• View Communities
    • Citrix Communities
      Visit the Citrix Communities to get and share technical information and best practices about desktop delivery, datacenter, networking and cloud computing solutions.
    • Citrix Blogs
      Learn the latest from the Citrix employees who are building the future of virtual computing.
    • Citrix Developer Network
      The place for unfiltered straight talk on Citrix products. Find related blogs, best practices, code downloads, APIs and more.
    • Citrix Ready Community Verified
      Does it work with Citrix? Application compatibility questions are a thing of the past with the new Citrix Community Verified site.
  •  Sign In
Citrix Developer Network

Virtual Channel SDK

Overview

A Citrix virtual channel is a bi-directional error-free connection used for the exchange of generalized packet data between a Citrix host for online delivery (XenApp or XenDesktop) and the Citrix Receiver online plug-in. For example: sound, graphics, client drive mapping, and printing are just a few of the virtual channels written by Citrix.

The Citrix Virtual Channel Software Development Kit (VCSDK) allows software engineers to write both host-side applications and receiver-side drivers to support additional virtual channels using the Citrix ICA protocol. The host-side virtual channel applications run on XenApp or XenDesktop, and the client-side portion of the Virtual Channel runs on the local device where Citrix Receiver resides. This SDK provides support for writing new virtual channels for the Win32 and Windows CE versions of the online plug-ins for Citrix Receiver. See the accompanying documentation for detailed information about the client versions supported.

Current Releases:

For Windows (Version 13):
Download Virtual Channel SDK for Windows

For Linux (Version 12.1):
Download Virtual Channel SDK for Linux

Previous Releases:

For Windows (Version 12):

Download Virtual Channel SDK for Windows
Readme for Windows

For Linux (Version 12.0):

Download Virtual Channel SDK for Linux

For Mac OS X:

Download Virtual Channel SDK for Mac OS X
Readme for Mac OS X



Previous Versions:

Windows: Version 11 (MSI, Readme),Version 10 (MSI, Readme), Version 2.3, Version 2.1
Linux: Version 11.1xx (TAR, Readme)


Login to add new page\






Enter tags to add to this page:
Please wait 
Looking for a tag? Just start typing.
  1. May 22, 2009

    Anonymous says:

    This SDK is compatible with Windows/Windows CE platforms. Where can I download ...

    This SDK is compatible with Windows/Windows CE platforms.

    Where can I download SDK for Linux?

  2. Jun 21, 2009

    Anonymous says:

    Agreed...where is the Linux SDK?

    Agreed...where is the Linux SDK?

  3. Sep 10, 2010

    Anonymous says:

    Which version of SDK to use to support both web plugin 11.2 and 12.0? Why the c...

    Which version of SDK to use to support both web plugin 11.2 and 12.0?

    Why the client build on SDK 2.3 stopped working on web plugin 11.2 and above? but works on 11.0 with neighborhood option installed.

  4. Oct 12, 2010

    Carlos Santos says:

    can we place the custom .dll files for our virtual channels in a different locat...

    can we place the custom .dll files for our virtual channels in a different location other than the default ICA Client location? For Example on the system32 directory and then have the registry key for the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Configuration\Advanced\Modules call our dll??? We are currently using the Citrix Receiver and everytime we upgrade our clients the ICA Client directory is completely removed, thus removig our .dll files.

    A case was open with Citrix Tech Support.

  5. Dec 11, 2010

    Anonymous says:

    Is really a good article , i don't know&...

    Is really a good article , i don't know how I can possibly thank you enough.

    supra skytop

  6. Aug 09, 2012

    Vipin Borkar says:

    One of our thin client partners need to know what is the HWND of the window host...

    One of our thin client partners need to know what is the HWND of the window hosting the published application.

    Here is a code sample from the Virtual Channel SDK v.13 programmer guide:

    WDQUERYINFORMATION wdQueryInfo;
    UINT16 uiSize;
    int rc;
    WDICAWINDOWINFO infoParam;
    wdQueryInfo.WdInformationClass = WdGetICAWindowInfo;
    wdQueryInfo.pWdInformation = &infoParam;
    wdQueryInfo.WdInformationLength = sizeof(infoParam);
    uiSize = sizeof(wdQueryInfo);
    rc = VdCallWd(g_pVd, WDxQUERYINFORMATION, &wdQueryInfo,
    &uiSize);
    if(CLIENT_STATUS_SUCCESS == rc)
    // Successfully populated infoParam with ICA window
    // information

    However, although the doc states that these features are new, WDICAWINDOWINFO is still not defined in wdapi.h!

Related Links