1.0 Comparison and Containment Operators

XenApp Deployment Strategies

XenApp Servers Explained

Proper farm design is the most important aspect to having a well performing, scalable farm. This post examines the architecture and design of the Citrix XenApp solution as the number of users/servers requiring applications or desktop access scales.

XenApp Server Roles

XenApp farms have two types of servers: infrastructure servers and worker servers. Worker servers are dedicated to the role of hosting published applications and desktop. Infrastructure servers perform specific functions and do not typically host published applications, except in small farms. Infrastructure servers host functionality that supports the farm, such as the data store, data collector, XML Service, license server, and other services.

• Farm infrastructure services. Data Store, Data Collector, XML Service and Web Interface
• Access infrastructure services. Access Gateway (optional)
• Additional services. Streaming File Server, Provisioning Services (optional), Configuration Logging database (optional), EdgeSight database (optional), and SmartAuditor (optional).

XenApp Farm Roles

• Access Gateway: Provides secure access to Citrix XenApp applications and desktops.
• Web Interface Server: A Web server running Microsoft’s (IIS) Web server and Citrix’s Web Interface which hosts the Web pages users connect to in order to enumerate and launch published applications.
• Data Collector: Maintains dynamic farm-wide data, including the list of online and offline servers, as well as the load level of each server.
• XML Service: Used by the Web Interface to enumerate published applications from the XenApp farm.
• Database Server (Data Store): Could be another XenApp server (SQL Express) or a server running an enterprise database like Microsoft SQL or Oracle.
• XenApp Worker Server: Servers that host the applications and desktops.

It is common practice to group one or more of these infrastructure services in small farms. In large deployments, each service runs on one or more dedicated servers for scalability and redundancy. The table below categorizes the XenApp deployment model into groups based on the number of users and servers hosting the applications and desktops.

Farm Size Categories

Farm Size	Number of Users	Number of XenApp Servers "Workers"
Small (Pilot/Demo)	< 100	5-Jan
Medium	< 1000	May-50
Large	< 5000	50 – 250
Enterprise	> 5000	250 – 1000
Service Provider	100 – 100,000	1 – 1000

While farm size (small, medium, large, etc…) as determined by the number of servers, can indicate the general category your farm is in, another important factor to consider is the number of user connections. Because applications can scale differently from server to server (some servers might support 100 user connections, others might support only ten), both categories are used to determine the size of the farm.

Small Farm (< 100 Users / < 5 XenApp "Worker" Servers)

For small environments all roles can be placed on a single server. As the number of users increase, it is important to know where the bottlenecks are occurring. Once a bottleneck is identified, move the affected services to their own server.

Medium Farm (< 1000 Users / 5 – 50 XenApp "Worker" Servers)

For medium sized environments dedicating servers for application and desktop hosting presents the best use of computing resources and avoids contention of resources between the users and the infrastructure. As memory or CPU become scarce, more servers supporting applications and desktops can be added easily. At this stage, the resource usage of the infrastructure services, for a farm of this size, is within the bounds of an appropriately sized server.

Large Farm (< 5000 Users / < 50 – 250 XenApp "Worker" Servers)

As the user count increases, the combined overhead of server resolutions and application enumerations (Data Collector), SQL Database resource usage (Data Store) and HTTP requests (Web Interface) will require infrastructure services to be placed on dedicated servers. Administrators should group infrastructure servers and services together when they have similar functions. For example, the XML Server should be grouped with the data collector.

Another benefit of this design is, if the data collector goes down, then the servers hosting published applications would not take on that role, leading to contention. A backup Data Collector is recommended to keep the operations segregated in the event of a DC failure.

Enterprise Farm (> 5000 Users / 250 – 1000 XenApp "Worker" Servers)

In enterprise class deployments, disaster recovery and failover capabilities become critically important, each infrastructure service will be dedicated to one or more servers.

Service Provider Farm (< 100 Users / < 5 XenApp "Worker" Servers)

The CSP XenApp solution provides a scalable and high availability infrastructure designed around multi-tenancy, tenant security and automation. In this module, applications and desktops are virtualized, and subscriber partitions and Active Directory boundaries are defined, which are centrally governed by XenApp systems.

 

 

For more information regarding the CSP Reference Architecture see http://www.citrix.com/skb/articles/RDY2524.

For more information on designing and building a scalable XenApp solution for the cloud please reference the following whitepaper. http://www.citrix.com/skb/articles/RDY3028

PS: Three Things You Might Not Know About Windows PowerShell Functions

You can set default values for function parameters

As a general rule, any time you call a function you pass it the appropriate number of parameters. For example, suppose we have the following function, a function that multiplies two numbers:

Copy

function test ($x, $y) 
    {
        $x * $y 
    }

To use this function, you typically provide values for the variables $x and $y at the time you call the function:

Copy

test 33 22

That’s fine; that’s exactly what you should do when you call a function. However, consider the following function, one that reports back the day of the year for a given date:

Copy

function test ($x) 
    {
        (Get-Date $x).DayOfYear 
    }

To call this function, you use a command similar to this:

Copy

test "6/27/2008"

So far so good. On the other hand, suppose that, more often than not, any time you want to get the day of the year it’s for the current date. Ideally, then, you could simply call the function without any parameters and, by default, the function would return the day of the year for the current date:

