Access 2000 on Terminal Server

[Paul Kraemer]

Hi,

I have Access 2000 installed on a Windows 2000 terminal server. On this
server, I have an Access 2000 application that is split up between a program
database (.mdb) and a data database (.mdb). I currently have four users that
log onto this terminal server to use this Access app. This works, but it is
working somewhat erratically. Access is frequently locking up on the remote
users and they are experiencing several other strange issues.

I am wondering if this could be due to one of the following:

1. Access 2000 simply does not work well over terminal services. If this
is the case, would it help if I upgraded to a newer version of Access?

2. All four remote users are using the same copy of the program .mdb file.
Would it be better if I created a separate copy of this program .mdb file for
each remote user?

Any advice or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Paul

 

[gllincoln]

Hi Paul,

Terminal Services isn't the issue per se; I've done fairly heavy lifting with Access over a Terminal Server connection. However, 4 copies of access running on the system might be a little bit of a load, depending on CPU and amount of RAM and how the database is written, how large the tables are, etc. Might want to see what the CPU & Ram utilization looks like when everybody is going at it.

I would give each user their own copy of the front end to work from, this is probably contributing to the lock ups. I would also probably set a server task to automatically run compact and repair on the backend Access database every night.

Hope this helps,
Gordon

 

[John W. Vinson]

Hi,

I have Access 2000 installed on a Windows 2000 terminal server. On this
server, I have an Access 2000 application that is split up between a program
database (.mdb) and a data database (.mdb). I currently have four users that
log onto this terminal server to use this Access app. This works, but it is
working somewhat erratically. Access is frequently locking up on the remote
users and they are experiencing several other strange issues.

I am wondering if this could be due to one of the following:

1. Access 2000 simply does not work well over terminal services.

Don't think that's the problem.

If this
is the case, would it help if I upgraded to a newer version of Access?

No. 2002/3 will be similar, by all accounts 2007 will be worse.

2. All four remote users are using the same copy of the program .mdb file.
Would it be better if I created a separate copy of this program .mdb file for
each remote user?

YES, absolutely! A shared frontend will damage performance, cause lockups, and
give a major risk of corrupting both the frontend and backend.

 

[Dra. Lorena Slaen]

"Paul Kraemer" <[email protected]> escribió en el
mensaje de noticias
news:[email protected]...

 

[david]

I have Access 2000 installed on a Windows 2000 terminal server. On this

Which is, hopefully, fully patched, because this was also a specific bug in
one version of Windows terminal server.

(david)

 

[Paul Kraemer]

Hi John,

Thanks for your response. One thing I didn't mention is that the Access
2000 application has a feature that automatically creates and sends email
through Outlook. This feature seems to be giving us more trouble than
anything else when using the Access app through Terminal services. Sometimes
it works, but other times emails will get stuck in the Outbox and it seems
impossible to delete them.

Because we are using Access 2000, we are also using Outlook 2000. We have
outlook installed on the terminal server and we have a separate outlook
profile setup for each remote user. With this in mind, do you think we might
benefit from upgrading to a newer version of Outlook (which, correct me if I
am wrong, I believe would force us to upgrade to a newere version of Access)

Thanks again,
Paul

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Terminal Services isn't the issue per se; I've done fairly heavy lifting with Access over a Terminal Server connection. However, 4 copies of access running on the system might be a little bit of a load, depending on CPU and amount of RAM and how the database is written, how large the tables are, etc. Might want to see what the CPU & Ram utilization looks like when everybody is going at it.

While it is worth while looking at this a friend, who is an IT guy,
said that Access apps put very little extra load on the server. 4
users wouldn't be a big deal.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[Rick Brandt]

While it is worth while looking at this a friend, who is an IT guy,
said that Access apps put very little extra load on the server. 4
users wouldn't be a big deal.

Tony

We have a two server farm each hosting up 50 simultaneous users each. They
aren't slouches, but they're not brand new world class boxes either. IIRC they
are dual zeons with 2GB of ram. I wouldn't expect even a server class machine
to be necessary for only 4 users.

 

[John W. Vinson]

Thanks for your response. One thing I didn't mention is that the Access
2000 application has a feature that automatically creates and sends email
through Outlook. This feature seems to be giving us more trouble than
anything else when using the Access app through Terminal services.

Well, I've never tried that combination, and have no idea what special issues
it might involve! Wish I could be more help, but you're out of my area of
expertise here. Perhaps you could repost on an Outlook group and see if anyone
there can help.

 

[Marcia Bunn]

Hi Paul,

Terminal Services isn't the issue per se; I've done fairly heavy lifting with Access over a Terminal Server connection. However, 4 copies of access running on the system might be a little bit of a load, depending on CPU and amount of RAM and how the database is written, how large the tables are, etc. Might want to see what the CPU & Ram utilization looks like when everybody is going at it.

I would give each user their own copy of the front end to work from, this is probably contributing to the lock ups. I would also probably set a server task to automatically run compact and repair on the backend Access database every night.

Hope this helps,
Gordon

 

[David W. Fenton]

One thing I didn't mention is that the Access
2000 application has a feature that automatically creates and
sends email through Outlook.

That means you've got TWO major applications running simultaneously.

Ditch Outlook in favor of a direct MAPI call, or using some other
tools so you don't have to utilize Outlook.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Because we are using Access 2000, we are also using Outlook 2000. We have
outlook installed on the terminal server and we have a separate outlook
profile setup for each remote user. With this in mind, do you think we might
benefit from upgrading to a newer version of Outlook (which, correct me if I
am wrong, I believe would force us to upgrade to a newere version of Access)

The version of Outlook can be quite different than the version of
Access so that wouldn't be a problem.

However, like David states, can you ditch Outlook and go directly to
the email server?

Microsoft Access Email FAQ
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/email.htm

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/