Financial Reporter slow - RDP 1

[johnhugh]

Hi, We are using Accpac 6 on a Windows Terminal Server 2008.
When generating financial reports or standard Crystal reports, it takes ages for them to finish.

Our Server and offices are in different locations. When I run the report at the server location, everything is quick and smooth.
I was under the impression, that with terminal services I would run the report on the server and it only updates the screen of the TS client.
However what appears to be happening is that the actual data is transferred to the client and then back to the server.
That is the only explanantion I have why report printing would be so slow from a remote site and much quicker the closer I get to the server location.

Anyone else having similiar issues and has some advise?

 

[Jay Converse]

You have some of the weirdest problems. Your Accpac consultant is doing a crappy job. None of my clients who do FR reports on TS have this problem.

 

[johnhugh]

Would you also have some pointers what to look for or something I can try?
When I say different locations I mean different countries, in fact different continents in our case.

 

[Jay Converse]

Continents don't matter on a pure RDP setup. Something in your setup is pointing to a non-LAN location. Like roaming profiles. Or a HOMEDRIVE environment variable not on the LAN.

 

[johnhugh]

Ok. I think I have isolated the problem.

In the remote desktop options on the client, on the Local Resource tab, I can choose to connect local printers.
When I untick this option, my reports run the normal speed.

How do I now print to my local printer from RDP?
Looks like the printer driver is not set up properly.

 

[ettienne]

TS is picky about printer drivers.
You can run FR and save the report to file, then transfer the XLS file to the local drive and print the file on the local printer.

 

[johnhugh]

Thanks. What about the standard Crystal reports.
How would I print them with the local printer option not checked?

 

[ettienne]

With CR you can export to PDF, copy the file and print locally.

 

[johnhugh]

Surely there an option to get the best of both worlds, no?
Fast print to screen and access to local printers.

 

[ettienne]

Yes - above suggestions are band aids. You need to address the printer driver issues - I have many sites running TS without printing problems. Funky printer drivers are a known issue with TS, sometimes it helps to use a generic printer driver like HP Laserjet 5 or whatever.

 

[Jay Converse]

Ditto, none of my TS sites have printing issues unless they put giant bitmaps on their OE forms and connect on a slow DSL line.

 

[johnhugh]

Thanks for the help. Will look into printer drivers.
Is this where Citrix is better than TS?

 

[ettienne]

Citrix is marginally better with printing, but suffers from the same printer driver issues - sometimes even worse so.