Virtual Lab is an environment that lets anyone with an Onyen use software applications without having them installed on their computer. Choosing where to save your files works a little differently in applications launched from Virtual Lab.
Information
Storing Files From Your Personal Computer
Each time you open an application in Virtual Lab, Virtual Lab maps the drives on your device. Virtual Lab also displays a message asking if you want to allow the application to access your files. If you allow access, you can access your mapped drives from the application, and you can use the drives like any other drive. If you choose the wrong security settings, you can change them. This article explains how to do all of these things.
When you're using Virtual Lab, ITS recommends that you save all files to your home drive, a USB flash drive, or a mapped network drive. Any data in your virtual application, including files you save to the virtual application “Documents” folder, is erased 15 minutes after you close a virtual application. There is no way to retrieve these files after they have been erased.
IMPORTANT: The Documents folder you see when opening or saving a file is not the Documents folder on your home drive. It is a Documents folder on the ITS server. Be careful not to save work to this folder, because all files in this folder are erased 15 minutes after you close the application.
Choosing Permissions for How Applications Access Your Files
When you open an application in Virtual Lab, you see a message asking how much access you want the application to have to your files:
The three options are:
- Choose Permit all access to allow the application open and save files on your home drive, mapped network drives, and USB flash drives. Check the box next to Do not ask me again for this site to save your choice for the next time you open this application on this device.
NOTE: Making this choice doesn't give anyone else access to your files—only you can see them.
- Choose Allow reading only to be able to see but not make changes to the files on your home desktop, mapped network drives, and USB flash drives. If you try to save a file to your home file, a network drive, or a USB flash drive, the application will tell you that the file is Read Only and will ask if you want to save a copy in a different folder. Be careful—if you choose to save the file in a different place, the application will suggest saving it to the virtual application Documents folder. Files saved there are permanently deleted 15 minutes after you close the application.
- Choose Block access to prevent all access to the files on your home drive, mapped network drives, USB flash drives, and the virtual application Documents folder. If you choose this option, you won't be able to open or change any files.
After you choose an option, you see another message:
- Click Permit use to allow all devices attached to your computer to open and save files.
- Click Block access to prevent devices attached to your computer from opening and saving files.
Check the box next to Do not ask me again for this site to save the option you chose for the next time you access Virtual Lab on this device.
Changing Security Settings for How Files Are Accessed During Your Session
For Windows users, when you start a program via Virtual Lab, the Citrix Workspace icon (a blue icon with white arcs on it like a Wi-Fi signal) comes up in your toolbar at the bottom right (near the time). Right click that icon and choose Connection center. When the “Connection Center” comes up, your current session should already be highlighted. Click on the preferences button to open Citrix preferences for your current session. In the file access tab, make sure read and write permission is selected.
For Mac users, you will need to change the settings and restart the program for the changes to take effect. To change these settings, click “Preferences” in the Citrix Viewer toolbar. Under the “Devices” tab, changes access to “Read and write”. When you restart the program, these changes will take effect.
Seeing Your Drives in Computer
As in your home desktop applications, the Computer folder shows the structure of your device’s resources. This image is an example of the Computer folder in a virtual application (this particular example shows opening a file in Microsoft PowerPoint). The disk drives and directory structures are divided into two categories: Devices with Removable Storage and Other.
Devices with Removable Storage
Devices such as your DVD drives are listed here but not compatible with your Virtual Lab session.
Other: Home Desktop, Network Drives, USB Devices
Your home desktop, mapped network drives, and USB flash drives are listed here.
Home Desktop
The C: drive is always your home desktop.
Note: On Mac computers, the computer’s primary hard drive in Virtual Lab shows as Local Disk C:, regardless of what it is called in the Mac OSX (Macintosh HD, etc.). When you double-click the drive, you will be asked to set access permission—choose read-and-write.
See instructions below for accessing files on your home desktop.
Network Drives
Your mapped network drives are listed as Network Drive (Letter:).
USB Devices
You may read from or write to your files on your computer’s USB devices (depending on your security permissions for File Security setup). These mass storage devices are attached through your USB ports and mapped under network drives as Removable Disk (Letter:). Other USB devices, except printers, are not supported by ITS at this time.
Opening a File in an Application
To open files from your home desktop:
- Click the Open icon in the application you are using
- Click on This PC on the left-hand side of the file explorer window. Then follow the path of, Local Disk (C: on your computer's name) > users > your username
- At this point, you should be seeing the files and folders on your computer (Note the file path circled at the top)
- Locate the file in the folder you are trying to open and click Open
Saving a File From an Application
To save files to your home desktop:
- Create your file.
- Click the Save icon.
The Save As dialog box displays. Click on This PC in the left hand side.
- Open the Local Disk (C:) drive, then select users > your username. From here, select the folder on your computer where you want to save the file.
Accessing Files Using a File Path
When you need to load or access a file via a file path (often used in SAS, R, SPSS, etc.) using Virtual Lab, the program defaults to the hard drive on our servers. Use this format to point to your computer instead: //Client/C$/User From there, you can use the file path associated with your personal computer.