>I'm hesitant to talk about my ideas. That's the problem with people who hold on to "current" ideas. They suppress innovation without even trying to.
>
>You lost me a bit on that one. You haven't seemed hesitant. <g>

How did Bugs Bunny put it? "He don't know me too well, do he?" There's a ton of stuff I'd like to say but people don't keep open enough minds. Just watch how that statement will be taken.

>
>This client really just runs TS for one app. I could do something like you suggest, but a number of people print these docs, as I understand it. It had crossed my mind to do something via the local PC, however the person I work with may not be ready to go down that path. I have already created a separate app that handles some other tasks for them and had also thought about putting the mailmerge features there. The exact technique you mention seems to have some pitfalls, though not horrible ones. Anyway, it does appear we are taxing TS. It's a dual Titanium (or is it Xeon - hard to keep up with all this) server with 2 GB of memory, so it's no slouch, but in this case it does seem to be struggling.

No surprise. The machine are basically meant for single users. Quad the CPU, but share the one bank of RAM, NIC, Hard Drives etc.

A subway can carry 1000 times more people than a taxi. People still get frustrated waiting.

>
>
>>Hi Russell
>>
>>I did see your code in the other message by the way.
>>
>>>Asking for trouble, yeah, good one. :~)
>>
>>I'm hesitant to talk about my ideas. That's the problem with people who hold on to "current" ideas. They suppress innovation without even trying to.
>>
>>I look for consistent ways to get things done, then they have to be solid and reliable. Wait for my coming FoxPro Advisor article. I'm sure there will be a mob of database "administrators" on my front lawn. :)
>>
>>>Could you fill me in on this idea - it's a bit sketchy.
>>
>>When I first heard this idea I rejected it - I'm not sure why. Traditionally everything is done on "The Server". This harkens back to primative mainframes with guys in white lab coats. PC people started out by resisting the mainframe mentality. We seem to be moving back that way.
>>
>>It took some convincing and a couple of beers before I opened my mind. If it's too early for beer, wait a while and read this later. :) This was done with Citrix. I hope the same is possible with TS.
>>
>>In retrospect it should have been obvious that the most powerful and most flexible possible combination is to share processing on server(s) AND client PC(s). A farm of servers is less powerful than a farm of servers plus an army of client PCs.
>>
>>The idea here is to offload some of the processing from the TS server to the client PCs. It seems AJAX is doing similar things on the web. If the client PCs have MS Word already loaded they are primed for you to take advantage of their power!
>>
>>Launching Word, Excel and VFP at the same time is hard enough for a single user PC. Under Citrix/TS multiply that difficulty factor by the number of simultaneous users. Can you see how I can call that "risky"?
>>
>>When the user tells your VFP app to merge - the VFP app on the TS extracts data from the database and creates a temporary database on the client PC. A tiny VFP app on the client PC monitors a folder/table looking for jobs to process.
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>>That client side app orders the client side MS Word to merge the client side data. It will need code something like your code in your other message. Something goes wrong, just reboot the client side PC.
>>
>>TS Server stays UP, uses see more responsive printing and you pull off a cool "new" way to push processing off the server. Everybody wins.
>>
>>HTH
>>
>>>
>>>I have run into some issues with TS. The other day I made a small change to this app and broke something. No problem - easy fix. Or so I thought. When I couldn't get the app to behave again, I was blaming it on myself, but after awhile I realized things were just too screwy. I finally decided we needed to reboot the server when I opened up the form that handles all this, made a small change, then clicked the close button and answered "Yes" to the save question. It said "invalid path or file name". I cleared that and clicked the close button again and it said "file is not open." This went on even after quitting VFP (actually I had to End Task on it) and restarting it. Rebooting the server solved the problems we were having. TS just seemed to have gone squirrely on me.
>>>
>>>>Hi Russell
>>>>
>>>>You may consider something I at first didn't think would be a good thing.
>>>>
>>>>Create a vfp monitoring program on the client's PCs. Have the terminal server send the data to a table on the client PC. Have the client PC do the merge and printing.
>>>>
>>>>A terminal server trying to launch multiple instances of Word, Excel and VFP is ahem... asking for trouble. ;)