Where to Find Current PC Specifications

By installing the ICA client on a PC, you can access applications published through a thin-client/server computing infrastructure, either by selecting the name of the published application in the WinFrame Remote Client Manager or by clicking an icon on your desktop that starts an application session on the server. In addition, PC users continue to have complete access to local system resources such as disk storage and printing. They can cut and paste between applications accessed through a thin-client/server session and a local session.

You can cut and paste between local and thin-client/server sessions while accessing local disks and printers.

You can also activate a WinFrame session by going to a Web page and clicking on a link that activates the application server. If you choose to access WinFrame sessions through a Web browser, you’ll need the ICA Web client. The ICA Web client comes with the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer. But even if you don’t have this ActiveX control, it is automatically downloaded whenever Internet Explorer users connect to a WinFrame-enabled Web page. For Netscape Navigator users, the ICA Web client is available as a plug-in at www.citrix.com.

In addition to the methods prescribed for accessing a thin-client session via a browser or over a local area network (LAN) through your PC, you can also gain access using a modem dial-up session. The ICA thin-client/server software is optimized to run in low-bandwidth situations.

On a personal computing device, the thin-client/server software can be used to access applications that either the users or their organizations didn’t want on the local computing device—whether for disk conservation, security, application maintenance, or any number of other reasons. Published applications can in-clude client/server applications, information applications, infrequently used applications, or even a backup set of productivity tools in case the ones on the desktop present a problem. For example, a graphic artist might keep his graphics, page layout, or multimedia tools on his local desktop but choose to have his productivity, e-mail, or corporate information applications reside on a thin-client/server system. At many large companies, it’s unlikely that personal computers will be completely replaced with thin-client/server devices. However, many of the custom applications used at these companies take up significant hard disk space and would be easier to deploy and maintain if they resided on a thin-client/server system.

You can conserve disk space and rapidly deploy applications by using thin-client/server solutions with PCs.

For mobile professionals, who may or may not have continuous access to a network and who need to preserve hard disk space and keep corporate information secure, thin-client/server solutions can help manage their applications. For example, a salesperson usually requires constantly updated information. Rather than having this dial-up user work at a snail’s pace to replicate or download data, he or she could access data-intensive applications on line using the thin-client/server model. This method is secure, reliable, and optimized for low-bandwidth connections.