HP Easy Shell Administrator Guide
HP Easy Shell Administrator Guide
SUMMARY
HP Easy Shell allows you to congure connections, websites, and applications for kiosk-style deployments of HP thin
clients based on Windows® operating systems.
Copyright information
© Copyright 2014–2020 HP Development
Company, L.P.
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Condential computer software. Valid license
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Computer Software Documentation, and
Technical Data for Commercial Items are
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standard commercial license.
The information contained herein is subject to
change without notice. The only warranties for
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additional warranty. HP shall not be liable
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contained herein.
Tenth Edition: October 2020
First Edition: March 2014
Document Part Number: L69884–002
User input syntax key
Text that you must enter into a user interface is indicated by fixed-width font.
Table User input syntax key
Item Description
Text without brackets or braces
<Text inside angle brackets>
[Text inside square brackets]
{Text inside braces}
|
...
Items you must type exactly as shown
A placeholder for a value you must provide; omit the brackets
Optional items; omit the brackets
A set of items from which you must choose only one; omit the braces
A separator for items from which you must choose only one; omit the vertical bar
Items that can or must repeat; omit the ellipsis
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Table of contents
1 Getting started....................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Supported operating systems, connection types, and applications ................................................................................1
Obtaining and opening HP Easy Shell................................................................................................................................2
Opening HP Easy Shell within Windows ....................................................................................................................2
Opening HP Easy Shell Conguration from outside HP Easy Shell........................................................................... 2
Opening the Conguration from within HP Easy Shell..............................................................................................2
Using HP Easy Shell ...........................................................................................................................................................2
2 Conguration .........................................................................................................................................................................4
Creating an HP Easy Shell conguration ...........................................................................................................................4
Customizing the user interface .........................................................................................................................................4
Display settings .................................................................................................................................................................7
Adding an application ........................................................................................................................................................7
Adding a Citrix ICA, RDP, or VMware connection................................................................................................................ 8
Adding a Citrix ICA, RDP, or VMware connection........................................................................................................ 8
Assigning a failover connection to a prole ..............................................................................................................8
Common connection settings.................................................................................................................................... 9
RDP le customization...............................................................................................................................................9
Adding custom values........................................................................................................................................9
Using a custom RDP le..................................................................................................................................... 9
Adding a Citrix StoreFront connection.............................................................................................................................10
Adding an internet, network, or Citrix Web Interface site...............................................................................................11
Adding a custom Easy Shell prole .................................................................................................................................12
3 Deployment..........................................................................................................................................................................14
Deploying a precongured thin client image ..................................................................................................................14
Deploying HP Easy Shell to existing thin client images ..................................................................................................14
Exporting and deploying an HP Easy Shell conguration...............................................................................................14
4 Tips and best practices ........................................................................................................................................................16
Appendix A Customizing through the registry .......................................................................................................................17
Display user name ...........................................................................................................................................................17
Customizing title category names...................................................................................................................................17
Delay Easy Shell start up.................................................................................................................................................17
Virtual keyboard style......................................................................................................................................................17
Delay browser embed......................................................................................................................................................18
Creating custom connection error messages..................................................................................................................18
Internet Explorer registry restrictions ............................................................................................................................18
iv
Getting started1
HP Easy Shell allows you to congure connections, websites, and applications for kiosk-style deployments
of HP thin clients based on Windows® operating systems. You can also customize the kiosk interface that
is presented to standard users and enable or disable user access to specic Control Panel settings. The
congured environment can be deployed to multiple thin clients using HP Device Manager (HPDM).
NOTE: Enabling user access to Control Panel settings might also give the user access to File Explorer.
Many thin client deployments need to provide either a single- or limited-purpose environment to users, such
as an environment for web browsing or remote desktop access. HP Easy Shell simplies this type of thin client
deployment by hiding the standard Windows interface, restricting users to certain applications and functions,
and locking down the system against user modication.
