Sharing BCM across a LAN.

[dpminusa]

I have several Office 2003 Pro BCM XP SP2 systems that are running. I want
to share the databases across my LAN. The LAN uses static IPs.

When I try to find a Computer by name from the Business Tools Create or
Share Option page the connection is refused with a general reference to the
request not being allowed.

I have checked several things:

o No firewalls are active on the desktops.
o The databases are setup for sharing by BCM.
o The users are setup as valid users on the Remote systems.
o The SQL Configuration Manager and Surface Area settings are correct for
the Instances and the SQL browser.

When I added BCM there were exisiting instances on the SQL servers on the
PCs. These support another Business app. I suspect the issue may be there
somewhere.

Any ides, tips, pointers, URLs.

Thanks.

 

[Luther]

I have several Office 2003 Pro BCM XP SP2 systems that are running.  I want
to share the databases across my LAN.  The LAN uses static IPs.

When I try to find a Computer by name from the Business Tools Create or
Share Option page the connection is refused with a general reference to the
request not being allowed.

I have checked several things:

o No firewalls are active on the desktops.
o The databases are setup for sharing by BCM.
o The users are setup as valid users on the Remote systems.
o  The SQL Configuration Manager and Surface Area settings are correct for
the Instances and the SQL browser.

When I added BCM there were exisiting instances on the SQL servers on the
PCs.  These support another Business app.  I suspect the issue may bethere
somewhere.

Any ides, tips, pointers, URLs.

Thanks.

Have you checked whether port 445 is open?
http://beyng.blogspot.com/2008/09/tcp-port-445-required-for-sharing.html

 

[dpminusa]

I disabled the Firewall on the two systems. They are both on a LAN behind a
Server Firewall so we are not concerned.

By using the yourserver\mssmlbiz,5356 I am able to get connected from A to B
but not B to A. The difference is that A is on a system that has Instances
of an application on it as well. I was surprised to see the BCM was
installed into MICROSOFTSMLBIZ on A even though an instance of MSSMLBIZ was
also created.

When I try the sqlcmd you suggest (in a related post) from the cmd line o B
I can see that even changing the values for the Node, Istance and data base
name to those needed on A the failure message refers to the instance name on
the system I am attempting the commection from B.

Is BCM only capable of sharing if both servers have exactly the same
instance name?

I am stuck at the moment. I was thinking of removing the Apps from A and
installing BCM first then adding them back to see if BCM ends up in MSSMLBIZ
so it matches the B instance name. Assuming this is the root of the problem.

Also, the reports do not run on either system. I get a cannot produce
message try again when running them locally on either system, not when
remotely sharing.

Thanks for you help so far Luther. You seem to be THE GUY on these groups.

Any more ideas?


I tried detaching and attaching using the Express Manager. This did not
work because where the actual .ldf and .mdf are is not accessible from the
attach browse function. I tried copying the files to the SQL Directory where
the other instances that attach se are. I was refused attachmet also.

 

[dpminusa]

Another thought is to change the default instance on the remote system, that
will not share, to the same default instance name as the local machine. I
see a post of what the registry key is. Looking at this key I also see that
the TCP port BCM uses is 5356 as you have indicated.

Will try the instance idea and report if it works.

Overall I am almost 100% on my 2003 systems, but still not very far along on
the 2007 systems.

Will start a post for that again.

 

[dpminusa]

I GOT THIS GOING!

For others who may need to work through this here is a synopsis of what I
did. Thanks to Luther for giving me the clues I needed.

1. I have XP SP2 Systems with Outlook 2003 and BCM added. Also added
Accounting Express 2007 later.
2. Apply SP2 and SP4 updates. I think SP4 is inclusive. I could not get
SP4 to install without installing SP2 first. But you may be able to. I
could not get the Remote connection to work until both systems were at the
same SP4 level. There is a popup stating this.
3. Both systems need to have the same SQL engine level. In my case v9 of
SQL Express.
4. Both systems needed to have the same instance name. In my case mssmlbiz.
I tried to make a command that compensated and tried to change the default
instance name in the registry, neither worked. It only seems to work when
the instance names are the same. With SP4 on both systems this was the
result anyway. Before matching both to SP4 it was not the case.
5. The SQL browser uses PORT 5356 to find the remote SQL instance. You can
see this by looking at the registry key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
Microsoft\Business Solutions eCRM). You need to append it to the Computer
Name on the Outlook Business Tools Select Database Page.

So the page entries I use after clicking the SELECT Radio Button on that
page are:

COMPUTER: BILL\mssmlbiz,5356 (Replace with: (your remote computer
name)\(remote instance),5356
DATABASE: BillBCM (Replace with your own Remote Database Name)

NOTE: If you are going to install Accounting 2007 Express SP4 is also
mandatory. I could not get Outlook BCM to link to the Accounting Database in
SQL Express until SP4 was applied.

Hope this helps others.