Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

[Jeff Fried]

Never needed to work with a Citrix server but now I do. 8 to 10 outsiders who connect via Citrix. Alpha Five app will be used by them.

First, if you have experience with Citrix, is it pretty straightforward or are there major caveats?

Second, my main concern is trying to set up a private directory for each user, one which is only used by the logged-in user. This is not a problem when each user has a workstation on the network since every user has a C drive unique to them. I typically set up a directory on each of the local drives called c:\root. My use of the private workspace in c:\root is, among other things, to pass parameters between Alpha and other programs. As long as everyone has the common c:\root, I don't need to worry about anyone's passing parameters clashing with anyone else's.

But, can this be achieved on a Citrix server? It is my impression that everyone on the Citrix server shares the same "C drive", meaning that everything will be shared by everyone. Do you know if this is true? If so, do you know of a way for me to achieve the private directory for each Citrix user?

The acid test is this. Citrix User A creates a document in the directory c:\root. Citrix User B has a c:\root directory but does not have the document in it created by Citrix User A, because it is like a physical hard drive for each of the Citrix users.

Thank you.

Jeff

[Al Buchholz]

Re: Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

Each user has their own windows login and their own My Documents folder (and subfolders)

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

Each user has their own windows login and their own My Documents folder (and subfolders)

Thanks Al,

So far so good; it's getting there. Do you know if you can also create another directory, off the root, that is not a sub of My Documents but is nevertheless owned by the login?

Jeff

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

Thanks Al,

So far so good; it's getting there. Do you know if you can also create another directory, off the root, that is not a sub of My Documents but is nevertheless owned by the login?

Jeff

No, Al, this is not it. I just logged in as a Citrix user and what I see is c:\users\... Under users are all users, each with "My documents". This is not what I'm after. I want to have a common access point for each user that is only that user's data. I can always create a separate directory for each user, but then I won't have the luxury of always being able to call the private directory by the same name for each user.

Think of your local hard drive. If you store a file on the root (c:\), that file is not accessible by another user other than the one on your workstation. But Citrix doesn't have a physical local hard drive, so I can't do this. I'm trying to create, essentially, a virtual local hard drive for each user where the storage area is the same name for each user but owned separately for each user. Your helpful comment about each user having their own My Documents is NOT what I'm talking about. Let me know if you need further clarification.

Thanks.

Jeff

[Al Buchholz]

Re: Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

Jeff

I explained to you what windows does to handle unique directories for each user.

If you want your own directory system, you are free to create and maintain it as needed..

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

Jeff, as Al suggests you're going to have to work a little harder. You can't use the same private directory path/name for each user. But this should not be an issue. When they log in you can capture their user name. Your startup code can use that name to tell Alpha where (on the citrix server) that particular user's private directory is located.

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

Jeff, as Al suggests you're going to have to work a little harder. You can't use the same private directory path/name for each user. But this should not be an issue. When they log in you can capture their user name. Your startup code can use that name to tell Alpha where (on the citrix server) that particular user's private directory is located.

Yes, I understand I can program the location of a user's private directory based on their logon. This is precisely what I'm trying to avoid if possible. Al, everyone knows what Windows does to establish a personal user directory. This is not at all what I'm after.

Here's an illustration, Tom, of what I'm trying to do. Right now, for any installation I have, every workstation has, in addition to a program directory for Alpha and a network location for the data and application files, a directory on the local hard drive that I call c:\root (sub-directory of the root that is named "root". In c:\root, every user has, for example, a file called parmg.dbf. It is a one-record file with various fields for text (text1, text2, text3, etc.), numeric (numb1, numb2, nuimb3, etc.), dates, logical, and memo following the same scheme. For certain procedures in Alpha, I capture variables and pass them on to parmg.dbf. For example, in an order entry application, when the user goes to print an invoice or packing list for the order, among the variables captured in Alpha are the order number, user name, customer number, etc. These variables are written to fields in parmg.dbf using xbasic update record, this being record 1 of a 1-record table. Then the procedure runs another program that takes the field values from parmg.dbf to use in, say, running a third party report writer, or running a procedure written in Visual Foxpro -- whatever. The main point is that parmg.dbf, located in c:\root, is a parameter-passing file.

Parmg.dbf could never be in a shared location because at the same time one user may be passing parameters to parmg.dbf, another user can be doing the same thing, and the obvious chaos would result. Therefore, I need to have a private zone by default for each user. The local hard drive that has the c:\root directory and the parmg.dbf file is always unique to the user of the computer, regardless of who the user is.

If you looked inside my code for, say, Visual Foxpro, you would see I define a data path and root path at the beginning of each program. The datapath would be something like datapath=f:\data\. The rootpath would be something like rootpath=c:\root\. Then, when referring to where a file is read from or written to, the code might say 'use datapath+"ohead"'. Or 'copy to rootpath+"tempfile" for ...'

If I don't have a fixed location for the root path, which needs to be different for each workstation so there is no chaos, as I do with a separate local hard drive, then there are only two options with respect to an environment like Citrix. One is to create a separate directory for each user on the system and program in to the system a definition of rootpath that identifies the directory specific to each individual user. I know I can do that, but it's the long way to the destination. The other option is to have a way to define, uniquely for each user on Citrix, the same named directory that I can reference in my code so I don't need to go the long route.

Tom, I welcome any insight you might have into this if it is possible. I know you have experience with Citrix.

Al, I'm not sure if you have experience with Citrix based on your responses, so thanks for your help anyhow.

Jeff

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

Jeff, FWIW I have zero Citrix experience. (Unless you count my GotoMeeing subscription <grin>)

Your description suggests another easy solution.

Create a shared table containing a separate "parameters" record for each user. Get and Set parameters to the user's record by filtering the table based on their logon. No need to have separate directories at all.

[Jeff Fried]

Re: Can there be a personal directory in a Citrix session?

Jeff, FWIW I have zero Citrix experience. (Unless you count my GotoMeeing subscription <grin>)

Your description suggests another easy solution.

Create a shared table containing a separate "parameters" record for each user. Get and Set parameters to the user's record by filtering the table based on their logon. No need to have separate directories at all.

Now that's what I call thinking outside the box. I'm so close to it, thinking a one-record parameter file, that it didn't occur to me that if I have, say, 10 users, I can assign one user to record 1, another to record 2, etc. I don't event need to use a filter. Rather, if user=A, replace fields in record 1, if user=B, replace fields in record 2, etc. thanks for that eye-opening response. It may preclude the need for separate directories for each user.

However, I still need to find out if Citrix itself has a way to accomplish my first goal. Also, for some reason I thought you worked with Citrix. Personally, I've had lots of experience using GoToMyPC for outside sales people connecting to a network, each having their own onsite PC. It worked beautifully and non of this Citrix server stuff got in the way. In fact, this very client who has a Citrix server long time ago had my recommendation to go the multiple-PC route for their various outside sales people (8 or 9 of them). In the end it would have been more cost effective going the GoToMyPC route with all those extra PCs, given the cost of the Citrix server hardware, software, licensing, support, etc.

Thanks again.

Jeff