Win 7 Pro Server - More than 20 clients?

[Over Carl]

I'm in a predicament where I'm thnking of implementing a win7 box as a server at work, as we're just about to start rolling out win 7x64 to our cad pc's but most of our servers are still 2k3 x86.

Problem being we wish to move all our print queues (except for ancient one plotter) to a 2k8x64 box, but drivers for some of our printers do not exist for 2k8.

I started a trial run of 2k8 on an old cad box but when I found this limitation I decided to trash the build and get a 7x64 box ready - intention being to use as our print server for a year or two until we can get proper drivers for all our printers. I was just about to start wiring it up when I remembered a catch with xp so read up the eula and sure enough, I'm limited to either 20/30 clients.

Now as much as I'm not an advocate of going against eula's in a corporate envoironment, this to me sounds like the only logical option - either this or getting incorrect drivers to work on our servers, or installing a heap of win 7 print servers neither of which sound acceptable to me.

So basically my two questions are:

How naughty am I being - I've been told FAST only scan a network then check to see if corresponding s/w licenses/invoices can be found - in which case this is no real problem and I doubt fast would come round before we get to move the queues over to one of our 2k8 boxes when drivers become available. Would I be likely to get the sack? criminal conviction? Would I get offered a chance to pay for a 2k8 license and make them dissappear?

If that's not going to be a major concern, I'm thinking of using TCP-Z to patch to allow up to 120 users to connect, any thoughts would be appreciated.

[liveseytowers]

Why can't you use server 2003?

[Over Carl]

When you get the option to load additional drivers you don't get options for win 7.

[Mr.James]

I'm in a predicament where I'm thnking of implementing a win7 box as a server at work, as we're just about to start rolling out win 7x64 to our cad pc's but most of our servers are still 2k3 x86.

You can add 64-bit drivers to a 32-bit server. Go to the printer properties and on the sharing tab click the 'additional drivers' button...

Problem being we wish to move all our print queues (except for ancient one plotter) to a 2k8x64 box, but drivers for some of our printers do not exist for 2k8.

2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Win7 drivers will all work on 2008 as long as the architecture is the same (32-bit or 64-bit).

I started a trial run of 2k8 on an old cad box but when I found this limitation I decided to trash the build and get a 7x64 box ready - intention being to use as our print server for a year or two until we can get proper drivers for all our printers. I was just about to start wiring it up when I remembered a catch with xp so read up the eula and sure enough, I'm limited to either 20/30 clients.

If the drivers aren't out already then they probably won't ever be released. Manufacturers will only develop drivers for stuff that isn't end-of-life and that's usually only stuff less than 5 years old.

Now as much as I'm not an advocate of going against eula's in a corporate envoironment, this to me sounds like the only logical option - either this or getting incorrect drivers to work on our servers, or installing a heap of win 7 print servers neither of which sound acceptable to me.

It's not just your servers. The clients that send the print need the correct driver installing too. If you can't find an 64-bit driver you won't be able to install the driver on the x64 cad machine either.

So basically my two questions are:

How naughty am I being - I've been told FAST only scan a network then check to see if corresponding s/w licenses/invoices can be found - in which case this is no real problem and I doubt fast would come round before we get to move the queues over to one of our 2k8 boxes when drivers become available. Would I be likely to get the sack? criminal conviction? Would I get offered a chance to pay for a 2k8 license and make them dissappear?

FAST will only stick a server on the network that audits software installed. They won't be able to detect patched systems or that you are not using it within the terms of the EULA. In my case they requested to see the data using my auditing server...

If that's not going to be a major concern, I'm thinking of using TCP-Z to patch to allow up to 120 users to connect, any thoughts would be appreciated.

I think you're gonna have the same issue as I did a while back. We needed to upgrade to 64-bit CAD machines but drivers were not available for our plotter... We ended up replacing the plotter and it wasn't cheap! It's either that or back to 32-bit Windows for compatibility... Maybe have one client that people use if they need to print...

[Over Carl]

You can add 64-bit drivers to a 32-bit server. Go to the printer properties and on the sharing tab click the 'additional drivers' button...



2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Win7 drivers will all work on 2008 as long as the architecture is the same (32-bit or 64-bit).



If the drivers aren't out already then they probably won't ever be released. Manufacturers will only develop drivers for stuff that isn't end-of-life and that's usually only stuff less than 5 years old.



It's not just your servers. The clients that send the print need the correct driver installing too. If you can't find an 64-bit driver you won't be able to install the driver on the x64 cad machine either.



