Running Access on Citrix?

[Rico]

Hello,

Are there any issues running an Access 2002 program on a Citrix server?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Rick

 

[Steve Schapel]

Rick,

This normally works very well. A key point to remember is to have a
separate copy of the front-end application file installed with each
user's profile.

 

[John Vinson]

Hello,

Are there any issues running an Access 2002 program on a Citrix server?

Properly configured it works fine.

One of my clients has the following setup:

- Backend database in a shared folder
- Each user has their own folder containing a copy of the frontend
(all these are on the same physical disk)
- Access is installed on this machine
- Each user has a Citrix client and uses it to connect to the folder
containing the frontend and runs it from there

The user's desktop need not have Access installed for this to work,
just Citrix - I'm not sure what the licensing issues are, though, so
they may be required to have an Access license to *legally* do so.

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Joshua A. Booker]

This works great. Many of my clients use Windows Terminal Services which is
included with Win Server 2000 & 2003. This would save the cost of Citrix
Meteframe software and there is no need to deploy the client software for
win XP machines. As mensioned each user needs their own frontend. I
implement group secific domain login scripts on the server to copy the
current versions of the respective front-ends to the user's profile
directory. Without the scripts, it can be quite time consuming to deploy
the changes to several users. Also, logoff scripts delete the files so
there are no copies of the app on the server for users that are not
presently logged in. You can fill a hard drive with serveral copies of a
large app rather quickly.

MS requires any terminal services user of any office app to own a license
for that app. If you have 30 TS users that use the database then you need
to own 30 access licenses. If you install the runtime on the server you
don't need Access licenses. Access does not need to be installed on the
client however. You also need a Windows TS CAL for each user.

This is a great solution for making and Access app 'web-enabled' so to
speak.

HTH,
Josh

 

[punjab_tom]

you're full of crap and a fat lazy jerk

you should just use Access Data Projects and connect to your SQL Server
across a VPN or a WAN

-Tom

 

[Joshua A. Booker]

love you too tom...

The data is not in SQL Server and good luck using linked access tables over
vpn or wan.

What will you do when adps disapear in Access 13?

Josh

 

[Steve Schapel]

Josh,

I would suggest it is probably not worth trying to engage "Tom" in a
discussion on this topic.

And by the way, I think you'll find there will not be an Access 13

 

[aaron.kempf]

ADPs aren't disappearing

and linked tables performance is 100% the reason I refuse to let you
punk ass kids using MDB linked tables.

MDB sucks balls

-Aaron

 

[aaron.kempf]

using 'Data Projects' are a lot simpler than getting terminal services
licensing

MDB doesn't work across any type of network; and I would be skeptical
that it would be cheaper to get a new terminal server than to migrate a
small app from MDB to SQL.

Anyone using MDB in the year 2006 should be spit upon.

-Aaron

 

[punjab_tom]

MDB shouldn't be used for anything.

ALL DATA SHOULD BE IN SQL SERVER; IT IS EASER, FASTER, BIGGER, BETTER
and CHEAPER.

-Tom

 

[SJ]

Question for the knockers.

So what would you suggest for an MDB (delivered as MDE) with 850 forms and
about 250 tables ODBC linked to SQL Server?

it would seem a lot of work to change all that.

By the way, this all works great over the network, great on terminal
server with or without Citrix.

 

[Van T. Dinh]

While Citrix / Terminal Service work well with Access application, the
printing can be quite a bit of a problem. Both have the option to "map" the
user's default printer (as set in the user's workstation) as the user's
printer on Citrix / Terminal Server (provided that the server has the
appropriate driver for the printer), the mapping quite often fails and the
printing seems to be redirected automatically to another printer which could
be thousands of km away from the user who initiates the printing in the
first place.

I eventually had to re-code my apps to open the Printers dialog so that the
user can confirm or re-select the correct printer before prinitng any Report
from my apps.

If you have a "controlled" envirinment where all users use a small number of
different printer models, this can help with managing the printer set-up /
maintenance on Citrix / Terminal Server.

Search Google for lots of articles on Citrix / Terminal Server printing
problems if you are interested.

 

[aaron.kempf]

I would suggest that you build a time machine and convert it a couple
of years ago... LoL

oh no.. 250 tables.. WOW I dont think that ADP can support that

RIGHT-CLICK, IMPORT, JACKASS

is it my fault that you're a stupid ****ing retard that still uses DAO?

-Aaron

 

[Tony Toews]

Are there any issues running an Access 2002 program on a Citrix server?

Works well. Note that in one situation at a clients one of the four
Citrix servers was causing corruptions. After the second corruption
involving the same server the IT decided to run Access on only one of
the Citrix servers.

We determined it was the same one as we were logging all entries and
exits of users along with their machine name into the database.

As mentioned you want to ensure each user has their own copy of the FE
preferably on the Citrix server for performance reasons. That client
decided to leave the FEs on the file server and that worked too. I
wasn't able to copy the FE to the Citrix Server to compare the
performance.

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.

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

 

[David W. Fenton]

While Citrix / Terminal Service work well with Access application,
the printing can be quite a bit of a problem. Both have the
option to "map" the user's default printer (as set in the user's
workstation) as the user's printer on Citrix / Terminal Server
(provided that the server has the appropriate driver for the
printer), the mapping quite often fails and the printing seems to
be redirected automatically to another printer which could be
thousands of km away from the user who initiates the printing in
the first place.

Isn't that more of a Terminal Server problem than a Citrix problem,
as is this not one of the things that the Citrix extensions for TS
provides more features for? If it's not, that's one more reason I
don't understand why Citrix continues to exist.

 

[Rico]

Thanks for your input. It's greatly appreciated!

Rick

 

[punjab_tom]

and it works across a WAN?

how about a wireless network ROFL

-Tom