How to use Access 2007 FrontEnds over Terminal Services?

[cw via AccessMonster.com]

I have searched the posts but cannot find an answer to this question:

- I'm planning on moving my Access 2007 FE/BE to my standalone SBS2003
Terminal Server
- Each User has their own User CAL to access the TS
- Currently we have only one other Application running on the TS, with an RDP
connection on each desktop (application is a VFP app)

Question: How do I go about moving my Access app for use with TS?
- Do I install Access 2007 on the Terminal Server?
- Move the BE to a folder on the D: drive?

- But where do the FE's go for each User?
- Currently I have the FE's on each user's desktop and the Tables link back
over the LAN to the BE.

Sorry for my denseness on this. I'm sure there is a very simple answer.
I'm tempted to fall back to the old Access single file & just make each
User's RDP connection point to that single file?

Thanks,
cw

 

[Steve Schapel]

CW,

The basic concept here is to put a separate copy of the FE within each
user's profile on the server. And then each of these FE files links to
the tables in the single backend file, just as you have it now.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Yes, Access 2007 needs to be installed for the TS session. As Steve
mentioned, the setup is otherwise the same. The BE goes into a shared
folder and the FE goes in to separate folders for each user. It is best to
have these separate folders on the same server that is running the TS
session to minimize network traffic.

 

[cw via AccessMonster.com]

Steve and Pat,
This now makes sense to me..
- I looked & can see all of the User profiles on the TS, and I will place a
copy of the FE in each Users profile.
- Then I will set up the RDP's on the Desktop of each remote user

This will also make deploying Updates to the FE much easier, as I can just
batch copy all of them on the single Terminal Server..

Do you guys have any recommendation on the proper way to Print to the User's
local Printers? (seems like printing from inside the TS might be a problem?)

Thanks again,
cw

Yes, Access 2007 needs to be installed for the TS session. As Steve
mentioned, the setup is otherwise the same. The BE goes into a shared
folder and the FE goes in to separate folders for each user. It is best to
have these separate folders on the same server that is running the TS
session to minimize network traffic.

I have searched the posts but cannot find an answer to this question:

[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]

Thanks,
cw

 

[cw via AccessMonster.com]

Do either of you know if my TS licenses allow a User to be connected to two
RDP's at the same time?
- Users have the Visual FxoPro app running all the time
- The same users will need to have the Access 2007 app up also..

So does the one license allow multiple connections back to the Terminal
Server..?

Steve and Pat,
This now makes sense to me..
- I looked & can see all of the User profiles on the TS, and I will place a
copy of the FE in each Users profile.
- Then I will set up the RDP's on the Desktop of each remote user

This will also make deploying Updates to the FE much easier, as I can just
batch copy all of them on the single Terminal Server..

Do you guys have any recommendation on the proper way to Print to the User's
local Printers? (seems like printing from inside the TS might be a problem?)

Thanks again,
cw

Yes, Access 2007 needs to be installed for the TS session. As Steve
mentioned, the setup is otherwise the same. The BE goes into a shared

[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]

 

[Rick Brandt]

Do either of you know if my TS licenses allow a User to be connected
to two RDP's at the same time?
- Users have the Visual FxoPro app running all the time
- The same users will need to have the Access 2007 app up also..

So does the one license allow multiple connections back to the
Terminal Server..?

I don't know if each CAL covers a user or just one connection. Your users
each need a license for Access 2007 though. Do they have that?

 

[Steve Schapel]

Rick,

Would that be the case if using Runtime?

 

[cw via AccessMonster.com]

Currently each user has Office 2007 Pro w/Access installed on their computers.

And we have 15 User CAL licenses installed on the server allowing up to 15
concurrent users I guess..? We have RDP's on every desktop for the FoxPro
application, and can have up to 15 users running the app at one time, this I
know for sure.
It seems to me that since we have licensed the SBS 2003 server, added TS
licenses, Windows XP Pro licenses, Office 2007 Pro licenses, that surely
Microsoft would allow us to run the Access application over the same
user/license whether it be one application or two concurrent apps..?

Thanks for the input, guys.
cw

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

This now makes sense to me..
- I looked & can see all of the User profiles on the TS, and I will place a
copy of the FE in each Users profile.

I'm somewhat suspicious that the user profiles are indeed on the TS
unless the TS is also the file server.

Now if that users profile was to reside on thier home server where is
that server? If they are truly remote, a few, dozens or thousands of
kms/miles away then using the home profile on that server totally
defeats the purpose.

In the above situation the client opted to setup the FEs on the file
server. Which worked but wouldn't have been as good as setting on the
TSs.

This will also make deploying Updates to the FE much easier, as I can just
batch copy all of them on the single Terminal Server..

