MS Access & Citrix - query design form problems

[CP]

Hi, all. We have a home-grown Access application that approximately
50 users use to access different, but related, databases on different
Linux servers across the US. We are trying to combine all these
different databases into one database that everyone can access through
a Citrix server. In the initial (very) testing phase, we have found
some strange problems with our Access app that may be related to the
programming within the application or may be related to the Citrix
side of things (although when we try to do an analagous task going
just through Access itself we don't have the same problems. (Using
Access 2002 & Citrix Metaframe Program Neighborhood 9.150.39151. I
apologize in advance that I'm the Access app side of the team so if
you ask me anything about the Citrix setup, I'll have to go and ask
the other side for help.)

Here's the main show stopper we have found so far: The user specified
a particular table to use as the basis for a query and then clicks a
"Build Query" button. A bunch of parameters are checked to make sure
the user has completed the form and then these two lines are run:
DoCmd.OpenQuery strQueryFullName, acViewDesign, acEdit
DoCmd.RunCommand acCmdDesignView

When these commands are run in the "normal" application, the regular
query design form shows up with the table showing in the top portion
of the screen and the columns with rows for Field, Table, Sort, Show,
Criteria, or ready to accept criteria for the query. BUT when we run
the same procedure through a Citrix server, the initial query design
form shows up with practically nothing except some scroll bars. I can
enlarge the form and drag parts of it around so that I can see the
section where the table goes and the section where the criteria
columns go BUT no table shows and the column criteria section just
shows the names of the rows Field, Table, Sort, etc.). If I exit from
the query design form and then click the "Build Query" button again,
then I see the table itself BUT the criteria columns still don't
show. I can add fields to the query but can't specify sorting,
criteria, show, etc. When I try to go to SQL view (thinking that I
could enter the criteria there), I see a totally blank screen.

As I said before, when we just start Access through the Citrix server
and go to Query Design, it shows up perfectly.

I certainly hope that someone can give me an idea of what I should
look at to try to fix that. Otherwise, we may be dead in the water.

Thanks in advance for your help. Carol.

 

[Anthos]

There are a couple of things here.
a) is this database only opened by one person? i.e. Is it locked by
someone else. or do you have it in exclusive mode? (which is required
to make database object changes
b) get the citrix team to allow you to connect via remote desktop,
(i.e. using mstsc) and test the app that way, this will help eliminate
the Citrix being the problem (Remote Desktop allows full view of the
desktop, citrix, just views the application it self.

do you get any error messages when it runs the code? are you trapping
for errors that might be helpful?
Can you post the entire code to modify the query in this newsgroup.

Sorry to ask more questions, and not have any useful suggestions, but
this may help us determine where the cause lay.

Kind Regards
Anthony Moore

IT Excellence

 

[CP]

Hi, Anthony. I definitely don't mind questions...

When I run the application through Remote Desktop, I don't have the
problem. And I just found out that when going through Citrix, our app
is started with a batch file. Here's the text of that file:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\MSACCESS.EXE" /Runtime /
Nostartup E:\HOMEDIRS\%username%\CLSToolkit.mdb

I copied the batch file, edited it to go to the correct directory
(i.e. changed "%username" to my subdirectory), took out the "/Runtime"
parameter and, voila, NO PROBLEM!

As I said earlier, I'm not the Citrix side of the team so I don't know
exactly why /Runtime is there in the first place. (And unfortunately
he is not too accessible today.) I do know that we sent the Citrix
folks a regular Office2002 installation disk that they used to install
one copy of Access which all users will be using (when we get the bugs
fixed). Is that possible and/or what are the trouble spots?

I don't know enough about the differences between the regular Access
2002 and run-time Access 2002 to be aware of the differences and
limitations.

Again, thanks for any help/ideas that anyone has. Carol.

 

[Rick Brandt]

Hi, Anthony. I definitely don't mind questions...

When I run the application through Remote Desktop, I don't have the
problem. And I just found out that when going through Citrix, our app
is started with a batch file. Here's the text of that file:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\MSACCESS.EXE" /Runtime /
Nostartup E:\HOMEDIRS\%username%\CLSToolkit.mdb

There you go... "/Runtime" means no design capability.

 

[Anthos]

As Rick has pointed out.
A Runtime version of Access only allows you to view the database, and
make date entry modifications.

The act of going into Query Designer, is actually, a object design
view, which isn't possible to do in Runtime.

The batch file does the following.
Opens MS Access in Runtime mode, and with the NoStartup Flag as well
(which prevents the autoexec macro from running, possibly another
issue you may come across)

Glad that you got to the bottom of the issue though.

 

[CP]

Thanks to you both. That explains a lot. Now we just have to find
out if 50 users (who ALL have regular Access installed on their own
computers) can run one copy of Access on the Citrix server without
experiencing major performance problems...cross your fingers for us.

Thanks again.

Carol.

 

[Rick Brandt]

Thanks to you both. That explains a lot. Now we just have to find
out if 50 users (who ALL have regular Access installed on their own
computers) can run one copy of Access on the Citrix server without
experiencing major performance problems...cross your fingers for us.

That is how terminal server is supposed to work. It requires no more resources
to run "regular" Access than it does to run the runtime. It is in fact exactly
the same program. The latter is just crippled by lots of registry entries to
prevent design functionality.

One big difference is that if you use the full version on the server then each
user DOES have to hold a valid license for Access. When using the runtime that
is not the case. Mind you having the full version installed and just using the
/Runtime switch would not absolve your users from having Access licenses. For
that you would actually need to install Access as a runtime application with the
developer's tools that you had acquired.