Introduction

What is so great about the older Citrix ActiveX ICA Client? Well it's only 350kb in size for starters. Which means it will download quickly to low bandwidth dial-in users. Automatically.

ActiveX ICA File Tips

The Citrix ActiveX client is one of my favorite ICA clients to use and deploy. This client can be used to provide quick and easy access to Citrix MetaFrame server desktops or published applications. Using just a web browser from the client PC's.

Basic explanation of the ICA ActiveX Client:

The ActiveX ICA client is made to integrate with MS Internet Explorer and Netscape web browsers. An example of this client would be, You open a web browser on your client PC, and navigate to a webpage that has links (Custom Website), you click one of those links and it will launch a Citrix session, published application or published desktop.

Technical explanation:

To explain in more detail, when the client PC launches the web browser and navigates to a webpage, there is a "java script" in the webpage that determines onloading of the page, if any ICA client exists on the client PC, if it does not exist, it will install it from a (CAB) file on the web server. This CAB (Cabinent) file, a Microsoft extension for a file which contains compressed files, will uncompress the ActiveX ICA Web client to the PC, and copy 2 files to the "c:\%windir%\system32" directory. The file names are wfica32.exe and wfica32.ocx, and will also register an association to .ICA file extention. This installation is version controllable and can auto update or roll back the client version if desired.

Sample HTML Page

Here is a sample webpage with java script that will automatically detect and download the ActiveX ICA client. You can open it and view source, copy it and customize it to your liking. The graphics are removed but you can replace them with your own.

Sample Page with script

The ICA Client CAB file.You will need to place this file on your web server in the same directory as your webpage, or if your good at HTML place it in a directory of your choosing and modify the java script.

ICA files live on the web server, and provide information to the WFICA32.EXE ActiveX ICA Web client when launched. That means you will need to create .ICA files with certain configuration parameters and store them on a web server.

Note: An ICA file is presented as an HTML link to the PC web browser, when clicked on, by association the WFICA32.EXE is launched from the client PC, which then reads the parameters from the .ICA file on the web server.

Example ICA File:

[WFClient]
Version=2
TcpBrowserAddress=ServerName1.DomainName.com
TcpBrowserAddress2=ServerName2.DomainName.com

[ApplicationServers]
SeverName or Published Application Name=
[ServerName or Published Application Name]
Address=ServerName or Published Application Name
DesiredHRES=1024
DesiredVRES=768
DesiredColor=2
TransportDriver=TCP/IP
WinStationDriver=ICA 3.0


The ActiveX ICA Web Client does support NAT or Network Address Translation. You would simply add the following line right below the TcpBrowserAddress entries.

UseAlternateAddress=1

Reference to ICA File Configuration and Parameters:

ICA File Syntax Breakdown and Line Items Defined
How to Create an ICA File that Launches a Seamless Windows Connection

Using the ActiveX ICA Web client means you will have to design, create and manage your own website and webpages. However, with the advent of NFuse 1.5, 1.6, Classic and Elite, you don't have to create and manage your own webpages, it is already done for you in these products so give them a try and see for yourself. But if you are one of those people (me included) that prefers to control and develop in HTML then the manual approach can work almost as well.

If you haven't looked into NFuse Elite yet, I highly recommend taking peak at it, Citrix says even your mother can install it. Not to mention it's awesome new features

Link to Secure Access Manager Test Drive