filePro and Vista

[Kenneth Brody]

Quoting Mike Schwartz (PC Support) (Sun, 26 Nov 2006 12:41:18 -0600):
[...]
> > filePro works just fine in this situation.  User 2 is properly locked
> > out of updating a record being updated by user 1, and when user 1
> > saves the record, user 2 sees the changes as soon as the record is
> > re-read by entering update mode.
> >
> > Where did you see that this might be a problem?
[...]
>     In the hands-on training portion of the Microsoft "Vista - Ready to
> Rock Roadshow", one of the exercises we had to go through was to update
> a record in a Quicken-like application as user "Lisa".  It appeared to
> us that Vista was allowing this "legacy" database to be updated just
> like normal.  The files looked like they had been updated and the totals
> on the screen correctly displayed that we had added a new record to the
> database.
>
>    However, when we went in through Windows Explorer and looked at the
> original database file, it had not been modified (same byte length and
> date).  The instructor pointed out that Vista had created a "virtual
> update" to the file, which resided inside Lisa's "Application Data"
> subdir.  This file logged the changes that we made to the master file.
>
>    The bad news came when we logged off as user "Lisa", and logged in on
> this same laptop as user "Ralph".  Ralph saw the original, unmodified
> file without Lisa's changes.  We were told that if Ralph had modified
> the file and then Lisa logged back in, Lisa would have seen only her
> changes applied to the original file and NOT seen any of Ralph's
> changes.  In a husband and wife checkbook scenario, this would have been
> a perfect way for both of them to spend the same money that was in the
> checkbook!
>
>    The strong message presented was to make sure if you install
> applications like pre-Vista versions of Quicken or Quickbooks that you
> have to make sure all the data files get stored in the special "shared
> data" folders, or else Vista will go into this "virtual file creation"
> mode.

Well, I don't know what this sample application did to cause a "virtual
file creation" to take place, but it's obviously something that filePro
doesn't do.  I created a c:\appl directory, and placed fp and filepro
within that.  I did nothing special with these directories.  I simply
used mkdir to create them and xcopy to copy the tree from a my XP box.

Both the first user (an admin account) and the second user (a "normal"
account) are sharing the \appl tree, as expected.

Perhaps this is only a problem with the "\documents and settings"
directory?  (Which Vista aliases as "\user", so you can access the
tree from "\documents and settings\ken" and "\user\ken".)  If I get
a chance, I'll do some searching on this.

--
KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
http://www.hvcomputer.com
http://www.fileProPlus.com