[AccessD] Access 2010 and Citrix

Gustav Brock gustav at cactus.dk
Fri Aug 30 02:51:27 CDT 2013


Hi all

I have this corporate client running one Access 2010 application with an SQL
Server backend.

Up till now they have had it running locally on workstations from
LOCALAPPDATA. I have created a shortcut and a script that copies a fresh
frontend from a shared location to the users machine and launch the app as
two instances where one is minimized and run some background tasks from a
timer.

Yesterday they decided that the app should run in their Citrix environment
to allow remote workers to access the app without a local copy.

They had tried to run the app from the shared folder which of course raised
the usual warnings about security and so on. I recalled some old stories of
all the troubles running Access in Citrix and was prepared for the worst. 
However, as a first attempt, I suggested to run it in the same way as usual
- running the shortcut and script from the Citrix Desktop. And guess what -
it worked right away! The app even launches with an unexpected speed of 4 s
from double-click to opening screen of the app. The client was impressed and
I earned a lot of credit.

So the trick is to prepare your app to run from LOCALAPPDATA on a normal
workstation. Then you can move it directly to Citrix.
These are the essential code lines:

Const LOCALAPPDATA = &H1C
Dim objAppShell
Dim objLocalAppDataFolder
Dim strLocalAppDataFolder
Set objAppShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
Set objLocalAppDataFolder = objAppShell.Namespace(LOCALAPPDATA)
strLocalAppDataFolder = objLocalAppDataFolder.Self.Path

The strange thing is, that this resolves to:

    C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data

but access to that folder or its subfolders is denied for Windows Explorer.

/gustav









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