Re: Win2003 TS Mode - Application doesn't work

I'm not yet a TS expert, but my general take is that you are likely out of
luck. In any multi-user environment what you try to accomplish is that pure
thing (executable code, fonts, images, etc.) are shared and impure things
(data) is not shared (unless it was specifically designed for multi-user
sharing). So when you install a single-user application on a TS what you
want to have happen is that all the pure/static/not-user-specific stuff goes
into a shared directory structure under Program Files and all the
impure/user-specific stuff goes into separate copies for each user (under
Documents and Settings for example). The TS environment provides some help
for this in terms of making shadow copies of registry entries, etc.but a lot
depends on the app doing the right things. For example, if the app keeps
data in a sub-directory under it's directory in Program Files then you are
going to have one copy for the entire system rather than one copy for each
user. Or if the app finalizes all the file locations at setup time, rather
than the first time the app is run, then the data files are going to end up
in the subdirectory for the user who ran setup under Documents and Settings
rather than having copies in the sudirectory for each user who runs the app.
These really aren't TS specific. They even hold for having multiple
non-concurrent users on your typical Windows XP system. So, if you have a
perfectly well behaved Windows XP application then you are 99% or more of
the way to having an application that works under TS.

I don't know if app developers are just not following all the rules for a
well behaved Windows XP app, are careless, or are being too clever for their
own good. But any of the three could make software not function on a TS.
Some just don't care about logo certification and thus don't follow all the
known rules. Some have to support their software on multiple versions of
Windows, or even multiple OSes, and thus make compromises so that what works
on Windows also works on (for example) a Mac. Sometimes they may be
careless and have some shared updateable state that they get away with on XP
but not in a TS environment. Since on XP you can have multiple users, but
not concurrently, there are never conflicts on that state (other than the
possibility that it will affect the other users behavior the next time they
login). But in the TS environment you suddenly have multiple users
concurrently trying to update that state and getting errors as a result.
The too clever part is like this as well. The vendor may create
intentionally shared state knowing that it is never concurrently accessed
(in an XP environment), and then when you go to TS it starts being
concurrently accessed.

For many vendors the bottom line is that the TS environment is not yet big
enough for them to care. So they don't want to incur the expense to test in
a TS environment and fix the problems. In some cases this lack of testing
is the only difference between claiming support or not. In others, it
results in the apps truely not running right in a TS environment.

What you can do is try to find files that should be unique to each user that
are instead being shared and see if there is a way to create separate files
for each user and point Act! at them. This might work if (a) they are
truely files that don't need to be shared and (b) Act! provides a way to
reliably redirect where it looks for them on a user by user basis. But
frankly, you may be asking for trouble. You could easily reach a point
where you lose data.

We've started to test Goldmine Corporate Edition, which might be an option
for you as the closest equivalent to Act!. I'm also certain Microsoft CRM
works on TS. Microsoft Outlook BCM sort-of does but you can't integrate it
with Exchange (which precludes it making sense in our environment).


--
Hal Berenson, President
PredictableIT, LLC


"Dave" <Dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:68F6E73C-4161-4B73-B30D-0BC7FC852F8C@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hal,
> - Thank you for the info.
> - The application is Act! 2005 Premium for Workgroups, and the error
> messages vary. The most frequent error message says "ACT! E-mail has
> encountered a problem and needs to close. Please restart ACT! 7.0
E-mail."
> - As stated before, the maker of this software doesn't support terminal
> services, so won't give me any help.
>
> Dave
>
> "Hal Berenson" wrote:
>
> > Chapter 5 of "Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services" by
Bernhard
> > Tritsch is one general source of info on integrating applications with
TS.
> > And it does have some specific pointers about .NET apps, though it
predates
> > there being much real world experience with them.
> >
> > What kind of error messages do you see?
> > --
> > Hal Berenson, President
> > PredictableIT, LLC
> >
> >
> > "Dave" <Dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> > news:AF0A6EF6-7D5A-44A0-88A2-FBF588F6F917@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > - I am running Win2003 Server Standard with Terminal Services, and
> > accessing
> > > with the WinXP remote desktop connection. The server is dual Xeon
with
> > lots
> > > of RAM, etc.
> > > - Although most of my applications are running fine, one application
runs
> > > but some functions result in error messages. The application
manufacturer
> > > does not support terminal services so won't help, but the application
is
> > > designed to run on Win2003 Server Standard and Web, Win2000 Server and
> > Pro,
> > > XP Home and Pro.
> > > - I've intentionally not mentioned the application, because I am
looking
> > for
> > > links to general guidance for installing applications on Win2003
terminal
> > > servers, and for troubleshooting applications running on terminal
servers.
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > > - FYI, I've watched Task Manager while this application is running and
> > there
> > > is no problem with system resources. The application uses .NET 1.1
and a
> > SQL
> > > database which is also installed on this server, along with MS SQL
Server
> > > 2000 Std Edition.
> >
> >
> >


.

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