Access 2000 Multi User on Citrix XP

[ideafixer]

I have Office 2K installed on a Citrix XP server. I can have multiple users in Access until user tries to modify something. When a user tries to modify something no other users can get into access.

The user will get 'Admin' file in use error. The database in design view can be different from the database I am trying to Access. Once any access database is in design view no users can get into any access databases.

Has anyone out there heard of this?

 

[BeerGood]

When Office2k was installed, do you know if it was installed properly? In particular, did you/the person who installed it:

1. Download the Office2k resourse toolkit (orktools.exe - can be downloaded for free from Microsoft at

http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/appndx/toolbox.htm#orktools

)
2. Put the server into single user mode via the command line or "add/remove programs" applet
3. Run the Office2k install by running &quot;<path>\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=&quot;<path>\TermSrvr.mst&quot; where the first path is where the Office2k setup.exe file is, and the second path is where the file &quot;TermSrvr.mst&quot; file is located after installing orktools.exe. Note - you can install the tools onto another pc and simply copy the TermSrvr.mst file onto the server or somewhere it can access it during the install.

If you're not sure, unistall Office and reinstall it as per the above. I've seen many flakey Office installs on terminal servers due to the software not being installed as per above.

Cheers

 

[scroce]

You may want to look into your problem not being due to Citrix at all.

I think Access by nature of the application itself will not allow a second user to view or edit a table when one user has a table open in design view. Also in my experience with Access (maybe this has changed in the later editions) an mdb file will not take very many simultaneous users (perhaps 3 or 4) before it will deny access, or even corrupt the table.



Ah say, there's somethin' a little &quot;eeeeeeee&quot; 'bout a boy who don't like basbawl...

 

[ideafixer]

I have installed Access the way Beergood has specified. If I open any Access database and modify an object it locks any other user out of all databases. It does not matter what database is in design view, all users are unable to get into any Access database at that point.

I am trying to apply a compatibility script to my Access installation. I am not sure how to do that in Citrix. I am curious if the compatibility script would resolve my issue.

 

[BeerGood]

OK - how's about this for a theory. As horrible as Access may be for multiple users, it can/does/should work for quite a few concurrent users *but* perhaps the issue is that each Office user does not have a unique name so it's having problems distinguishing between each user? Even so it sounds strange that modifying one database would lock all other databases unless they are somehow linked.... if they *are* all linked, then the issue you're getting may be intentional to prevent the database from getting corrupted. What you can try is copy the file you want to modify to a different name, modify that, then overwrite the old file when you've finished (naturally only after backing up everything, filling out the change request forms, finding a suitable person to blame should it not work, etc... <grin> ).

Anyhow, check out

http://www.dabcc.com/documents/O2k_integration_on_a_MetaFrame_XP_server_V1.0.pdf

on how to create your own modified .mst file. Oh, and for what it's worth you may also want to check out the policy file(s) from

http://www.dabcc.com/thinsol/policies/

to help lock down the server.

Cheers

 

[ideafixer]

They are not linked. I was having the same issue when a person tried to get into Access. I added a registry key to pass the persons log in name not there computer name. Basically when one person was in Access it locked out all other users from any database.

I think there must be another registry key for a database is design view. Now I get the same error as before, but only when a database is in design view.

 

[scroce]

fyi - my backround = a lot of access & a smattering of citrix/ica

when you say a database is in &quot;design view&quot; - I assume you referring to a table within a specific database. If I'm reading your correctly, it sounds like another user is getting locked out when one user has a table in design view.

In my experience this is by design - access will not allow updates to a table when another user holds it in design view. From this it would follow that it wouldn't work in the Citrix environment either. Maybe there is a registry modifcation that will change this.

Now if it's locking you out of all the other tables within the database, that's another story. I don't have a suggestion for that one.


Ah say, there's somethin' a little &quot;eeeeeeee&quot; 'bout a boy who don't like basbawl...

 

[BeerGood]

OK - I've pretty much reached the end of my suggestions. If no-one else here has any other suggestions, maybe the people over at the Programmers/DBMS Packages forums can help as it definitely sounds like more of an Access issue rather than Citrix per se. Although not necessarily helpful, whilst doing a bit of a hunt I found the following which I thought might be interesting if you haven't seen it:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/three/65t3_6.htm

Cheers

(P.S. It's possible that if changing/setting a registry setting helped fix the normal database(s), maybe there is some sort of custom setting that has been put into the database - assuming you didn't write it yourself? Check out

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnimo01/html/o2k0184.asp

for info about using the registry & MS Access)

 

[ideafixer]

When I have a form or report in design view it locks all other users out of any access DB. They cannot even create a new Access DB. The user will get a message &quot;'Admin' file in use&quot;.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

I've been trying to remember where it is, but have so far drawn a blank - but I saw this back in 1997 when I rolled out my first MetaFrame implementation - the setting IS in Access somewhere.

Try the MS Office forum, or one of the many Access forums on Tek-Tips. I just know it's something simple...

Hope this helps

CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[athalone]

I realize that this will likely be of little value, but we expereienced a similar problem years ago. I beleive there was a .mdb file that was being shared. We set it to read only and multiple users were able to read the file use access. That may have been a problem related to version pre Office 2000 but just a suggestions.

 

[hayhursj]

I've just had this problem and it does appear to be the issue mentioned by BeerGood in the 1st reply.

Basically any administrator on the Citrix server could open any database but any normal user couldn't, getting the message 'Could not use 'Admin'; file already in use'.

To fix it, I uninstalled and then reinstalled Office 2000 as an administrative installation, and the problem appears to have gone away.

The problem would appear to be related to the issue mentioned in the Readme for Office 2000, which you can see at

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;210178&Product=ofw2k

although this isn't specifically a Terminal Server issue.

Thanks to BeerGood.