network shares

[super80]

Hello,

I am running the most recent pm builds for Boeing PFD, MCP and CDU on separate client machines. The clients are running xp. My server is running fsx on Vista home 32. The problem is that on my client machines pmfilecheck keeps coming back and saying that I need to share FSPLANS and FS.

On my server, I double checked the fileshares, and I tested the client machines to make sure they can see this shares. The shares are definitely there, and I tested to make sure that the clients have full read /write access as well. I am not sure what to try at this point.

Does pmfilecheck look for the share name to be in all CAPS? The reason I asked is that vista changes the sharename to Fsplans instead of FSPLANS. Not sure if this matters..

FYI, I am running latest FSUIPC.


Thanks,
Vic

[mauriceb]

Are you 100% sure all PCs have the same workgroup name, especially the Vista computer?

Maurice

[super80]

yup. double checked it..

[mauriceb]

What about network location in the Vista PC. Is it set to Private instead of Public? Sorry if this sounds a bit too obvious, but I went through a lot of grief setting up a network with one Vista PC and all others XP for someone I know and there are quite a few gotchas in such a setup and you can find lots of posts in various forums about problems with networking Vista & XP PCs :?

Maurice

[super80]

I'll check that setting. The weird thing is that the shares are definitely there.. It's just that pm doesn't see them..

[mauriceb]

I'll check that setting. The weird thing is that the shares are definitely there.. It's just that pm doesn't see them..

When I was playing with it, I had setup the network as Private on the Vista PC and on more than one occasion, it switched to Public and I still have no idea why. Vista extra security is a big issue as well and you may want to disable all firewalls just to try.

Maurice

[super80]

Gotta love Vista.......:mad:
Thanks for the info, I'll give it a run tonight.

[super80]

When I was playing with it, I had setup the network as Private on the Vista PC and on more than one occasion, it switched to Public and I still have no idea why. Vista extra security is a big issue as well and you may want to disable all firewalls just to try.

Maurice


Maurice,

I think that may have been the problem, or at least part of the problem. Vista keeps changing the network location to public, despite me manually changing it to Private. This is what drives me nuts about Vista.....

I am also trying to disable IEEE 802 in Vista(as per pm docs) and can't seem to find where to do this, any suggestions?

[mauriceb]

I am also trying to disable IEEE 802 in Vista(as per pm docs) and can't seem to find where to do this, any suggestions?


I don't use Vista normally, so I can't recall exactly how to get to it, but it may be the same as XP for that setting. Right-click on 'My Network Places' and select Properties. Right-click again the Local Area Connection icon and you should see all the network protocols listed. All you need to do is uncheck the IEEE 802 check-box. But as I said, you may have to navigate a different way to get to that box in Vista.

Also, in regards to your comment "Vista keeps changing the network location to public, despite me manually changing it to Private", when it does that, it may also change the Workgroup name to the default name it gives it when you install Vista (I think the default is Workgroup). So you may want to triple-check that the workgroup name is still the same in all computers. Even though you may see the shares from other computers, you may not be able to access them if they are not all on the same workgroup.

I know for a fact that I had set all workgroup names to be the same and forgot about it, but when I checked much later, the workgroup name on the Vista computer was not the one I set up originally and I have no idea exactly about what made it change, but it did somehow,

And one last thing again, security is a BIG thing in Vista and can cause a lot of grief when you try to share things. You may want to Google that topic and you will find lots of related posts. Again, make sure you disable all firewalls (at least temporarily) and any other security programs you may have installed like Norton or other anti-virus/firewall applications.

One more thing you may want to do is to create the same user account on all PCs with administrator rights & no password and use that account to log on to all PCs. Not sure if that will help, but at some point I did that and that may have helped although I can't say for sure. All I know is that it took a lot of fiddling to get Vista & XP working together in 'perfect harmony'. :)

Maurice

[super80]

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated. I spent the majority of last night researching the security "features" of Vista. One thing that I read was to turn off UAC (access control) in msconfig. I tried that but it didn't seem to have an effect, meaning something keeps changing the network location back to "public"(even in mid flight!). Frustrating for sure.