FAST will only stick a server that audits software installed. They won't be able to detect patched systems or that you are not using it within the terms of the EULA.



I think you're gonna have the same issue as I did a while back. We needed to upgrade to 64-bit CAD machines but drivers were not available for our plotter... We ended up replacing the plotter and it wasn't cheap! It's either that or back to 32-bit Windows for compatibility... Maybe have one client that people use if they need to print...

Nice one mate!

Only problem is we use recent brother dcp's for cheap a3 inkjet printing and I remember giving up trying to get their xp drivers on a 2k3 box and didn't even want to go through the same thing again with 2k8 although I suppose I should give it a shot - iirc there was no add printer driver, just an exe that couldn't be decompressed that detected os in use when it was run- win7 drivers easily available hence the idea.

We've already made decisions on which of the other inkets we've scrapped due to no xp/7 x64 support when we needed more than 4Gb.

Funnilly enough me and my boss haven't pushed too hard for a new plotter becuase firstly theres no money left and secondly we never get dumped on with drawings to print anymore

[Mr.James]

Nice one mate!

Only problem is we use recent brother dcp's for cheap a3 inkjet printing and I remember giving up trying to get their xp drivers on a 2k3 box and didn't even want to go through the same thing again with 2k8 although I suppose I should give it a shot - iirc there was no add printer driver, just an exe that couldn't be decompressed that detected os in use when it was run- win7 drivers easily available hence the idea.

Funnilly enough me and my boss haven't pushed too hard for a new plotter becuase firstly theres no money left and secondly we never get dumped on with drawings to print anymore

I hate drivers like that!

Best thing to try is share the printer on an XP machine and then browse to it on the server. When you double click it the server should try installing the drivers that are on the XP machine. You could try installing it manually and then pointing it to the drivers folder on the xp box that has it installed... Usually \\<COMPNAME>\C$\Windows\System32\Spool\Drivers\<ARCHITECTURE>\3

We had the same thing. Except when we did get a new plotter they wouldn't let us chuck the new one coz they're so expensive... We just ended up creating a 'novice' CAD department using 32-bit systems... Mainly just for viewing and printing...

[Over Carl]

I hate drivers like that!

Best thing to try is share the printer on an XP machine and then browse to it on the server. When you double click it the server should try installing the drivers that are on the XP machine. You could try installing it manually and then pointing it to the drivers folder on the xp box that has it installed... Usually \\<COMPNAME>\C$\Windows\System32\Spool\Drivers\<ARCHITECTURE>\3

We had the same thing. Except when we did get a new plotter they wouldn't let us chuck the new one coz they're so expensive... We just ended up creating a 'novice' CAD department using 32-bit systems... Mainly just for viewing and printing...

Genius idea - will try that and report back tomorrow.

Whilst I do like your other idea, we made a conscious decision not to as at our place CAD and IT appear linked and now we can only print slowly to the colour plotters so everyone else has had to learn how to navigate the plot dialogue in dwg trueview so they can batch print to the b&w themselves.

[Mr.James]

Genius idea - will try that and report back tomorrow.

Whilst I do like your other idea, we made a conscious decision not to as at our place CAD and IT appear linked and now we can only print slowly to the colour plotters so everyone else has had to learn how to navigate the plot dialogue in dwg trueview so they can batch print to the b&w themselves.

I guess we're a little lucky... All 3 CAD departments (yes we have 3 now lol) are in separate buildings and it's a good 5 minute walk to each... (but it always takes me half hour to get there lol)

[hoponbaby]

When you run the driver exe doesn't it create a temp folder with all of the driver files that you can c&p before it finished and deletes them?

[Over Carl]

When you run the driver exe doesn't it create a temp folder with all of the driver files that you can c&p before it finished and deletes them?

Normally those kinda drivers will either ask you where to dump the temp files or it will put them in local settings\temp for the logged in profile - couldn't find either.

Anyway sorry everyone this was a bit of a time waste - I've found newer drivers than my old ones and managed to decompress the 7x64 and 7x86 drivers and get them all to work, now just need to connect a load of clients and do some test prints....

Also apparently there's no need to patch 7, the restriction was taken out in vista sp1 or sp2.

[Mr.James]

Also apparently there's no need to patch 7, the restriction was taken out in vista sp1 or sp2.

Are you sure? I noticed today when you create a share on 7 it lets you specify the max number of concurrent connections... I set it to 25 but it changed it back to 20...

Glad it didn't turn out to be the headache you thought it was gonna be!