Specifying Destination Folders in a Network Installation

When you perform a network installation of Instant Interest, the first step sets the application up on a network file server and the second step connects users to the network installation. In the first step a file named ii32.ini is created in the program file directory and the values specified for the program, rate, and parameters file directories that are specified on the destination panel in Step 1 are stored in that file. These values are then used to populate the program, rate, and parameters file directories on the destination panel on the workstation setups. The ideal situation is that the specification of at least the program and rate file directories will be the same for both steps. (Note: The parameters directory may be different for each user if you want to provide each user their own directory to store their work.) Otherwise you will have to change these values each time you perform a workstation installation. While this may not be a problem initially, it is more difficult to keep track of if you add a workstation at a later date. A couple of examples will help.

Example 1:

If you install the application to the server from a locally attached monitor, you can refer to the locations on the network server using local directory names. This might look like the following:

These values get written to ii32.ini so when you perform a workstation installation the same values will appear for the destination folders. However, these are not the correct paths for the workstation to connect to the application on the server. If, for example, you had drive P mapped to the "Program Files" directory on the server, you would need to change the values of the destination folders as follows:

Assuming that each workstation had the same drive mapping for the server, this would need to be repeated each time a new workstation installation is performed.

Example 2:

A similar situation occurs if the installation is performed from a workstation attached to the LAN, but not all workstations use the same drive mapping for the path to the file server folder in which Instant Interest is installed. In other words, if the person who installs the application to the network server has drive P mapped to "Program Files" on the server but a user has drive G mapped to that location, the value of the destination folders will need to be changed when the user installation is performed.

A Better Way

Obviously, it would be better if both the network installation and workstation setup could use the same value for the program and rate file locations. This is possible using the Universal Naming Convention (UNC). UNC names for folders take the form:

\\<servername>\<share>

Where server is the name of the file server and share is the path of the folder on the server. For example, suppose the case cited above that the name of the file server was "candc". When you perform the server installation you could specify the locations as:

The values for the directories get stored in ii32.ini in the Instant Interest program directory and are used to populate the values of the destination folders for workstation setups. These values are the same whether you are performing a local installation through a server monitor or from a network attached workstation. They are also valid regardless of the user's drive mappings. Thus, any number of workstation installations can be performed without being concerned to modify the paths for the program and rate file directories.