MailBag Friday (#16)

 

Every Friday, we dedicate this space to sharing solutions for some of the most frequently asked questions posed to our ThinManager Technical Support team.  This weekly feature will help educate ThinManager users and provide them with answers to questions they may have about licenses, installation, integration, deployment, upgrades, maintenance, and daily operation.  Great technical support is an essential part of the ThinManager platform, and we are constantly striving to make your environment as productive and efficient as possible.

 

Q-   I am currently running Wonderware InTouch and ACP ThinManager and have a problem with InTouch crashing and ThinManager not detecting it.  When it crashes it displays a green screen and ThinManager AppLink does not detect the crash so it doesn’t restart InTouch.  Is there a way for ThinManager to detect and restart the application when it hangs or crashes?

 

A – Create a batch file and name it whatever you want.  InTouchWatchdog.bat for instance.  This is the program you will use in AppLink instead of view.exe.  In that file include the following:

start /wait Path\to\Intouch\View.exe
shutdown /f /l

That will log-off the session if view ends.  Once the session is logged off, the thin client will then start a new session.

-TM

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Q- We are in the process of  upgrading our Windows Server to Version 2008 R2 X64.  Can I continue to use my ThinManager version 5.0 or will I need to upgrade or download a patch?

 

A –  There is no issue.  ThinManager Version 4 SP3 (as well as anything beyond) may be used on Windows Server 2008r2 x64.

-TM

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Q- I installed UltraVNC on a laptop and connected it to our firewall via specific open port to connect to the ThinServer and allow for Shadowing.    I am wondering about the security risk of open ports in the firewall.  What would keep a deviant employee from getting something off the internet that allows them to send keyboard strokes or mouse movements to a thin client?

 

A – ThinServer has a couple of behind the scenes security authentication measures built in to prevent unauthorized access. It is impossible for any random VNC software to connect to a ThinManager thin client as ThinServer must first tell the client to accept a connection from a certain device.

-TM

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Tom Jordan

Marketing Lead for ThinManager - A Rockwell Automation Technology