3.3 Installing a Windows NT/2000/2003 Server

Install and configure TCP/IP before installing AcuServer. If you do not have a network card in your machine or if your network card is not working properly, AcuServer will fail to install and run.

Log onto your NT server using the Administrator account or an account that belongs to the Administrators group.

Note:

Insert the Acucorp product installation CD-ROM into your disk drive. If the installation program does not start automatically, click Start, select Run, and enter the path to the setup file. The path will be something like "d:\setup.exe", where d is the drive letter for your CD-ROM drive.

Follow the instructions on the screen, entering your product code and product key when prompted. During the installation procedure you will be prompted to specify an installation directory, or to accept the default location. Do not specify a directory name that has embedded spaces. Embedded spaces prevent the PATH variable from being set properly and can cause other problems under Windows.

When prompted to select a component to install, select AcuServer.

If you already have the files "\etc\AcuAccess" and "\etc\a_srvcfg", the setup utility will detect them and will ask you if you want to overwrite them. Do not overwrite them unless you have a backup copy. The "AcuAccess" file (as delivered from Acucorp) contains one access record that gives all users access to AcuServer. The file "a_srvcfg" contains the server configuration variables; when the file is first installed, these are all commented out. You can modify both of these files later, if desired.

If you want the AcuServer file server to start automatically on boot, acuserve must be installed and started as a Windows NT/Windows 2000/Windows 2003 service. You can install and start the service after initial setup either through the AcuServer Control Panel or using the acuserve command from the Windows command line, as described in Chapter 5, "AcuServer Functions."

Please note that installing a service on a particular port resets all start-up options for the service on that port. These options are stored so that the service will use them when starting.

The default service is named "AcuServer." All other service names include the port on which to run.

The Start Menu folder contains shortcuts to the AcuServer Control Panel, the AcuPing utility, and online documentation. The Start Menu folder is not required to run AcuServer. You can safely remove it.

If you choose to start AcuServer during the installation process, a command prompt window is displayed showing the status of the Windows NT/Windows 2000/Windows 2003 services being started or restarted automatically. You may see some error messages that can be ignored if the Windows services are not already installed and running. For example, you might see:

acuserve -kill 
      Open/Control Service failed 
acuserve -remove 
      Open/Control Service failed 
acuserve -install 
      AcuServer service installed 
acuserve -start  
      STATE: START PENDING

The Windows NT/Windows 2000/Windows 2003 services that are needed for AcuServer can also be started and stopped manually. See section 5.4, "Starting and Stopping acuserve," for a detailed explanation of how to start and stop acuserve services.

Should you need to remove a service after installation, see section 5.3, "Installing and Removing acuserve as a Windows Service." Note that removing the service does not delete the executables.

To help in resolving service problems, we display some messages from these services in Microsoft Event Viewer's Application Log. The Event Viewer is found in the Administrative Tools folder of the Windows Control Panel.