I guess I will have to add "check workgroup name and location" to my preflight checklist every time I fire the sim up. :eek:

[mauriceb]

What I am going to say now makes absolutely no sense to me, but someone very knowledgeable told me about it and this is what finally resolved all the problems I was having when trying to network Vista & XP. Again, this makes no sense to me, but it worked when I ran out of ideas.

For some unknown reason, Vista likes to be connected to a router instead of just a switch or hub. When I had all the PCs connected to a switch, I could not get things to work properly including the Network type. What finally did it was to connect all the PCs to a hub (or switch) and connect the hub to a router. I set all the PCs to DHCP with the router IP address being the default gateway & providing the IP addresses. I know PM recommends static IP addresses but it is really not essential and you can switch to static IP anyway after you get everything working OK.

Again, let me say that this makes no sense to me and it may have had nothing to do with solving my problems, but it did and I can't explain why. So, if you do have a router handy, you may want to try that as well. The router does not need to be connected to the Internet via a DSL modem or other access point. All the router need to be is present in the configuration. I'm 100% sure there must be other way(s), but this is the one that worked for me.

Maurice

Edit: One more thing. You can also try using just a router if the router has enough ports for all your PCs. The hub or switch is needed only if you need more Ethernet ports.

[JBaymore]

There is a local PC shop near my house that has the solution for this situation posted on their main front sign:

"We remove Vista and install XP". ;)

best,

..................john

[mauriceb]

There is a local PC shop near my house that has the solution for this situation posted on their main front sign:

"We remove Vista and install XP". ;)

best,

..................john

That would work too :D

Maurice

[super80]

There is a local PC shop near my house that has the solution for this situation posted on their main front sign:

"We remove Vista and install XP". ;)

best,

..................john

hehehe..... that is definitely an option I suppose :-P

[Thomas Richter]

Hi

Here I use in my network
FS - Vista 32
x4 Client's - XP Pro
x1 Client - Vista 64
x1 Client Vista 32
x1 Client Win 2000 Pro

There is NO problem at all.
One easy important thing to give rights to any PC is - Just use on ALL PC's the same User Name!!
So you don't need to give rights to different User's because you are ever the same and Win XP/Vista doesn't see the difference.
Then it is much easier to do the rest.

[Rodney]

Hello,

I am running the most recent pm builds for Boeing PFD, MCP and CDU on separate client machines. The clients are running xp. My server is running fsx on Vista home 32. The problem is that on my client machines pmfilecheck keeps coming back and saying that I need to share FSPLANS and FS.

On my server, I double checked the fileshares, and I tested the client machines to make sure they can see this shares. The shares are definitely there, and I tested to make sure that the clients have full read /write access as well. I am not sure what to try at this point.

Does pmfilecheck look for the share name to be in all CAPS? The reason I asked is that vista changes the sharename to Fsplans instead of FSPLANS. Not sure if this matters..

FYI, I am running latest FSUIPC.


Thanks,
Vic

Vic,
I take it you are talking FSX? I had this too, but I am not using Vista anywhere on my network.

RESOLVED: I named the FSX directory share FSPATH. I don't ever remember doing that in FS9.

[Thomas Richter]

Hi

A known problem of Vista's security system is that you can not share a program folder of "program files" folder.
So if you have installed FSX or FS9 in the main program's folder of Vista you can not really share it.
Best is ever to create its own subfolder in the main drive folder.

[super80]

Vic,
I take it you are talking FSX? I had this too, but I am not using Vista anywhere on my network.

RESOLVED: I named the FSX directory share FSPATH. I don't ever remember doing that in FS9.


Hi Rodney,

Yes, FSX running on a Vista 32 PC. The clients are XP.

BTW, are you saying that renaming your FSX directory share to FSPATH solved your comms problem? Also, I want to confirm that you are referring to your MSFS main program folder?

Regards,
Vic

[Rodney]

Hi Rodney,

Yes, FSX running on a Vista 32 PC. The clients are XP.

BTW, are you saying that renaming your FSX directory share to FSPATH solved your comms problem? Also, I want to confirm that you are referring to your MSFS main program folder?

Regards,
Vic

Vic,
Yes that is correct. I share my MSFS folder which I name FSX when installing and share that folder as FSPATH. I have not ever let the program install under program files. Always on the root of the drive.