Access MS Project Via Terminal Services

[PatK]

I have an MS Project Server residing in a city in Oregon, on our internal
company network. I have several Project Managers who work from home, or may
be traveling, that need access to the server for managing projects. We had
noticed that accessing the terminal server from outside the company (via a
VPN Tunnelling ) solution results in VERY slow project loading on the MS
Project 2003 Client on the PM's PC (in one case, very consistent 7 minutes
for a 700 line project. You get no error messages, and it eventually does
load, but we notice virtually NO activity (to speak of) on the project server
itself, the DB server is limited to our use, and there are no other users (in
this test example). All 'remote' (outside company network) experience this.
It is about twice that fast for folks when they are on the network (still
slow, but manageable).

Thus, I decided to try this via terminal server. I install MS PRoject 2003
on the server itself, set up the collobation settings, and voila....the same
project plan that took seven minutes now loads in about 7 seconds. Cool!
Definitely the way to go. So, I asked another individual that was
experiencing this problem, to try it.

When she went to configure the project server in her "instance" of MS
Project 2003 (via TServices), however, and hit the "test connection" button,
it just hung up, no matter how long we waited. Eventually, we had to kill MS
Project 2003.

Now, I "do" have admin capabilities on the server, so maybe I am a bad
"guinea pig" here, but I am trying to figure out why that hangs like that.
Any ideas? What are the permission requirements for a TS client accessing
MS Project Server from a "locally" running MS PRoject 2003 client?

Oh oracles of MSP...help me!

PatK

Pat

This meant she would also

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Pat:

Are you certain that you installed Project correctly for terminal services?
You don't use a standard installation for this. Are you also certain that
you've configured Terminal Services correctly? The 2003 version requires a
license server. I thin you have a little grace period on that, though.

By the way, the combination of bandwidth and slow client processors, and low
RAM are typically the culprits for slow performance on larger projects.

 

[Raymond Chiu (gatorback]

Pat,

If your EPM was working, then I s suspect there was a problem with TS setup.
You could setup an XP machine and enable Remote Desktop to prove that there
isn't a problem with your network setup. Port 3389 must be forwarded to the
XP IP address (which should be static). I have successfully done this with
virtual machines (VMware ESX). Clients can use remote desktop and operate on
the LAN: I am also able to use remote assistant to show them how to perform
tasks.

 

[PatK]

To both Gary and Raymond..thanks for the replies....I do appreciate it.

I am fairly certain terminal services is set up correctly. I do have a
license server, all my PMs have used terminal server for other activities on
this server, prior to setting up MSP on this box (it is a vmware instance, by
the way). We used terminal services, for the same reason...PMs were spread
around the world, and even things like large excel files performed
significantly better "locally" then trying to up/download them from
fileshares on the server.

Gary: You asked if I had MS Project set up properly for Terminal Services
properly and that I should not have used a standard installation for this. I
am not sure what you mean, but I would be very happy to give it another shot,
if I knew how to install/set it up correctly. Do either of you have insights
on this?

Raymond: What is RDC? Remote Desktop client (guess?). If so, how do I run
that (client and server sides)? Thanks again, guys!!

Pat

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Pat:

When adding applications to Terminal Services for general use, you need to
install through Add/Remove programs. You can't simply spin up the CD and let
it do its standard install. That creates an instance of the application that
can be run by administrators only. Sounds a lot like what's going on with
you, doesn't it? As TS implementations are not the mainstay of my work, I'm
loathe to be more specific about the exact steps. I suspect if you uninstall
and reinstall correctly, you'll solve the problem.

 

[PatK]

Thanks...and maybe you cannot answer this, but how would I initiate an MS
PRoject install from Add/Remove programs?

PatK

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > click the add button.

 

[Raymond Chiu (gatorback]

Pat,

I have selected articles to answer your questions. The default port for RD
is 3389, which may already be allocated for TS. In this case, you may need
to configure RD for a port other than 3389.

RD ("server" side) can be setup via these instructions:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/remoteintro.mspx

Client Side:
http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWSXP/pro/using/howto/gomobile/remotedesktop/startremote.asp
Client Download (already built into XP: only for 2000 or less):
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/rdclientdl.asp


Remapping it from port 3389: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=304304

For a list of related articles:
==================
http://labmice.techtarget.com/windowsxp/NetworkingXP/remote_desktop.htm