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Hi Stuart<br>
<br>
Stewart Williams wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:496A6DC4.5090303@pinkyboots.co.uk" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi Rob,
Rob Kampen wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi, I too run quickbooks (2007) and offer the following scenario - 5
user licences (actually 2 times three user package were purchased).
Previously I used version 2004 and this allows much better sharing of
the data file, unfortunately I got sucked into an upgrade that in
reality was a significant downgrade!!
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Yeah I know exactly what you mean. We are currently on 2005 Pro and got
"sucked into" upgrading from 2003 Pro, which was working fine for us;
but 2005 did have a couple of features we liked the sound of. Little did
we know that 2005 was a zillion times slower than 2003 (in our
experience) and once you convert your data file and work with it for a
week or so, adding information, there is no way back and the data you've
added since is too precious to loose, that you can't afford to revert to
a week old backup. If only the files were version independent.
</pre>
</blockquote>
You too, sounds exactly like what happened to me.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:496A6DC4.5090303@pinkyboots.co.uk" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Anyway - my set-up:-/
For multiple simultaneous users, one machine has to be the defacto
"server", i.e. it opens the file and shares access to the underlying
data store on behalf of other users. (why they can't develop a decent
client server product defies understanding).
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I've always been annoyed by this too, as it has never really been made
into a proper networkable application. They also say that the company
file should never reach to a size greater than 125MB. Ha! no chance.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">So what I have done is establish a W2K client running in virtualbox
(thanks to Sun for keeping this product FOSS). This client accesses the
data file from my main server (running a HW based raid 5 disk array). I
have lots of ram on my virtual box client, and allocate sufficient to
ensure all is in ram. Thus far the system has been very robust and no
data loss. I keep this client running in share mode 24x7 and only go
single user to create backups. Unfortunately Quickbooks does not provide
an automated method of backing up (another gross over-sight).
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I can't really see the benefit in this, samba shares the company file
just as well as Windows as long as you configure the permissions
correctly and set oplock settings in smb.conf
That said, I have read, when spending endless hours googling for tips on
running QB from a server, that it can be best to serve it from a Windows
box and intuit only supports that method.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">All the other users (on Windoze XP at this time) access the virtualbox
W2K for the data file.
Performance while not stellar is adequate, my file is only 10% the size
of yours, but it runs basically from ram, and only save writes....
Apparently Quickbooks do offer more expensive products that may work
better from a client server perspective but only on Windoze and MAC, but
for my small business the cost is WAY TOO HIGH and I love FOSS and Linux.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I think the performance difference would be far worse in this
configuration with the size of our file.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I must say, it took me many dozens of hours to get this working properly
(mostly due to my ignorance, and Quickbooks poor design), so I hope this
may assist you.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Thanks for your reply Rob.
It's a shame that there are these issues, as it's an excellent program
and suit's our needs perfectly in every other way than that mentioned.
And like you, I'd rather use FOSS and GNU/Linux. And that's not through
cost, but through choice!
Stewart
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</pre>
</blockquote>
I too used the samba share method with QB2004 as this allowed any of
the machines to access the file in multi-user mode, what's more I could
do automatic back-ups of the samba file system each night and have a
working backup. <br>
However QB2007 does not allow this at all, only a single user could
open the file and the other users had to access via that machine, hence
the elaborate scheme I now use.<br>
My memory fails me as to all the convoluted things I tried, to get it
working like it did under QB2004, I was not fit to live with for about
a week when this hit around Christmas 2006.<br>
QB does my payroll as well and while not the cheapest, it just works. I
only need and use the basic functions of QB.<br>
Just be very careful if you upgrade again, I got sucked in as I use
turbo-tax and they only allow data transfer from QB <= three years
old.<br>
>From now on I'll just manually do the turbo-tax data input.... learned
the hard way. <br>
I was MD of a UK based software development company, also spent many
years in a large corporation heading IT strategy and have seen the
issues of proprietary software vs FOSS, there's no going back for me.<br>
Hope you get something that works ok for your situation.<br>
I note that at 20Mb per week growth, you will probably have other
issues heading your way real soon.<br>
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