RE: Initial Feedback

Edward Avis ()
Wed, 3 Jun 1998 15:01:04 +0100

>NT4.0 Server/Workstation SP3 : The only problem we have come across is
>on one occasion with 3 users using a shared session the server crashed
>(giving a blue screen) - unfortunately I didn't have time to catch
>the exact reason. Some people were talking about the NT4.0 servers
>resetting - we have not seen that just the "blue screen".

Probably just another of NT's "advanced technologies" at work :-)
You could try a complete reinstall, that sometimes makes NT a bit more
stable. (Especially if you reinstall a different OS...)

>The inevitable wishlist includes (my apologies if these have already
>been covered/resolved on this list):
>
>1) Better performance on PC's the Unix systems outperform our most
>powerful Intel boxes.

You have no Unix on Intel? You should try putting Linux or FreeBSD on a
decent Intel box to see that it is Windows, not necessarially Intel
chips, that is slow. _That_ would give you better performance on PCs
:-)

Seriously though, the Windows server is bound to be slower since it's
not so easy to find out what graphics operations are going on in
Windows. (Xvnc is an X server, so the applications talk directly to it.
 WinVNC has to lurk around and try to pick up bits that the applications
send to the screen).

>3) A full screen mode on PC's when your originating and destination
>machine have the same resolution. It's a pain scrolling up and down
>when if it wasn't for the scroll bars it would practically fit!

With judicious moving and resizing, you can make the Windows viewer
_almost_ fit the whole screen. There are still scrollbars however.

What you could do, is if you are viewing a Windows server, make the
taskbar on the server a little bit bigger and load some pointless thing
(such as the MS Office Shortcut Bar) onto the right-hand side of the
server's screen. You can then maximize things without them going into
those areas of the screen, which you can keep safely scrolled out of
sight!

>4) On PC's more feedback that someone has connected to your box!

Isn't the slowdown enough feedback? ;-)

>5) Is there anyway to connect and share an existing X windows session ?

Unfortunately not. If you want X applications to be shared, they have
to display on the Xvnc X server. AFAIK there's no way to disconnect
them from the existing server and connect them to a new one.

You could set up all your Unix boxes to run Xvnc, have your X clients
talk to Xvnc, then also run a "traditional" X server on the same box,
running a full-screen (root window?) vncviewer talking to Xvnc. That
would incur some slowdown, but it would mean you could instantly connect
to any running X session (provided you know the password, of course).

--
Ed Avis <>

This archive was generated by on Wed Feb 03 1999 - 15:34:38 GMT