Hi Fernando,

We have a VFP app accessing VFP data running under Win2K Terminal Services. For access to native VFP data over a Wide-Area Network, this is the way to go, as it is possible to get good performance even using a 56K modem.

Let me summarize some of the points to consider when moving an application to this environment.

1. File handles can be an issue, so if one is using lots of little lookup tables to populate combo boxes, it is better to fill them using AddItem/AddListItem and close the underlying table.

2. The Terminal Server creates a separate profile for each user who logs in under Documents and Settings. Temporary files are normally stored in the Temp folder under Local Settings. You can capture the path to this folder using GETENV( "TEMP" ), store it to a global variable or application property and point any creation of temporary tables to this location. The Terminal Server will automatically clear out any temporary files when the user exits their session, which is very cool.

3. It is important to limit application memoty using SYS( 3050 ).

4. In my experience, there is about 20MB of memory overhead per user in addition to application memory.

5. Limit screen colors to 256 on the server and avoid fancy splash screens. Terminal Services responds to user input from a bit map image of a virtual desktop created for the client. Painting this bitmap is what can take time, so limiting it to 256 colors really speeds it up on slow connections like a modem.

6. One can use either IE (5.0 or later ) or the Remote Desktop Connection software to access a Terminal Server. The latter can be downloaded for free and used to access Windows NT and Windows 2000 Terminal Servers and runs on clients using Win 95/98/ME/2000/XP (it comes with XP). For Windows 2003 servers, licenses to access the server must be purchased.

I may be forgetting something off of the top of my head, so you might want to check some of my past posts on the UT on this topic.

Hope this helps,

John