Telnet with a Windows 2003 server

[Bob Rasmussen]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007, John Esak wrote:

> Bob,
> Using the telnet client from *any* flavor of Microsoft since time began has
> *never* worked properly with filePro. I have spoken with Ken about this
> numerous times. It does not seem to be filePro's fault, but a constant
> disregard by Microsoft regarding their provided-free telnet client. It is SO
> frustrating, but that is a MAJOR reason why we all use *your* Anzio
> software! 
> 
> MS telnet will function but never allow the use of the Function keys. 
> 
> However, you mentioned using the 2003 telnet daemon... and not the client.
> It has never occurred to me that the problem might not be in their client
> app but in the server side of things? 

Here's my analysis, while the dinner rolls rise...

It's certainly true that the MS telnet CLIENT doesn't work well in a 
production environment, especially with a Unix/Linux host. Function key 
support is bad, and passthrough print support is nonexistent.

And thanks for the plug.

But for now I'm concerned about the MS telnet SERVER (daemon), and how it 
works with Windows console applications, such as filePro for Windows. 
These are apps that look like they're written in DOS, but in fact are 
console apps.

A console app., running directly on the Windows screen, can receive 
a full range of keystrokes, such as alt-F12 (extreme case). And, it turns 
out, if you use the MS client to go to the MS server, all keystrokes do 
work (as Ron just pointed out). But the server doesn't deal with this the 
same way Unix does, with a terminfo library and keystrokes represented by 
character sequences starting with escape. And there is no industry 
standard for what function keys generate.

The last time I had investigated this, I learned that the MS-to-MS 
connection uses a terminal type called "VTNT", which is not documented 
enywhere. Late yesterday I did some reverse engineering, starting with 
eavesdropping on the network connection (using "Ethereal"). I actually 
made considerable progress in breaking the code. So there's a good chance 
I could make Anzio have a terminal type of VTNT and work in this 
environment.

Question 1: Would this be useful? If you could run Anzio to connect to a 
Windows 2003 Server running filePro?

(Apparently the competing approach is to run a Terminal Services session 
with a remote desktop).

Question 2: Would passthrough print (via PFPT) work in this environment? 
That's probably a question for Ken.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May your fellowship with family and friends 
be even better than the food!

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
 company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
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