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Do I need the Run Engine installed?

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    #1

    Do I need the Run Engine installed?

    I was having some problems with one of my workstations crashing a lot when Alpha Five was quit or Alpha Five would not close down correctly when logging off. I have three users on this workstation at different times. I tried changing all users to Admin level and I made sure the virus scanner was not covering the directories used by A5v9.

    This workstation also had both the Run Engine version and the Full Platinum version installed.

    I couldn't get the problem to stop so I decided to delete the program (both versions) and try re-installing. After uninstalling I ran CCleaner and did a defrag. Then I re-installed only the Full version of A5v9 from the user login we use the most.

    After install I started the program and checked the "About" menu and everything was good. The license number for the full version was installed and it showed as Activated. I then did the latest Patch install and checked the program operation. Everything works fine.

    Next, I log in to each of the other two users and start the program. I am expecting to either be asked to enter a license number or find that the license for the full version is already entered. To my surprise the license number for the unlimited Run Engine version is entered instead. The program works fine for both users running our application. Neither of these users is asked to do anything that the full version would require.

    But I am wondering now how this works. Do I need to install the Run Engine version or will this setup be okay? My main user needs the Full version but the other two users, who are part-time and after hours, do not need the full version, only the Runtime.

    Will the single install of the full version act as both the Full version for one user and the Runtime for the others? If so, why do I have a Run Engine version at all. Couldn't I just use license numbers? Do I need to install the Run Engine?

    (I still don't know if my problem of crashing is fixed. I'll find out more as we use it in the next few days)

    Thanks,
    Sean
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Do I need the Run Engine installed?

    On the workstations you need either the runtime or a full version, but as you say they will not do development then they just need the runtime. If they have the full version, both must have different license numbers to development PC.
    Uninstalling/reinstalling Alpha on development PC does not affect the other two workstations.

    Will the single install of the full version act as both the Full version for one user and the Runtime for the others?
    No.

    Comment

      #3
      Re: Do I need the Run Engine installed?

      Next, I log in to each of the other two users and start the program. I am expecting to either be asked to enter a license number or find that the license for the full version is already entered. To my surprise the license number for the unlimited Run Engine version is entered instead. The program works fine for both users running our application. Neither of these users is asked to do anything that the full version would require.
      Are you running a shadowed database on the work stations? are you starting alpha5 on the work stations directly?

      As stated earlier, you would need a seperate license number if running developement on each work station. Running the runtime on the workstations negates that problem.

      If you have a totasl of 3+ users and running the 1 licensed dev, you will have a problem somewhere dow the line.

      Some have gotten away from shadowed only to find out later, it can cause a problem. Given a thin ethernet is set a little different. Are you using thin ethernet?

      I have 20+ people concurrently on my individual apps and they have no developement license. If someone decides they want to add alpha dev on a machine, it is wiped out immediately. My users are not allowed that for security of the application. All developement is done by me and when I put in my name and password, it is ok or anyone else wipes alpha5.exe in program files or whereever they started it from.



      .
      Dave Mason
      [email protected]
      Skype is dave.mason46

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Do I need the Run Engine installed?

        Originally posted by seaken64 View Post
        I was having some problems with one of my workstations crashing a lot .... I have three users on this workstation at different times. ...
        According to his question we are only talking about one workstation with 3 different users.

        Sean, there are a lot of unanswered questions here...

        1. How are you're users accessing the program? They could be clicking an icon on the desktop that opens Alpha and then they open the application. They could be clicking an icon that opens the application directly and that icon could be pointing to the application file (.adb file) or it could be pointing to the Alpha5.exe and adding the application as an argument (this is really the best way).

        2. Does each user log in separately? If so, how are their icons set up and is the icon an "all users" icon or is it unique to each user?

        How the runtime and full version act on one computer all depends on how you set it up. My personal preference in your situation would be to make sure your users that don't need access to the full version are using the runtime. If your icon simply points to <ApplicationName>.adb then you really don't have a lot of control over which version of A5 is used. This is just like pointing an icon to a .doc file - the system uses whatever program is defined as the default to open that type of file. That usually means whatever program was installed last. If you installed the full version after installing the runtime, the full version becomes the default. (And if you installed OpenOffice after installing Word, OpenOffice would probably become the default for opening .doc files.)

        The best way to set up an icon for starting any A5 application is to set the target as:
        "<exe_fullpath>\Alpha5.exe" "<app_fullpath>\<AppName>.adb" <optional arguments>
        then set the Start In to the application's "<app_fullpath>"

        Example from one of my icons:
        Target:
        "C:\PROGS\A5V8\alpha5.exe" "E:\A5v8\WCS_8\App\WCS.adb" -nosplash -title="WCS"
        Start in:
        E:\A5v8\WCS_8\App

        Note that WINDOWS (not Alpha) REQUIRES quotes around any path name in the target when there is a blank space anywhere in the path or file names. In other words, in my example it could have been like this, with no quotes, because my paths don't have any blank spaces:
        C:\PROGS\A5V8\alpha5.exe E:\A5v8\WCS_8\App\WCS.adb -nosplash -title="WCS"

        But if the path was in "Program Files" instead of "PROGS" and "WCS 8" instead of WCS_8, then the quotes would be absolutely required. (This is just one of many reasons I hate seeing spaces in any names when dealing with A5.)

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Do I need the Run Engine installed?

          Originally posted by CALocklin View Post
          According to his question we are only talking about one workstation with 3 different users.
          Oops - I lost track of that very important fact.

          You do not need the runtime and you can set-up security so the developer can access the Control Panel and the other users cannot when running the full version.

          But as Cal pointed out, the two versions can co-exist. In this case there is more than one way to skin a cat.

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Do I need the Run Engine installed?

            some problems with one of my workstations crashing a lot
            This would make me think there are more than 1 work station. This one work station has 3 users. How many other work stations and how many users on those? But with no more input from sean???



            .
            Dave Mason
            [email protected]
            Skype is dave.mason46

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Do I need the Run Engine installed?

              I have 8 workstations on this LAN and one dedicated box I use as the file server. I am having this problem only with this ONE workstation which is shared by three users, each user at different times, each on their own log-in.

              I have two other workstations on this same LAN that also have more than one user but they are not having this problem. (And yes, the workstations are using shadowed databases).

              On this one workstation having the crashing problem (with Alpha Five only, no other crashes) it is set up the same way as all my other stations. I have an icon set up for each user exactly as Cal has suggested. This works fine for everyone. The three users icons on this workstation all point to the same database. However, up until I deleted and re-installed A5v9 I had all the users icons starting up the the Run Engine version of the program. After I re-installed only the full version I had my main user open the program with the full license. Then I logged-in to each of the other two users and opened the program - all before re-installing the Run Engine version - and the program reported that the Run Engine version was open. This surprised me since I had not yet re-installed the Run Engine version.

              I think it has to do with the licensing set up previously before I deleted and re-installed. All three users were originally set up using the Run Engine version. I had the full version installed but it was not being opened by the icons. It was just sitting there unused. When I decided to troubleshoot this crashing problem I decided to start with a fresh copy of the full version only.

              This setup I have now, with only the full version installed but with two of the three users being assigned the Run Engine license, seems to work okay for me. I was just surprised to see it happen. I thought I had to install the Run Engine version also on this same machine to allow the other two users to use it while my main user used the full version.

              I think the best thing will be to go ahead and install the Run Engine version also and make sure the icons for my two sub-users point to opening that version only. I will set the icon for the main user to open the full version.

              Sean

              P.S. The crashing problem remains. I will start another thread.

              Comment

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