MONROE@DUKEFSB.BITNET (Greg Monroe) (02/03/90)
I have been installing the new network version of Lotus 2.2 and thought I'd pass on some observations. They might save folks some time in looking at this. The installation is very straight forward and well described. Lotus is VERY reasonable in it's setup. It assumes that network administrators are honest (GASP, is this REALLY the Lotus we all know? Perhaps, events in East Europe have touched them....errr... sorry, I'm wandering.) They can set the number of copies to whatever number they want to, no questions asked, no diskettes to confirm this. The copy limiting scheme is nice in that it keep an overflow log. This is a list of times there was not a copy available when someone wanted it. One thing to note, Lotus apparently tries 4 or 5 time in a row to get a copy and logs each one. Take this into account in your statistics gathering. There is one gapping security hole in their copy limiting scheme. According to the installation manual, users have to have ALL RIGHTS to the copy limiting directory. If you follow this suggestion, you may have problems (especially in student lab situations). I discovered that by NCOPY-ing the LICENSE.??? files, I could actually add copies to the network. I know some students who wouldn't think twice about adding illegal copies if none were available. In looking at this, I have found that the safest working rights combination seem to be RWOSM. There are a couple of draw backs in this. First, you need to ALWAYS HAVE A LOTUS.LOG (the overflow log) file. This is the only reason to have Create rights. Removing this right solves the problem with everyone being able to add copies. I would prefer to not to have Modify rights, since a malicious person can rename the LICENSE.??? files and prevent folks from using Lotus. (Like students who have their assignments done and want to improve the curve. I know I sound cynical but I've seen it happen!) However, Lotus insists on renaming the LICENSE.??? file to IN_USE.??? when the copy is checked out. The copy limiting also lets you have a Overflow Message file, with additional info. in it. One minor problem is that this is displayed on the screen AFTER the user gets Lotus's default, there are no more copies.../contact your network administrator.../press any key... screen. (I don't know about your users but mine will call BEFORE they press the key and see any additional message). If no copies are available, Lotus will return a DOS errorlevel, so batch files can try other servers. The server/node manuals are written with networks in mind. They do a good generic job of telling a user what they need to know. However, since the network version is designed to run on a wide variety of nets, network specific info needs supplied by the net administrators. This also means that it does not support Network printers internally. CAPTURE, et. al. are still required. Well, I hope this helps folks out a little. If you're not interested sorry for bothering you. Greg Monroe <MONROE@DUKEFSB.BITNET> Duke's Fuqua School of Business Durham, NC 27706
CONTEDUC@UVMADMIN.BITNET (Lawrence Keyes) (02/06/90)
>>>Installing Lotus 123 2.2. We recently upgraded our Lotus copies to the network version of 2.2 and I had less than positive feelings about the way things work. 1. Lotus requires a shared data directory in the root of the volume on which you have installed the software. Since I normally try to install applications in an APPS directory off the root, this precludes that. 2. There appears to be no network printer support. Lotus just refers you to the network specific printing functions, i.e. CAPTURE. 3. The installation is quite confusing.(But free tech support is available.) 4. The installation includes a NewUser utility which creates a private set of configuration files in a private user directory for each user. This is nice, it means that you don't have to use environment variables and machine types for a mixed network. On balance, I'd take a closer look before automatically upgrading. =:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=: -------- || | Lawrence Keyes BITNET: conteduc@uvmadmin |* | Information Systems Specialist CSERVE: 75170,64 | / Division of Continuing Education | | University of Vermont | | 322 South Prospect Street ---- Burlington, VT 05401