Joe O'Connell
joeo at appoli.com
Mon Feb 9 10:34:17 CST 2009
Dan, I have worked with Access on a Citrix server for more than 10 years with no major problems. I am in complete agreement with everything that Jim and Mark have given you, they have provided excellent advice and suggestions. For some applications another feature of Citrix that is useful is the ability to publish the application. Users logon anonymously and your Access application can start automatically. When the Access application closes, the user is automatically logged off. Since the users cannot get to a desktop, they are locked out of everything except the one application which you make available to them. This also maximizes use of the Citrix licenses since you can control how long users are logged on, and log them off automatically if they are not actively using your application. Joe O'Connell -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Dan Waters Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 10:06 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: Re: [AccessD] Citrix and Access Hi Jim, Hi Mark, This is just the type of thing I was thinking I'd need to get resolved. I am working with my customer's IT guy who seems quite comfortable with Citrix, so that's good. I'll specifically ask him about mapping a unique path on the server to a drive letter for their terminal services profile. I agree with avoiding the sharing of references. My system now uses an AutoUpdater.mdb file that I wrote to ensure that each user automatically pulls the latest files from the server each time they open the application, so all references do go to files on the C drive. The FE.mdb, Library.mdb, TempTables.mdb, sound files, and one 3rd party dll file (VBA Global Error Handler from EverythingAccess.com), are checked for Last Modified Date and pulled to the client before the app is opened. There are continuous requests for modifications, so the FE.mdb and Library.mdb are updated frequently. This autoupdating is at least one scenario that we'll need to work through carefully. Another is that my app pulls a recordset from the mdw file on the server to see how many people are logged in. If they have 8 licenses, user 9 just gets a message that the app is 'full', and they are then logged out. Right now the max number of concurrent users is only 8, this may double or so in a couple of years. Thanks! Dan -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim Dettman Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 4:34 PM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: Re: [AccessD] Citrix and Access Dan, Probably the biggest issue when running under Citrix is that the "C" drive is the same for everyone. That's a bit of a problem where you want everyone to have their own FE (which you would typically would install on their C drive). But there is an easy workaround for that; just map a unique path on the server to a drive letter for their terminal services profile (something like X) and place the FE there. A little more problematic however is references. If you open up an FE, you'll find all your references still pointing to C. For the most part, if your just using the typical references, this is not an issue. Those references can be shared with no problem. But if your using a library reference (a reference to a MDA) or some type of 3rd party component, then you might have issues with multiple users all sharing that reference. This is in fact the reason that some of the Wizards in Office are not available under TS; they simply won't work when shared. Unfortunately there is not easy work around for this. You have few choices. You can map the same drive letter for everyone (remote user or not) and write your app against that or you can distribute two different versions of the app (one that runs against C and one that runs against your mapped drive letter). I've been lucky enough to only run up against this once, but when you do it's a pain in the butt. Other then that, Access works wonderfully under TS/Citrix with JET or SQL Server. Jim. -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Dan Waters Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 4:05 PM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: Re: [AccessD] Citrix and Access Hi Arthur, Anything you can think of that might have been restrictive or need to know? I'll be switching out many users from running on their PC to using a Citrix window. Glad to hear about the response time! Was your FE linked to SQL 2000 or were you using an OLEDB Provider? Thanks, Dan -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 2:45 PM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] Citrix and Access I have lots of experience running an Access app on Terminal Services, and even with 70 users it was faster for me to develop on the remote TS box than on my local machine at home. I was completely floored. Assuming a fast pipe on both ends, I think you will be very pleased with the response time. (To be fair, our Access back end was SQL 2000.) hth, Arthur -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com