RemoteApp on Windows XP
We are using a very old DOS-based system here in the office that is critical to our operations. Unfortunately, it requires IPX protocol and since it's only available on Windows XP (or Windows 2000/2003 servers), I can't upgrade our users' computers to Win 7 or 8. With Window XP now at it's end of support, I need to start migrating to the newer OSes.
Short of setting up XP-mode on each one of the new computers, I found a way to make the DOS-based program still available by setting up a Windows XP box as a Terminal Server and using remoteApp to make it appear as if they are only opening the application and not a Remote Desktop session.
So what needs to be installed are:
Use the New button to create a new app. Supply the path to the EXE or BAT file, then click Generate RDP file. This will give you a RDP that you can run on the client computers. Simple!
In our case, it was a little more complicated because (1) the program is dos-based, (2) it runs on a network share which is mounted during domain log in. For some reason, Remote Desktop doesn't let me map the network drives properly, so I had to resort to calling a batch file instead of the EXE and doing the mapping in there.
The Batch file looks like this:
It works great for me. Now I can emulate the MSDOS application as if it's just being run locally from the Win 7 and 8 clients.
Short of setting up XP-mode on each one of the new computers, I found a way to make the DOS-based program still available by setting up a Windows XP box as a Terminal Server and using remoteApp to make it appear as if they are only opening the application and not a Remote Desktop session.
So what needs to be installed are:
- Install Microsoft's official Update for Windows XP SP3 to enable RemoteApp
- To simplify the setup, instead of manually changing registries and modifying RDP files, I opted to use this very handy tool call RemoteAppTool from Kim Knight. You can download here.
Use the New button to create a new app. Supply the path to the EXE or BAT file, then click Generate RDP file. This will give you a RDP that you can run on the client computers. Simple!
In our case, it was a little more complicated because (1) the program is dos-based, (2) it runs on a network share which is mounted during domain log in. For some reason, Remote Desktop doesn't let me map the network drives properly, so I had to resort to calling a batch file instead of the EXE and doing the mapping in there.
The Batch file looks like this:
net use F: \\mims8\database
F:
cd arev
arev.exe %USERNAME% /X /M4096
It works great for me. Now I can emulate the MSDOS application as if it's just being run locally from the Win 7 and 8 clients.
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