Best Practice - Legacy FoxPro app and Citrix

[kelunaboy]

Aloha Group,

I'm back with more questions and would like to thank everyone in advance for taking the time to read and hopefully post a reply!

Setup: 3 Windows 2003 servers, one as File Server, 2 as Application Servers. Citrix Presentation v4

Problem: Legacy FoxPro 2.6a application runs on the server but fails as a published Citrix application. Application EXE resides on Application Server, database resides on File Server.

The failure right now (it's been a long haul getting this Citrix installation to this point...) is related to drive mappings. When I start the application from a client the error returned is "The application could not find the path specified".

My quesiton is what is the best way to map the drives for users that will use these published applicaitons?

I searched for "drive mapping" and read many of the posts. I wrote a batch file to launch the application, when used the client sees a DOS window quickly open and then close.

I have not tried a login script, that is likely to be next.

What in your opinion would be the "best practice".

1) Batch file (failed for me so far)
2) Login Script
3) "Active Directory" Group Policy that creates drive mapping for all application users. Can this be done?


Thanks

Alan

 

[ascotta]

I would be doing batch file.

Try logging on to a desktop as the user and running the batch file from a command prompt and seeing what happens.

[blue] Oh you know, just doing what I do.[/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[kelunaboy]

Thanks for the reply, I will give that a try.

Our Network is Novell and although the workstations are currently all Windows desktops, I would like to avoid being dependant on the workstations joining the windows domain. When doing my testing everything worked as I planned, the difference was the test database resided on the application server.

In the future I would like to switch some of the workstations to Linux thin clients.

Well it's early and I still have a couple of hours before I get to the office to work on it - thanks again!

Alan

 

[ascotta]

You want to be using the Microsoft client for netware. Do not be using the Novell client.

[blue] Oh you know, just doing what I do.[/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[kelunaboy]

Aloha and thanks for the replies Scott. Is there a way to get my published application to run without joining the domain?

I want to use Program Neighborhood to Publish an Applicaiton and use Explict authentication to access it.

The application needs access to a shared folder on a server other than the one where the application EXE is.

I have been trying batch files with no success, this is the one I used:

--------------
@echo off
net use H:\\BD-WS03-FILE\HOME\BRISCOPY
start /d H:\ N:\dataapps\barfmain.exe
exit

 

[ascotta]

What I do in this situation is to run each command from the command prompt 1 at a time and see which one is causing the grief. There are many ways to do this type of stuff. part of the net use allows you to put in a user and password, remember that if you need to be authenticated.

[blue] Oh you know, just doing what I do.[/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[kelunaboy]

Thanks again, I cannot believe how little information is availalble about this, it would seems such a basic use of the Citrix environment.

 

[ascotta]

They provide the backbone its up to us to make it tick.

[blue] Oh you know, just doing what I do.[/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[kelunaboy]

Aloha Group (and Scott!)

My problem appears solved, but the solution seems both logical and odd at the same time. Should I expect any problems using this solution?

The solution for me was to publish a desktop for each user in the group, run the desktop and map the network share to the database to a drive letter.

After doing this the published application for that user is able to access the network share for the database. As long as I use the same drive letter for every user it works.

I don't plan on giving the users access to the published desktop so they can't change or delete the mapped drive.

Alan

 

[terrywilson]

I had the same issue with a foxpro app in my environment; I opted instead to use a login script to do the mapping, when I published the app I just typed in the path to the exe on the mapped drive (ie l:\visualelk\elk.exe) then as the user logs in it maps the nw drive and then it can see it to run the app (because the login script runs before the app starts). The only future problem I can see with doing it in your way is that you have to manually create the mapping for each user and if you recreate a users profile but forget to recreate the mapping the app won't work until you remap it. My company used to do it that way, but when I started here I am too lazy for that so scripted it in the login.

 

[kelunaboy]

Aloha Terry,

Thanks for the reply, I thought this thread had died it's natural death. Your advice confirms my current direction, I also decided to go with a login script to create the mapping, and for the same reason - too lazy to do that for every single user!

Thanks - Alan