The purpose of this document will be to present some tips and tricks for enabling QuickBooks to work within a Terminal Services and Citrix environment. Due to the nature of some of the more advanced technical properties of setting up these services to begin with, the scope of this document will be that you or your qualified IT professional will know how to setup Citrix and or Terminal Services and use this guide to get QuickBooks up and running. First, let s talk about the difference between Citrix and Terminal Services. Terminal Services: Terminal Services provides the ability to host multiple, simultaneous client sessions on Microsoft Windows Server operating systems (2003, 2008, and 2010). A Terminal Server is capable of directly hosting compatible multi-user client desktops. This is used by the user remoting into the Terminal Server via Remote Desktop from a workstation in the office or at home. The user will have their own desktop, start menu, and file, just like an actual physical workstation, but it is in reality running off of the Server. This is Remote Desktop to remote into the terminal server This is QuickBooks running inside the remote desktop window The user has their own Start menu and desktop with files, which is separate from their main desktop and is physically being run on the server This is the user s main desktop, which the remote process is initiated from into the terminal server
What are the Pros of using Terminal Services? You do not have to buy expensive high-end computers for your workstations Have access to your work files and other applications you would normally have on your work computers Have full access to your files and folders on your network Terminal Services is built into Windows Server OS and does not require 3 rd party add-on s Generally Terminal Services is cheaper than Citrix What are the Cons to using Terminal Services? You generally need a more expensive high-end server for Terminal Services to run properly (more memory and processor power, as well as a fast internet connection) Server/Network bandwidth can be higher using Terminal Services How do I Install QuickBooks on Terminal Services? First you will want to Download QuickBooks and save it to your desktop. Once it is saved, double-click on it and get to the Welcome to QuickBooks window. At this point, Cancel out of the installer.
To install QuickBooks on Terminal Services, you will want to open the Control Panel. Double-click on Install Application on Terminal Server. Double-click on Install Application on Terminal Server Next, click Browse in the Run Installation Program window. Type %temp% in the browse box and press Enter. After that, navigate to the Premier folder (or if you are installing Enterprise it will be called Enterprise) and double-click on the Setup.exe and press Enter. Finally, click Next and QuickBooks will start to install under Terminal Services.
Citrix: Citrix or what it is actually called now, Citrix XenApp (formerly Citrix Metaframe) is a form of application virtualization across a Citrix Server to client s desktops (workstations). What that means is Citrix, is essentially a process of taking an application that is installed to the server, and sending just the application to the remote workstation so a client can work within the application as if they were in front of the server. This is what is called application virtualization, which means the application is physically being run on the server, but the user is operating just the application remotely. QuickBooks here is actually running remotely and is displayed like it was installed on the user s computer This is just the application (QB) is running off the server This is the actual user s desktop and is not connected in any way to a server What are the Benefits of using Citrix? Only the application is shown to the user, so there is no harm to be made by a user changing system settings on the server Less bandwidth intensive than Terminal Services Easier to deploy (via standalone executable to install on the user s machine) You don t need quite a high-end expensive server to run What are the downsides to using Citrix? Generally Citrix is a lot more expensive than Terminal Services Going through a 3 rd party (Citrix) instead of native Windows functionality
How to setup QuickBooks with Citrix? To setup Citrix with QuickBooks, you basically are going to Publish QuickBooks in the Citrix console. To do so you want to open up your Citrix Management Console and choose Publish Application (Applications- New- Publish Application). From here, you want to click Next through the wizard and choose Installed Application on the Type screen.
Next, you need to specify the location to the QuickBooks exe to run the program, which is QBW32.exe and is located in the default install directory for QuickBooks (year specific). You can also specify a working directory where the user typically stores company files. This is the extent of what this document will cover for Citrix, but hopefully it helps shed some light on the setup process for QuickBooks itself on a Citrix server.
What are some Alternatives to Citrix and Terminal Services? Hosting- Hosting is when a 3 rd party company has their own server already setup and you typically pay a monthly fee to rent the ability to use QuickBooks remotely on their server from your workstation. Depending on your circumstances, this usually is a cheaper option and they do all the setup and maintenance for you. Your data file and the QuickBooks program itself will run in the cloud or over the internet. Remote in with via 3 rd Party Remote Tool- You can also setup a cheap workstation at your location and install QuickBooks on it and access it via Logmein, WebEx, GoToMyPC, etc. This option is better suited for one person, since it will only be one person using QuickBooks at a time. This would be the cheapest option but isn t suited for businesses that require more than one person using QuickBooks. However, in terms of setup and maintenance, this would be the most efficient solution, as the only setup process involved is setting up the remote access software on the host machine.