Hi all, are there any resident Citrix experts on the forum?

 

We have just acquired a new customer for our small family run PC business and by the looks of their equipment they are running a lot of older XP thin client machines linking to a Citrix environment. From what I have seen this is an older Citrix version - 4 or 5. It needs XP thin clients for use with it.

 

I have been provided a list of the compatible hardware by the previous IT firm, however this is quite old. We have been asked to look into providing a printer, looking through the list the printers are mostly Laserjets from 7 or 8 years ago. This puts it into the realms of secondhand, if not very expensive "new" printers.

Ideally they want an inkjet, however there aren't many supported models. The printer that it should be replacing is probably a more recent model!

 

My main question is can you use a generic printer driver in the Citrix environment, particularly a HP?

 

We unfortunately have no control over this Citrix environment as it is controlled by another firm.

 

Any thoughts gratefully received. Thanks in advance

I believe you can, you might find some "interesting" functionality occurs though for certain printing functions.

 

But I would assume you'd be unsupported by the software supplier, if you're talking that long ago.

They really need to upgrade, they would be knackered if a server fell-over with a hardware issue.

 

You may find that a newer LaserJet would run OK as most will work with earlier PCL versions.

 

Could be a bit of trial and error though, especially if they use different paper sources.

 

I hope it is on a T&M basis and not a fixed quote.

Thank you both for your replies, most helpful.

 

The server is in a "hosted" environment, so shouldn't be the firms concern, they are paying for the privledge too!

 

I am too concerned about the age of the kit in general, though we are just getting to know the customer so can't recommend a full replacement just yet! We will see how things develop as I think it is a waste to keep going with such old kit! The spare thin clients are 8 years old out of the box...

Thank you both for your replies, most helpful.

 

The server is in a "hosted" environment, so shouldn't be the firms concern, they are paying for the privledge too!

 

I am too concerned about the age of the kit in general, though we are just getting to know the customer so can't recommend a full replacement just yet! We will see how things develop as I think it is a waste to keep going with such old kit! The spare thin clients are 8 years old out of the box...

That won't help them if it is a business critical system and it takes an age for the hosting company to get them up and running again, due to the age of the solution. It does also make you wonder about the security aspect, can it be patched up to date to protect their data.

Thanks Gti, I will keep this in mind, it is a very valid point.

If its Presentation Server 4 / 4.5 Or XenApp 5 its likely to be running on Server 2003. Just make sure that the printer you buy has a driver for that version. As 2003 is still quite common i would expect business printers to still provide for that operating system. HP business printers would be a good place to start, especially as XenApp has something built in called the Citrix Universal Print Driver that emulates most common printing functions and is built from an HP driver.