Cadzow 2000 Data & Application Setup

Cadzow 2000 requires program and data files in a location accessible by everyone that uses it.

Permissions and User Groups

If security is required, we suggest using two groups: “Cadzow Users” and “Cadzow Admins”. The former represents ordinary users and the latter represents users who would install updates and initiate data upgrades. (If there are multiple data files with multiple user groups, then simply create additional User and Admin groups to suit.)

If using SQL Server databases, the “Cadzow Admins” group requires dbOwner permissions on the database.

Folder Structure

The directories (and permissions) required are:

(Note, “Change” is used in the Windows NT sense meaning Read, Read/Execute, Read/List, Write, Write/Create & Delete.)

The standard (recommended) directory structure for the Cadzow 2000 files is as follows:

<root>\CADZOW\SUCCESS7\BIN
                      \CLIENTS\CLIENTNAME1
                              \CLIENTNAME2
                      \MARKERS

<root> could be a drive letter (G:), a UNC path (\\SERVER\DATA) or folder several levels deep (G:\DATA\APPS).

These paths are not mandatory, but certain scripts used by Cadzow 2000 assume the relative locations.

CLIENTNAME1 represents a short cosmetic description of the data file, such as a site name or client name (eg. “SMITH”). In this directory are the main data file (if using Jet .MDB files), such as SMITH.MDB, an Access workgroup file, usually called CADZPROG.MDW, and a startup script, usually called GO.BAT.

Startup Script

GO.BAT is executed by users to open Cadzow 2000. It is a short script, customised for each location, that launches the main startup script, CADZOW.BAT, which resides in the BIN directory. CADZOW.BAT does two things:

1. It checks to see if a program update (.MDE) is required, and if so, copies it from BIN into the user's profile; and

2. It looks for the best available copy of Access 97¹ and then launches it with the MDE.

Cadzow 2000 program logic is contained in an .MDE file, and because Access MDEs cannot be run in shared/read-only mode, and the file is used for temporary space for queries and reports, each user gets a copy in their profile (in the non-roaming section, Local Settings, under Application Data\Cadzow or AppData\Local\Cadzow in Windows Vista).

The startup script knows that a program is available by the absence of a flag file in MARKERS. Once the update is loaded, it creates the flag file so the next time Cadzow 2000 runs it does not need to copy a new version. However, the startup script has some ability to detect prior improper shutdowns so it may download a fresh copy if necessary.

When a program update is copied into BIN, the contents of MARKERS are deleted and thus the next time the user opens Cadzow 2000 it will download a fresh copy. As this is copied into the user's profile, it does not require administrative intervention and does not update any binary files.

The format of GO.BAT is as follows:

@echo off
set CADZOWROOT=<Root folder>
set CADZOWDATA=JET;<Database Filename>
call <Path to BIN>\CADZOW.BAT <Workgroup Database Filename> <Path to MARKERS> <Path to BIN> <Username> <Password>

For example:

@echo off
set CADZOWROOT=K:\APPS\CADZOW\SUCCESS7
set CADZOWDATA=JET;%CADZOWROOT%\CLIENTS\SMITH\SMITH.MDB
call %CADZOWROOT%\BIN\CADZOW.BAT %CADZOWROOT%\CLIENTS\SMITH\CADZPROG.MDW %CADZOWROOT%\MARKERS %CADZOWROOT%\BIN normaluser cadzow

If the data source is a SQL Server database, the syntax is the same, except for how CADZOWDATA is specified:

SET CADZOWDATA=SQL;CadzowData;192.168.0.83;1433
This specifies a database called CadzowData on a server at 192.168.0.83 using TCP/IP (listening port 1433),

or,

SET CADZOWDATA=SQL;CadzowData;DBSERVER
This specifies a database called CadzowData on a server called DBSERVER using Named Pipes.

Note the absence or presence of the fourth parameter dictates whether Cadzow 2000 will use Named Pipes or TCP/IP (respectively) to access the database. If using SQL Server over TCP/IP, the port must always be specified even if it is the default (1433). The third parameter could be an IP address, fully-qualified domain name or NetBIOS name — use whatever is appropriate for your environment.

If using a named instance on SQL Server, the format is simply:

SET CADZOWDATA=SQL;CadzowDB;Server\Instance;1433

The username and password are optional, if they are not supplied Cadzow 2000 will prompt for them. However, they serve a different purpose depending on the network environment. If the environment is domain-based, a generic login is used (eg. “normaluser” as above) and the user's network credentials are used to determine which features they have access to in the program. If the environment is workgroup-based, and there is no central database of users, the username and password are used to identify the user within Cadzow 2000.

Footnotes

1. CADZOW.BAT searches for Access under %ProgramFiles% (by default, C:\Program Files). If Access is located somewhere else, you can customise this by overriding %ProgramFiles% in GO.BAT with the following command, before calling CADZOW.BAT:

   SET PROGRAMFILES=D:\Applications

   This setting will not affect Windows or other applications because environment variable changes are local to the process that changed them.