Copy

test

So how can you set a default value in a function? Why, like this, of course:

Copy

function test ($x = (Get-Date).Date) 
    {
        (Get-Date $x).DayOfYear 
    }

As you can see, what we’ve done here is pre-assign a value to the function variable $x; in particular, we’ve assigned it the Date property of the current date (which we can retrieve using the Get-Date cmdlet). If we supply a parameter when we call this function then the value of that parameter will be assigned to $x. However, if we don’t supply a parameter when we call the function then $x will be assigned the default value: the current date. Give both of these commands a try and see what you get back:

Copy

test "6/27/2008"
test

Incidentally, you can also assign a specific data type to a function variable. For example, in this function we’ve assigned the integer data type ([int]) to the function variables $x and $y:

Copy

function test ([int] $x = 2, [int] $y = 8)
    {
         $x * $y 
    }

Now, what do you suppose we’ll get back if we call the function using this command:

Copy

test 4.332 3.7181

That’s right: we’ll get back the value 12. Why? Because PowerShell will convert each of the parameter values (4.332 and 3.7181) to integers (4 and 3, respectively) before multiplying them.

You might also have noticed that we assigned $x a default value of 2 and $y a default value of 8. Suppose we call this function without supplying any parameters. In that case we – that’s right, we get back 16, because the function will multiply the default values 2 and 8. (It always takes us by surprise when we discover that someone’s been paying attention to us!) Now, what will we get back if we call the function using this command:

Copy

test 11

If you said 88, well, give yourself a star. (No, not a gold star, just a star. It wasn’t that hard of a question.) Why 88? Well, for one thing, the parameter value 11 will be assigned to $x; the first parameter supplied to the function will always be assigned to $x. And because we didn’t bother with a second parameter, $y takes on the default value of 8. And 11 * 8 is … that’s right, 88.

What the heck: go ahead and give yourself a gold star. You earned it.

Note. What if we supplied three parameters (or more) to this function? Well, nothing bad will happen: the function will ignore the extra parameters and multiply parameter 1 by parameter 2. However, those parameter values are neither gone nor forgotten: all “extra” parameter values are stored in the variable $args. That means these values are available, if you have some use for them.

By the way, remember when we said that the “…first parameter supplied to the function will always be assigned to $x”? Well, that’s only partly true. As it turns out, if you call your function using named parameters then you can specify which value is assigned to which function variable, regardless of the order in which those values are supplied.

Good question: what the heck does that mean? Well, let’s take a look at yet another function:

Copy

function test
    {
        param ($x = 5, $y = 14)
         $x * $y 
    }

Here we’ve used the param statement to declare our two function variables and their default values; notice that the param statement is included within the function’s scriptblock. Suppose we call the function using this command:

Copy

test 4

In this case, the value 4 will be assigned to $x and $y will take on the default value of 14. As a result, the function returns the value 56.

But what if we wanted the value 4 to be assigned to $y? That’s fine; we just have to indicate that when we call the function:

Copy

test -y 4

See? In this case we explicitly assigned the value 4 to $y. This time around $y will be equal to 4, $x will be assigned the default value 5, and the function will return 20. Cool, huh? And if you want to assign values to both variables, well, then assign values to both variables, without worrying about the order of assignment:

Copy

test -y 4 -x 22

You can pipe data to a function

When you first start out with Windows PowerShell someone is likely to tell you that “Only a cmdlet can be on the receiving end of a pipeline.” What does that mean? Well, newcomers to PowerShell often write commands like this one, thinking that somehow this command will assign the current date and time to the variable $x:

Copy

Get-Date | $x

However, this is not going to assign the current date and time to $x; instead, it’s going to result in the dreaded error message:

Copy

Expressions are only permitted as the first element of a pipeline.
At line:1 char:14
+ get-date | $x <<<<

You get this error message because you have a variable ($x) on the receiving end of the pipeline, and that’s a no-no. You must have a cmdlet on the receiving end of the pipeline.

Or at least that’s what they tell you when you first start out. Now that you’re a little older and a little more experienced, it’s time to learn the facts of life: as long as you know a little trick then you can place a function on the receiving end of a pipeline.

So what is this trick we’re talking about? It has to do with the $input variable, an automatic variable that holds all the data passed through the pipeline. Let’s take a look at a function that can be used on the receiving end of a pipeline:

Copy

function test
    {
        foreach ($i in $input)
            {$i.ToUpper()}
    }

As you can see, our first command is a standard foreach loop. But take a closer look at what we’re looping through; we’re looping through the values in $input. And then, for each of those values, we simply use the ToUpper method to convert the values to their uppercase equivalent.

In other words, suppose we run the following command:

Copy

"a", "b", "c"  | test

Here’s what we’ll get back:

Copy

A
B
C

You can make a function available in other scopes

OK, so you already knew that; after all, you can make a function global (that is, available in other scopes) simply by placing that function in your PowerShell profile or by “dot sourcing” the script that contains that function. But here’s another way to make a function global; just preface the function name with the keyword global:

Copy

function global:test ($x, $y)
    {
         $x * $y 
    }

That’s all there is to it.

Bonus tip: View the code for your global functions

Got a function named test, but you can’t remember what test actually does? In that case, use the Get-Content cmdlet to retrieve the function code:

Copy

Get-Content function:\test

Reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff730957.aspx