Cry for help! (Visual Foxpro on Windows 2003)

Andy Parkes

** UPDATE ** – I’ve managed to come up with a work around, i’ve detailed it at the end of the post  

I need some help

I recently did an SBS 2003 installation for a client. They have been on SBS 2000 for a long time and getting them to move on was “painful”

Anyway the migration went well and we were getting people back to work when someone noticed their custom LOB application wasn’t performing too well

It’s a Visual Foxpro 6 application (yes i know it’s not supported anymore) and in certain parts of the system it take a long time to perform table operations (filter, select,etc) where it was instantaneous on the old server

I’ve done a lot of troubleshooting to make sure it’s not corrupt indexes, problems with the infrastruture, etc

I’ve double checked that all works well if i connect back to the old server and it is fine if i log onto the new server and run it locally so i think the problem is with Windows 2003 and Visual FoxPro not playing too nicely when serving the data over the network

They are aware that Visual Foxpro 6 is a little long in the tooth and have plans to have get the program rewritten in a modern language but this isn’t going to happen overnight

I’m also not too keen on telling them their brand new server cripples their main business application!

I’m toying with setting up a virtual server but this may get expensive as a temporary fix!

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks 

** UPDATE **

Looks like my theory about the problem lying with how Windows 2003 gets the data onto the network was correct

As part of the new server installation the client also purchased a NAS. This is to be used for storing backup images.

I’ve put the data onto the NAS and the problem goes away. The NAS is linux based i believe

This isn’t a fix but more of a workaround. The client is aware that they need to get the software updated but this will work until that gets sorted. I’d still like to hear anyones thoughts as why i was having the problem in the first place.

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Andy Parkes

Andy Parkes is Technical Director at Coventry based IT support company IBIT Solutions. Formerly, coordinator of AMITPRO and Microsoft Partner Area Lead for 2012-2013. He also isn't a fan of describing himself in the third person.
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9 thoughts on “Cry for help! (Visual Foxpro on Windows 2003)”

  • Are just the DBF’s, CDX’s, FPT’s on the server or are the APP’s on the server as well?

    What’s installed on the workstations?

    My VFP is a little rusty (doing mostly .NET now) but I remember having to tweak oplock settings.

  • Thanks for the comment Roger

    DBF’s, CDX’s and FPT’s all on the server..
    Single complied program so no APPS’s to worry about

    As far as oplocks go i remember having to turn them OFF for 16-bit versions of fox but it was ok leave them at defaults for 32-bit versions (i.e VFP) though i may be wrong on this as i also remember never getting an answer that anyone would stand behind 100%

  • So it’s fine on the old server and it’s fine if you run it locally on the new server, right?

    What kind of server? Maybe you need updated NIC drivers for the server? Was the SBS updated to Service Pack 2?

  • Yes thats correct

    However, it’s a brand new server. It was installed the week before christmas so all drivers are up-to-date. Yes it’s service pack 2. It was an OEM copy of SBS 2003 R2 that came with SP2

  • I wonder if it has anything to do with VFP itself at all.

    Just for S&G, did you try this: http://blogs.msdn.com/jamesche/archive/2007/12/19/having-network-problems-on-win2003-sp2.aspx

    Also, take a look at Susan’s blog under the “Evil Things” tag. Is it a Broadcom nic?

    If that doesn’t help, and if you have the source for this app I would be willing to recompile it under VFP 9.0 for testing purposes.

    Also, I’m going to reach out to a friend of mine who still supports a large VFP app and see what he knows.

  • It’s a HP server so a HP NIC

    I hadn’t really given that any thought as everything else appears to be ok. Also i’d stepped through the code and got it down to specific areas of code

    Running SBS BPA is normally last thing i do on an install so haven’t changed any of those settings yet

    Will get onto that and let you know

    Thanks for the recompile offer. They have decided to get it rewritten anyway as need some more functionality so the workaround may be ok for the time being….

    thanks for your thouhts

  • Also try this one since Foxpro is of this vintage :

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811497/en-us

    For users to successfully negotiate communications with a domain controller that runs Windows Server 2003, these default security settings require that client computers use both server message block (SMB) signing and encryption or signing of secure channel traffic.

    Maybe Foxpro uses SMB signing??

    Thanks
    Robert Crane

  • Thanks Robert

    I remember an article about SMB signing but couldn’t find the link while i was researching

    The thing about Opportunistic locking was that i could never get two people to give me the same answer so i preferred to leave well alone

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