2.0 Best Practices

Use this checklist to avoid common problems with Reflection deployments.

Deploy files to trusted locations.

The Trusted Locations feature provides a way to differentiate safe files from potentially harmful files. When a file is in a trusted location, it’s files are assumed to be safe. Reflection enforces trusted locations by default, so if you want to save sessions in directories that are not default trusted locations, you’ll have to define these directories or disable trusted locations. See Add Trusted Locations in the Reflection Deployment Guide.

Deploy customized files to the correct locations

Reflection looks for session files and supporting custom files in specific locations. If you deploy one of these files to another location, Reflection will be unable to find it. See Customized Files and Where to Deploy Them in the Reflection Deployment Guide.

Consider using the Reflection setup.exe

Setup.exe is the recommended tool for installing and deploying Reflection. This tool uses the primary Reflection MSI file to install Reflection but it also installs prerequisite software (if needed) and has several other features that provide a smoother deployment than installing directly with the primary Reflection MSI file.

It determines whether each workstation has the required .NET Framework and Microsoft Windows Installer version and automatically installs them if necessary. It also automatically uses the correct language for the installation and removes previous versions of Reflection.

If the Visual Basic feature is selected, Setup.exe also installs the Visual Basic core MSI, along with the appropriate VB language MSI.

If you are deploying with MSI directly, make sure all prerequisites are installed.

If you use msiexec.exe for your install, prerequisites are not installed automatically. If the required prerequisites are not already on your users' workstations, you need to install them separately. You can find installers for the required prerequisites in the Prerequisites folder in the distribution media, or in your administrative installation. The prerequisites you need to install depend on which programs and features you are installing:

  • All Reflection Workspace features require Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.1. If you attempt an install using msiexec.exe and this prerequisite is not found, a message displays and the installer stops. To install the .NET framework, run the executable file in Prerequisites\DotNet451.

  • The Visual Basic for Applications feature requires Microsoft VBA 7.1. Use the core and language-specific *.msi packages in the Prerequisites\VB71 folder.

Ensure your user systems meet Reflection’s Requirements

To make sure users have the Reflection hardware and software requirements, see System Requirements.

If your users have legacy macros, install legacy macro compatibility features

To run a legacy macro, the Micro Focus compatibility feature for that type of macro must be installed. This feature is available on the Reflection Setup program Features tab, under 3270/5250 | Compatibility. See Select Features, Components, and Languages in the Reflection Deployment Guide.

Follow guidelines for setting up security certificates

You can configure certificate authentication for both Secure Shell and SSL/TLS connections.

All SSL/TLS sessions require certificates for host authentication; without the necessary certificate, you cannot make a host connection. Depending on the host configuration, you may also need to install certificates for user authentication.

Secure Shell sessions typically require both host and user authentication. Certificates can be used for either host and/or user authentication, but are not required by default.

For more, see Digital Certificates and Reflection Certificate Manager in the Deployment Guide.

Follow best practices for upgrading

If you are upgrading from another Micro Focus product such as Extra! or a previous version of Reflection, see the following tech notes: Technical Note 2808, 2508, 2193

If you are using Citrix or AppV, Follow best practices for these platforms

Whenever possible, save sessions that have customized settings for QuickPads, keyboard maps, themes, mouse maps, hotspots, and ribbons as compound session document files (see Customize Session Document Files). This prevents problems caused by sessions not being able to access or find configuration files.

If you specify a user data directory, do not use the Setup user interface to set the directory and do not use a drive letter as part of the directory. Setting the user data directory in this way on a Citrix server causes all users to have the same data directory. Instead, create a transform that sets the WRQ_USERDIR property to the location you want to use for the user data directory (see Add/Modify Registry Data in the Deployment Guide) and install Reflection with the transform. Be sure to use a Reflection property (such as [PersonalFolder]) to specify the directory instead of a drive letter.