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Access denied to data tables
This article applies especially to Windows XP Home and XP Professional and perhaps to Windows 2000. The fax server stores it's data files is a folder that is chosen by the user during the first execution of the software. Note: you can relocate your data files using 'Utilities | Relocate data' from the menu. In Windows XP each folder inherits permissions from its parent folder. Regardless of the permissions you assign to a sub-folder, Windows will eventually although not immediately reset the permissions of the sub-folder to inherit the permission of the parent. For example if you have chosen the folder... "c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\snappy fax server" to store your data files OR that was the default location when you first installed an older version of the fax server software, then that folder ultimately inherits the permissions of "c:\documents and settings". When the fax server software is launched, it resets the folder permissions and the permissions on every file in that folder to include the 'Everyone' security principal with full control. If the permissions on "c:\documents and settings" does not include the 'Everyone' security principal then Windows will eventually reset the permissions to that. This may happen after processing has gone uninterrupted for some time, so it will likely be unexpected. The best resolution is to make sure that your data files are located in a "one-off" data folder - something like "c:\faxserver" that has no parent folder. You should, however, ensure that the drive itself (c: in this case) is shared and allows network access. Note: Earlier versions of the fax server software used the folder ... "c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\snappy fax server" and did not give the user a choice of locations. This was in accordance with Microsoft's "recommended best programming practices" and regardless of that recommendation, this turned out to be an extrememly poor choice. Later versions of the fax server will prompt you for a location and if none is chosen, a default of "c:\faxserver" will be used. To determine where your data is currently located, select 'Help | Technical Support' from the menu and look near the top of the tech data listing for the data path. If you want to relocate your data use 'Utilities | Relocate data' from the menu. Note: if you relocate your data to another folder, please ensure that you change the setting in the client software to point to the new location. The fax server (to ensure a point of recovery) will not delete the old data files after copying them to the new location. If you do not reset your clients options it will appear as if everything is normal, but the client will not be looking at the same files as the server and problems are sure to result, namely submitted faxes not being sent and received faxes not being visible, just to name a few. One other point: If you are using the default 'Simple file sharing' you must disable this feature in Windows XP. To change it go to Control Panel->Folder Options, click the 'View' tab and scroll all the way down and uncheck 'Use simple file sharing (recommended)'. Anti-virus software Some anti-virus software (notably Norton and McAfee) scan all .dat files for viruses. When they scan these files, they place an OS level lock on these files which will cause the fax server and/or the client software to crash if the lock is in place when server activity is attempted. To remedy this problem, configure your anti-virus software to *not* scan files in the fax server's data folder and snappy fax's data folder. |