[AccessD] Windows 7 64 bit

Hi Drew

Thanks for these useful tips!

We are currently struggling with a move including some 16-bit apps and the good old Program Manager (progman.exe, remember that?) which the client just loves (and I must say it fits her purpose very well, it is not just a crazy idea) to 64-bit Windows 7. That is, of course, not possible except if you run virtual Windows XP environment. 

This XP environment is just a tightly integrated Remote Desktop and a Virtual PC running WinXP. At least launch times for apps are slower with this.
A major challenge is that the machine must log in to a NetWare server. Novell doesn't seem to bother for a 64-bit client, so only a "Novell Client 2" is available with very limited features. But  with this you can attach your network drives and that's what counts.
However, attached drives in the 64-bit host OS are supposed to be "automatically" linked to the virtual machine. They are, but whenever, in the virtual machine, you open a drive attached to the NetWare server, the host OS breaks down - completely with Blue Screen of Death - I haven't seen this for years. To get around this you have to install the normal 32-bit Novell Client 4.xx in the virtual machine and let it attach the networked drives directly.

As I don't see any true reason to run 64-bit - it just happened to be installed on the machine, and I have yet to see a 64-bit desktop application with a difference - I strongly consider to rebuild it with 32-bit Win7 because a cd with this was included with the machine - perhaps just to check out the PCMover from the other thread.

By the way, did you donate a small amount to the excellent Shrew people? We rarely do such, I must admit, but we try to persuade clients to do so and sometimes we just add some amount to the invoice because clients prefer invoices rather than receipts for donations.

/gustav


>>> DWUTKA at marlow.com 20-01-2010 22:42 >>>
There's been some talk about Windows 7 on here, and since it going to be
hitting your user base, I figured I would share some 64 bit info.

I've been running 64 bit on my work desktop for about 2 years now.
(Vista until October when 7 was actually released).  I've now been
running 64 bit on my laptop for the last 3 months.

>From our user's standpoint, there were two issues that we had with 64
bit.  Oracle ODBC connections, and our Cisco VPN.  Everything else we
install on a typical machine works just fine on a 64 bit box.  There are
some 'admin' things that don't work in 64 bit, but I don't care much
about that, cause I use Virtual PC like it's my right arm, so I just
have that stuff in a VPC environment.

The Oracle thing was a show stopper though.  Our production database
(Glovia) is running in an Oracle database.  It used to be a Unix box,
but is now on a Window's based rack server.  The application for our
production database works just fine in a 64 bit environment, and doesn't
use an ODBC connection.  However, long before I got here, they were
using Access as a 'report engine' for Glovia.  So there are a handful of
these databases that need to connect to Oracle through an ODBC
connection, for all these reports to work.  

Problem #1.  Oracle doesn't make a 64 bit ODBC driver.  They do however
have ODAC101040.exe  which is an ODBC driver for Oracle 10g.  When
trying to install this several 'unknown' errors come up, and the install
fails. However, you can right click on it and select Troubleshoot
Compatibility, this then goes and let's you run the install without a
hitch.  Once that is done, the next trick is that the ODBC manager in
the control panel is a 64 bit manager.  To use the 32bit manager, you
have to go to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe .  Looks the same, but
this will then let you setup your ODBC connection.  Now, I got this part
done months ago, but ran into the next problem.

Problem #2.  I could 'test' the connection from the 32 bit ODBC
connection manager, successfully, but whenever I tried to use the ODBC
connection from Access, I would get 'ODBC Error'.  Sigh.  Well a few
weeks ago, an order was placed for a laptop for one of our accounting
people that I wanted to setup with a very decent laptop.  It came in
last week, but I was hesitant to put Windows 7 64 bit on it, because she
uses these ODBC tables all day long, and I didn't want to force her to
use a Remote Desktop session to a machine that had everything
working...so I dug into some more research, and guess what....the
problem was in WHERE Access was installed too.  On a 64 bit machine, 32
bit programs get installed (by default) to C:\Program Files (x86)\  and
those parenthesis' were tripping a bug in Oracle, cause apparently
whatever app tries to connect to the ODBC connection is sending along
it's full application path.  On my own desktop, by just moving
msaccess.exe to the root of one of my drives, the ODBC stuff started
working right away! Go figure!

The other 64 bit issue was the Cisco VPN client.  Apparently Cisco
refuses to make it's standard VPN client compatible with 64 bit
technology (which is weird, because Cisco is supposed to be so 'cutting
edge'...LOL).  So I found http://www.shrew.net/home a FREE 3rd party app
that let's you use Cisco .pcf files for configurations, and it connects
like a charm!  Woohoo.

Drew
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