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Thursday, February 27, 2014

Updated: Starting Google Earth on Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 virtual desktop prompts the message: ‘DirectX’ mode not supported

First off, I apologize for not taking the time to update my previous post:

Starting Google Earth on Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 virtual desktop prompts the message: ‘DirectX’ mode not supported
http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2013/04/starting-google-earth-on-citrix.html

… which I wrote last April in 2013 about starting Google Earth in a Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 virtual desktop in Direct X mode and receiving the following message:

‘DirectX’ mode not supported

image

… because I’ve received quite a few questions about this post where some users were unclear about how to install the Google Earth Optimization pack as defined here:

HDX Optimization Pack for Google Earth
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xendesktop-56fp1/hdx-opt-pack-for-google-earth.html

To make a long story short, the instructions provided in my previous post works when you copy the d3d9.dll file bundled from the x64 folder in the Google Optimization pack zip file supplied by Citrix but the only way to get it to work was to copy the file to C:\Windows\SysWOW64 folder as well.

What I noticed a few months after writing that post was that even if you’re installing this on a Windows 7 64-bit virtual desktop, you can actually copy the d3d9.dll file bundled from the x86 folder to only the folders:

%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Google\Google Earth\client\alchemy\ogles20

%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Google\Google Earth\plugin\alchemy\ogles20

%ProgramFiles%\Google\Google Earth\client

%ProgramFiles%\Google\Google Earth\plugin

… as outlined in the Citrix KB to get Google Earth 7 to start in Direct X mode.  This obviously is the better route because it does not force you to replace the protected file in the C:\Windows\SysWOW64 file which may cause issues further down the road.

I apologize for not writing this post earlier and hope this will help anyone out there looking for an explanation as to why simply copying the d3d9.dll file bundled from the x64 folder in the Google Optimization pack zip file did not work.

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