From: Carter Combs To: All

Has anyone had any experience putting PC Support on a Novell LAN server? My boss saw a brief comment in an article about this recently, and wants more details, such as:

What type of server?

How many users on PC Support before it drags down?

What kind of memory savings on the individual PCs?

How difficult to implement?

We currently have about 15 users attached to Novell, using PC Support to access the AS/400 through Token Ring. PC Support is installed on each PC. Is it fairly straightforward to get them all running PC Support off the server instead? Pros, cons and other comments greatly appreciated.

From: David Redlawsk To: Carter Combs

Don't bother putting PC Support on the LAN Server (though I suspect it will work). Put only the most minimal code on the PCs (the router starter stuff) and then leave everything else on the midrange shared folder to be accessed by the PCs when they need it. The advantage is that it acts like a server, and it eliminates any problem with PC Support code not getting PTFed on the individual PCs (except for the router). Makes it easy to handle. I can't think of any reason to put the stuff on the Novell server. But if you do, you can put it there like any other software, and the PCs just read off their F drive (Novell drive-whatever letter you call it) like they do off their C drive.

From: Carter Combs To: David Redlawsk

Thanks, David. We've been trying to identify best combinations of speed and shared resources, and thought the LAN server access was probably quicker than getting the programs off the AS/400 shared folder. Also, a recent article says Novell is working on something to actually run PC Support from the LAN, resulting in memory savings(?) at the individual PCs. Just trying to see if anyone else has heard or had more experience on this.

From: David Redlawsk To: Carter Combs

Novell is working on this-and if and when it works well, it will be a nice feature. But I suspect it is so new-not even sure if it is actually released yet!-that you won't find much experience. I guess you could go out there and do it (be on the bleeding edge) and then let the rest of us know how it came out!

From: Carter Combs To: David Redlawsk

We may have to do that. PC Support takes so much memory, and I hate having my people unload PC Support programs just to run their favorite word processor. We've already gone to DOS 5.0, and using QEMM we're still pretty tight in that bottom 640... Maybe we should just go to OS/2 and run each thing in a virtual DOS window, except for having to upgrade everyone to 8 megs so it doesn't run like a tired old dog. Ah, decisions, decisions...