I specifically created the Auto FE Updater utility so that I could
make changes to the FE MDE as often as I wanted and be quite confident
that the next time someone went to run the app that it would pull in
the latest version. For more info on the errors or the Auto FE
Updater utility see the free Auto FE Updater utility at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htm at my website to keep the
FE on each PC up to date.

In a Terminal Server or Citrix environment the Auto FE Updater now
supports creating a directory named after the user on a server. Given
a choice put the FE on the Citrix server to reduce network traffic and
to avoid having to load objects over the network which can be somewhat
sluggish.

Do you guys have any recommendation on the proper way to Print to the User's
local Printers? (seems like printing from inside the TS might be a problem?)

That's always been a PITA. Citrix makes good $$$ of that problem.

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]

I'm somewhat suspicious that the user profiles are indeed on the TS
unless the TS is also the file server.

Now if that users profile was to reside on thier home server where is
that server? If they are truly remote, a few, dozens or thousands of
kms/miles away then using the home profile on that server totally
defeats the purpose.

On all of our Terminal Servers (using Citrix) a folder with the user's name
is created the first time they log into the server. Perhaps that is a
feature of Citrix?

At any rate that is the folder I put my Access apps in for each user.

 

[Pat Hartman]

You don't need two sessions to run the apps. Both can run in the same
session just as they do when running on the desktop. Think of TS as a
window into the desktop of a remote computer. Pretty much anything you can
do on your local PC, you can do on your remote desktop provided the
necessary software is installed on the server where the TS session is
actually running. All that is sent to the local PC is a picture of what is
happening on the desktop. All the remote desktop processing is actually
happening on the server. None of it happens locally. That is why there is
minimal delay when running applications this way. We have UK users who are
running an Access app that is linked to a SQL server backend, both of which
are hosted at my office in Farmington, CT and they have no performance
issues.

Near as I can tell, licensing is for the product as it is for Word, Access,
etc., not the number of windows you have open.

 

[Pat Hartman]

There are no individual user licenses required for any version of the
runtime engine. For A2007 the runtime is entirely free and you don't need a
license to distribute it. For earlier versions of Access, you were required
to purchase the developer's edition of Access which was essentially the
package and deployment wizard along with a license to distribute unlimited
copies of the runtime engine.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Our setup is the same. The infrastructure folks balked at having to do this
because they wanted a single profile that was shared by all users since it
made their job easier. But, I convinced them that Access will be more
stable if users are not sharing a single copy of it and since I use a
distribution mechanism similar to the one Tony created (I would have used
his rather than develop one if I had found it earlier), pushing out new
versions is not a big deal.

 

[cw via AccessMonster.com]

Pat, Thanks again.
This is all making sense to me now.

You don't need two sessions to run the apps. Both can run in the same
session just as they do when running on the desktop. Think of TS as a
window into the desktop of a remote computer. Pretty much anything you can
do on your local PC, you can do on your remote desktop provided the
necessary software is installed on the server where the TS session is
actually running. All that is sent to the local PC is a picture of what is
happening on the desktop. All the remote desktop processing is actually
happening on the server. None of it happens locally. That is why there is
minimal delay when running applications this way. We have UK users who are
running an Access app that is linked to a SQL server backend, both of which
are hosted at my office in Farmington, CT and they have no performance
issues.

Near as I can tell, licensing is for the product as it is for Word, Access,
etc., not the number of windows you have open.

Currently each user has Office 2007 Pro w/Access installed on their
computers.

[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]

 

[David W. Fenton]

I don't know if each CAL covers a user or just one connection.
Your users each need a license for Access 2007 though. Do they
have that?

Don't you need the Enterprise version of Office 2007 to run it on
Terminal Server?

I don't know if MS has changed the licensing, but there are user and
workstation licenses. One or the other of them (I can't recall
which) is well-supported in the license server, and the other is not
(none of the statistics are correctly reported). All that may have
changed since I last encountered that problem back in 2005.

 

[David W. Fenton]

It seems to me that since we have licensed the SBS 2003 server,
added TS licenses, Windows XP Pro licenses, Office 2007 Pro
licenses, that surely Microsoft would allow us to run the Access
application over the same user/license whether it be one
application or two concurrent apps..?

Only if the version they are running on the server is the Enterprise
version. All other versions of Office 2007 are prohibited from
running under TS.

Or so I understand it (I am not using Office 2007 in any setting at
all).

 

[Steve Schapel]

Yes, Pat, that was the point I was trying to make. So why not install
the Access Runtime on the Terminal Server, and use that to run the
frontend application for all users?

 

[Pat Hartman]

Your point was too subtle Steve LOL. I thought you were really asking a
question.