Has anyone had any luck running BR 4.03 under Windows 7?
Gabriel
BR 4.03 on Windows 7
Moderators: Susan Smith, admin, Gabriel
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Susan Smith
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Running on a mapped network drive results in BR simply crashing without doing anything (memory error). Also, a network share prevents windows 7 from allowing you to change compatibility settings.
I next tried to run br locally but use drive statements to point to the network drive. Both in compatability mode and in regular mode, I get the same results. The BR Splash Screen appears but it doesn't have anything in it at all, no messages, no text, and no startup picture. Its just a totally blank window with two buttons: "Ok", and "Wait".
When I click "Ok", the splash screen dissapears and BR never starts. I don't get any error message or crash message.
Gabriel
I next tried to run br locally but use drive statements to point to the network drive. Both in compatability mode and in regular mode, I get the same results. The BR Splash Screen appears but it doesn't have anything in it at all, no messages, no text, and no startup picture. Its just a totally blank window with two buttons: "Ok", and "Wait".
When I click "Ok", the splash screen dissapears and BR never starts. I don't get any error message or crash message.
Gabriel
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bluesfannoz
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- Location: Lawrence, Kansas
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I have not attempted it. But I do recall there being a WSID.??? file that had to reside in the windows folder and the user trying to run br had to have rea access to that file. Or BR would not function correctly. That was just to run on older windows versions. So knowing WIN7 is going to restrict access to the WINDOWS folder you will have to deal with that.
Steve Koger
Computer Specialist
SEKESC-MACS Division
Computer Specialist
SEKESC-MACS Division
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bluesfannoz
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- Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 9:01 am
- Location: Lawrence, Kansas
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WB_SID.DAT was the file. The way it worked was it would try to create it if it didn't exist. If it already existed then it would just use that file. So I just copied that file into c:\windows folder and gave everyone read permission to just that file.
bluesfannoz wrote:I have not attempted it. But I do recall there being a WSID.??? file that had to reside in the windows folder and the user trying to run br had to have rea access to that file. Or BR would not function correctly. That was just to run on older windows versions. So knowing WIN7 is going to restrict access to the WINDOWS folder you will have to deal with that.
Steve Koger
Computer Specialist
SEKESC-MACS Division
Computer Specialist
SEKESC-MACS Division
You are reminding me that BR 4.1 & 4.2 have quite a few features to ensure compatibility to the "Elevated User Account Control". (UAC).
BR 4.0x & prior required "Power User" or "Administrator Rights' in order to work properly.
Microsoft staring with Windows Vista implemented the "UAC" security features that require special rights to perform "Prohibited Tasks".
An example of this is accessing a file (In this case WB_SID.DAT) in the Windows Folder.
I suppose you could disable UAC, and give the users admin rights, but that defeats the entire purpose of the elevated security (So people don't hack your PC!).
Another thing worth mentioning, "Mapped Drives" tend to "Disappear" when you run as administrator, so use UNC paths when defining your DRIVES.
BR 4.0x & prior required "Power User" or "Administrator Rights' in order to work properly.
Microsoft staring with Windows Vista implemented the "UAC" security features that require special rights to perform "Prohibited Tasks".
An example of this is accessing a file (In this case WB_SID.DAT) in the Windows Folder.
I suppose you could disable UAC, and give the users admin rights, but that defeats the entire purpose of the elevated security (So people don't hack your PC!).
Another thing worth mentioning, "Mapped Drives" tend to "Disappear" when you run as administrator, so use UNC paths when defining your DRIVES.
I got BR working at this location, finally.
Thank you everyone who gave me ideas to try. I don't know which of them helped but I tried them all, and several other things besides before it finally was working.
In addition to all the ideas presented here, (checking the wb_sid file, permissions, etc), the following were all things that helped make it work.
No matter what I tried to do, BR would not run on a network share under Windows 7. The file server at this location is running Windows 98, and there are a lot of networking issues between Windows 7 and older versions of Windows so that may have something to do with it. But basically any time I tried to run BR on the network share, it crashed. The splash screen didn't show up, instead I got an error message about a memory violation.