NOTE: This guide applies to HP Easy Shell 3.5 or newer (see Obtaining and opening HP Easy Shell on page
2 for information about obtaining the latest version).
Supported operating systems, connection types, and applications
The following table describes the operating systems, connection types, and applications supported by HP
Easy Shell.
Table 1-1
Item Description
Operating systems Windows 10 IoT Enterprise
Connection types Web browser*
Applications All traditional desktop applications that are supported by the
HP Easy Shell Compatability
Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro
Windows Embedded 8 Standard
Windows Embedded Standard 7
Citrix® ICA**, StoreFront**, Web Interface**
Microsoft® RDP
VMware® Horizon View™ (PCoIP, RDP)
operating systems listed above should work with HP Easy Shell.
HP Easy Shell does not support Windows Store apps.
* HP Easy Shell features a built-in kiosk-style web browser with limited functionality that is suitable for
standard web browsing. Alternatively, a web browser connection can be congured to use the full Internet
Explorer browser, if additional functionality is needed.
** Citrix® ICA®, StoreFront™, and Web Interface connections are created using dierent methods. See Creating
an HP Easy Shell conguration on page 4 for information on where to create each Citrix connection type.
Getting started
1
Obtaining and opening HP Easy Shell
HP Easy Shell is typically preinstalled on HP thin clients. It can also be downloaded or updated via HP
ThinUpdate.
NOTE: For more information, see the administrator guide for HP ThinUpdate.
HP Easy Shell contains the following two components:
● HP Easy Shell—This is the tile-based, kiosk-style user interface that allows standard users to launch
applications, connections, and websites as congured by the administrator.
● HP Easy Shell Conguration—This is the conguration utility used by the administrator to congure the
experience for standard users.
Opening HP Easy Shell within Windows
Follow the instructions outlined here to open HP Easy Shell within Windows.
▲ Windows Embedded Standard 7—Select Start, select All Programs, select HP, and then select HP Easy
Shell.
Windows Embedded 8 Standard and Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro—Select HP Easy Shell at the
Start screen.
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise—Type Easy Shell into the taskbar search box, and then select the HP
Easy Shell app.
Opening HP Easy Shell
Follow the instructions outlined here to open HP Easy Shell Conguration from outside HP Easy Shell.
▲ Open Control Panel and select HP Easy Shell Conguration.
NOTE: You will be prompted for administrator credentials if you are logged on to Windows as a
standard user.
Opening the
Conguration from within HP Easy Shell
Follow the instructions outlined here to open HP Easy Shell Conguration from within HP Easy Shell to make
conguration changes without having to log o to the standard user account.
1. In HP Easy Shell, select Admin.
2. Use the User Account Control dialog to log on as an administrator.
3. Congure changes as necessary, and then select Apply.
4. Select Exit to return to HP Easy Shell.
Conguration from outside HP Easy Shell
Using HP Easy Shell
The following information is the typical process for using HP Easy Shell to congure the environment for
standard users.
The typical process for using HP Easy Shell to congure the environment for standard users is as follows:
2
Chapter 1 Getting started
1. Open the HP Easy Shell Conguration utility (see Obtaining and opening HP Easy Shell on page 2 for
more information).
2. Enable Kiosk mode, and congure the environment for standard users (see Creating an HP Easy Shell
conguration on page 4 for more information) and be sure to select Apply to apply the conguration.
3. If you are conguring HP Easy Shell from an administrator account, log o, and then log on as a standard
user.
If you are conguring HP Easy Shell from a standard user account and you switched to the conguration
utility using the Admin button, select Exit to return to the standard user interface.
NOTE: You can test the user experience from an administrator account, with the exception that the
Kiosk mode setting does not aect administrator accounts.
4. Be sure that the environment is congured as needed. If it is not, return to HP Easy Shell Conguration to
make additional changes.
5. The conguration can be deployed to other thin clients (see Deployment on page 14 for more
information).
Using HP Easy Shell 3
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