Managing Documents from a Virtual Desktop Session
This article applys to the following Citrix/Virtual Desktop clients:
What is a "Mapped Drive"?
Imagine that you are working on a computer, either Mac or Windows, and you need access to a folder on a server. You would likely create some kind of shortcut to that folder. This shortcut typically would assume the form of a drive letter being assigned to that network path. For example, if you needed quick access to to the folder called 'shared' on the server called "fileserver", it could be accessed at the network path "\\fireserver\share". To make the folder more accessible, a drive could be "mapped" to that path and assigned a drive letter. This way, the path appears to be just another disk on your computer. This is a "mapped drive".
In the context of Virtual Desktop, it works somewhat in the opposite way. In a Virtual Desktop application, you are working in an application that is running on a server. Therefore, the hard drives in your client computer are located across the network from that server. To be able to save a document to your local hard drive, you must map a network drive in the Virtual Desktop session so it is accessible from the Virtual Desktop application. This is also considered a "mapped drive".
Which Citrix Clients Support Mapped Drives?
All three of the supported Citrix Clients support drive mapping, though it is handled in different ways, depending on which client you are using.
- Citrix Web Client on a Windows PC: All of your local hard drives are automatically mapped without any configuration.
- Citrix Client for Mac OS X: By default, your "Home Folder" is mapped to the Virtual Desktop session. On a Mac, your home folder is "\Users\{Your Username}" on your Mac hard drive. For instructions on how to map other drives, see the article on Configuring Default Settings for the Citrix Client for Mac OS X.
- Citrix Client for Java: The Java client also automatically creates a mapped drive to your home folder in Mac OS X. (The home folder on a Windows PC would be your "My Documents" folder if you are running the Java client on a Windows machine.)
How Do I Know Which Drive is My Local Hard Drive in a Virtual Desktop Session?
Typically, when you go to save a document in a Virtual Desktop application, your mapped drives will appear as shown in the image below. "C$ on 'Client' (V:)" means that your local (C:) drive is being mapped as the (V:) drive in the Virtual Desktop session. (The reason they are not mapped as the same drive letter (C:), (D:), etc. is to avoid conflicts with the actual hard drives that are local to the server, which are already named drives C: and D:)
More Information
For more instructions on using Virtual Desktop, see the applicable section on the main Virtual Desktop Documentation page.
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Last Updated: 04/24/2008