I have this weird issue where my employer’s remote virtual desktop is configured in English (UK), and it works well in Windows with UK keyboard layout. However, if I try to connect to the same instance from Linux (or Chrome OS), with the same hardware, it would appear as if I’m typing from a US keyboard. To make it more bizarre, if I configure a US keyboard in the remote Windows session and switch to it, it would appear as if I’m typing with the UK keyboard layout.
Googling this yields a few frustrating customers, but probably the combination of using a UK keyboard in Linux and accessing a Windows VDA is not that common? I’m surprised that hacks need to be applied… The bizarre symptoms made me wonder what if I just tell the Citrix receiver (or workspace) application to simply use whatever the keyboard layout the remote VDA configured? Bingo! That solves the problem (for me at least). Changing the keyboard layout to (Server Default) in the [WFClient] configuration section did the trick for me in Linux. The configuration file should be in ~/.ICAClient/wfclient.ini
However, I have yet to find where the configuration is stored for Chrome App (in Chrome OS), nor whether it’s even possible to update the default setting there. In the meantime, I found a workaround by editing the ICA file. Open it with a text editor, and add
KeyboardLayout=(Server Default)to the [WFClient] section.