If a Published Windows Explorer seamless application is launched in an ICA session it shows only for a moment in the AppCenter console before disappearing.

The Users tab in the console shows the active ICA session with an empty application name:

As a workaround, the Administrator can create and publish a batch file which would call Explorer.exe. This would consist of a simple batch file being created as follows:

Explorer.exe
Pause

This would launch a CMD window and then launch the Explorer.exe process (which will be terminated and a new Explorer.exe process started under DCOM as per above).

However, the CMD window process remains running and acts as a placeholder for the published application instance in the console.

The downside is that the CMD window is visible to the user and waits to be terminated (by virtue of the pause).

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Problem Cause

The issue is related to the change Microsoft has made decoupling the Windows Explorer Shell from Internet Explorer. This design change by Microsoft is well documented in both the Citrix Support site (http://blogs.citrix.com/2011/06/15/publishing-internet-explorer-in-explorer-mode/) and the Microsoft site (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330728(VS.85).aspx & http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928675)

The change in Explorer which Microsoft has made is that whenever Explorer.exe is launched with a command line option the initial Explorer.exe process is terminated and a new Explorer.exe process is launched as a DCOM process under the DCOM Launcher service.

If Explorer.exe is launched without any command line parameters it will launch as a desktop (shell) rather than a file explorer. In XenApp, an unseen Explorer hook is implemented to pass a random command line string to Explorer.exe as it is launching to ensure that there is a command line parameter present to avoid this.

The root cause is that the Explorer.exe process launches (which shows up in the console initially) and then terminates and a new process is launched under DCOM Launcher Service. This new process creation cannot be tracked and therefore the AppCenter console cannot be updated correctly.

This article describes procedure to troubleshoot a published Explorer that is not visible in AppCenter Console.