Shim help for custom app, in the Application Installation & Compatibility forum on BrianMadden.com

We have a custom app named NAMerger.exe that we use to merge single page tiffs for our scanning/faxing routines.

App on XP works fine... developer keeps the config settings ( which are nothing more then network file share paths) in a XML file (data.xml) that requires R/W access....so we change permissions to give our users the required access... XML file is located in program files directory of the app. The XML file has different settings for each branch office. So... we do a local install.... then configure the app depending on it's location.

We would like to move the app to our Citrix servers... this, of course, causes an issue of the 1 EXE file reading 1 XML file.... only giving us a option to save the merged tiffs...

I installed the app on a fresh XP station.... installed App Compatibility toolkit, app verifier, etc..etc.. used LUA File system redirect to redirect the file to the local users profile... this should solve two problems... R/W access to the file and also moving the file to the local profile so each user can have a customized version of the file. Tested on Xp ... WORKS GREAT.

Tried the same thing on 2 of our citrix/terminal servers..... DOES NOT WORK. App blows up on close when it tries to write the settings changes to the XML file. Watching the EXE in process monitor shows a CreateFile Operation from NAMerger.exe and an access denied. The whole shim process doesn't even show up or try to intervene. I've also checked the process tab on process monitor and noticed 4 dlls that call the same path.... so I edited the SDB file and added the DLLs... still NOGO.

If I give the users R/W access to the data.xml file... no errors... but then I only have 1 config file on the terminal server and can't have all of our users from different branch offices using the same app... so I need the file to be redirected to the users profile...

Any ideas?

Is there a particular service in windows that I may have turned off building the servers.. or Group Policy entry?

more questions...

Just thought of something... fresh XP is XP service pack 3.. and I installed Compat toolkit 5.0 ...

Isn't this the newest version of compat toolkit? is it possible this version works for XP sp3 but not 2003 server R2 sp2?

just installed fresh term server on our test domain.... no fancy group policies are changes... same problem. test domain is untouched as well... fresh install of 2k3 then added Active directory.

App compat toolkit 5.0 should work with 2003 server ...as far as I know.

Hi,

One option would be to install an instance of this application into an AIE environment for each branch office. That would provide you with the flexibility to have a different XML file for each branch office.

Thanks for the response, Alan.

Unfortunately we are running 4.5 advanced.... no AIE for us. :(

If this is an in-house application, would it be possible to have the developer recompile the app to look to somewhere other than the Program Files directory for its XML file settings?

Microsoft finally added the ability to create soft symbolic links to NTFS for Vista and Windows Server 2008 (mklink utility)...

Alternatively, there are lots of commercial software products that will let you combine single page TIFF files into a multi-page TIFF. Perhaps one of those would work better in a TS environment.

Hi Scott,

Take another look at your shim and make sure everything looks correct. Then try running the application again in different compatibility modes to see if you get the results you want.

Ie, try running it in WinXP compatibility via right click, properties, compatibility...

I was able to work around an issue like this by changing the compat mode.

--Mike