IMac to Thin Client

[TLARWise]

We have a couple of old 2006 17" IMacs that are pretty useless to us as Macs so I was wondering if we could convert them to thin clients to connect to our Citrix XenApp environment (RM CC4Anywhere). I know I could just install citrix receiver from within MacOS and connect through a web browser but ideally I would prefer ditching MacOS entirely and boot directly to a citrix receiver logon screen similar to dedicated thin client hardware. Is anyone aware of any instructions that can walk me through the process?

[TLARWise]

Bump, for the benefit of those lucky users who managed to get time off during the easter holidays and may have missed the original post.

 

Thanks

[_techie_]

Do they have Intel CPU's?

If so you could always get them to boot from Win7 through boot camp and use ThinKiosk from thinscaletechnology.com to hook up to Citrix. Win7 could always be domain joined and be the default boot location too, so you can control them via GPO.

[Arthur]

The Late 2006 17" iMac (iMac5,2) is on the list of Macs supported by Neverware's CloudReady version of ChromiumOS ($25/year for schools). This will boot up a lot faster than OS X or Windows.

 

You could run the Citrix Receiver Chrome extension in kiosk mode, although if you wanted to remotely manage and lockdown the OS you would need a management license (£19) and a Google Apps for Education domain setup (free).

 

There's a free version of CloudReady available which would enable you to confirm it works before spending any money on licenses.

 

Do they have Intel CPU's?

iMacs from 2006 would have Core Duo or Core 2 Duo CPUs.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Arthur