I got around this by running BR on a local drive, and pointing to the network share in the wbconfig.sys file. My Drive statement looked like this:
drive e:,\\server\wb,,\
Because of advice on this forum, I avoided using a mapped network drive, and that may have also helped.
But it still didn't work. Know why? The third parameter in the drive statement, the one that gets ignored, still has to be there. It can't be blank.
This caused BR 4.1 to give an error 4180 listed on the splash screen, but I didn't see it right away because of another more obvious error listed further up on the splash screen results: "Failure to create wbserver.dat. Make sure the path exists and the user has write permissions."
So after a day spent investigating security problems on network shares between Windows 7 and Windows 98 I noticed the other error, the 4180, which means "Error in Drive Statement" (or more specifically, "Invalid Path in Drive Statement" ( http://brwiki.ads.net/index.php?title=4180 ) which I'm going to be correcting shortly) and I looked closer and realised the third parameter has to be there even though it is ignored. So the proper drive statement was:
drive e:,\\server\wb,x,\
I also created a user name on the Windows 7 computer that matched the user name on the Windows 98 computer.. I understand that is necessary in newer operating systems for networks that use a workgroup.
So, if anyone runs into this problem again, try running BR locally on the Windows 7 computer, pointing it to the network share, avoid using a mapped drive, create a user that matches the user on the server, be careful to include the mystical third parameter in your drive statements, make sure everyone has permissions to "ws_sid" in the windows folder, and do a rain dance, and you just might be able to get it to work.
Or better yet, upgrade your server to something newer then Windows 98 before you start adding Windows 7 workstations.
Its been an interesting journey. Thank you everyone who came with me, offering tips and advice.
Gabriel
Thank you everyone who gave me ideas to try. I don't know which of them helped but I tried them all, and several other things besides before it finally was working.
In addition to all the ideas presented here, (checking the wb_sid file, permissions, etc), the following were all things that helped make it work.
No matter what I tried to do, BR would not run on a network share under Windows 7. The file server at this location is running Windows 98, and there are a lot of networking issues between Windows 7 and older versions of Windows so that may have something to do with it. But basically any time I tried to run BR on the network share, it crashed. The splash screen didn't show up, instead I got an error message about a memory violation.
I got around this by running BR on a local drive, and pointing to the network share in the wbconfig.sys file. My Drive statement looked like this:
drive e:,\\server\wb,,\
Because of advice on this forum, I avoided using a mapped network drive, and that may have also helped.
But it still didn't work. Know why? The third parameter in the drive statement, the one that gets ignored, still has to be there. It can't be blank.
This caused BR 4.1 to give an error 4180 listed on the splash screen, but I didn't see it right away because of another more obvious error listed further up on the splash screen results: "Failure to create wbserver.dat. Make sure the path exists and the user has write permissions."
So after a day spent investigating security problems on network shares between Windows 7 and Windows 98 I noticed the other error, the 4180, which means "Error in Drive Statement" (or more specifically, "Invalid Path in Drive Statement" ( http://brwiki.ads.net/index.php?title=4180 ) which I'm going to be correcting shortly) and I looked closer and realised the third parameter has to be there even though it is ignored. So the proper drive statement was:
drive e:,\\server\wb,x,\
I also created a user name on the Windows 7 computer that matched the user name on the Windows 98 computer.. I understand that is necessary in newer operating systems for networks that use a workgroup.
So, if anyone runs into this problem again, try running BR locally on the Windows 7 computer, pointing it to the network share, avoid using a mapped drive, create a user that matches the user on the server, be careful to include the mystical third parameter in your drive statements, make sure everyone has permissions to "ws_sid" in the windows folder, and do a rain dance, and you just might be able to get it to work.
Or better yet, upgrade your server to something newer then Windows 98 before you start adding Windows 7 workstations.
Its been an interesting journey. Thank you everyone who came with me, offering tips and advice.
Gabriel