We are having problems with a client/server app. App components all sitting on a network shared drive on a WindowsNT 4.0 (sp6a) server. There are about 50 Windows98 clients. Each client shares the applications INI file and various other runtime files with other users (ini file located on mapped drive). We have set these files on the network so that they are read-only.
Only at this one particular site, we are getting file locking problems. Sometimes a client will load the app and will lock the app’s ini file which causes other workstations to not be able to read the file so they cannot log into the application (although the file is supposed to be read-only). When this happens, server manager usually tells us that a particular user has a lock on this file in “write” mode. Closing this lock (releasing the resource) usually clears the problem.
Other files in the application are also being randomly locked. Screens on client PC’s will “hang” for upto 2 minutes when opening as some component files required are locked by other users.
Any of these files should not be written to by the application but only need to be read.
Some people have suggested using share.exe on the clients, but I beleive this won’t make any difference onfiles located on network drives (any comments?)
Others have suggested that the NIC’s we are using may be causing the problem (server and clients have 10/100mb 3com 3C905B-TX cards with various diagnostic drivers loaded).
Again, we are not experiencing these issues anywhere else. The network has been checked and seems to be running OK (100Mb switched).
File system on server is NTFS with Opportunistic locking set (have tried this without this locking method as well).
When locking occurs, other users state saving other files outside of app, such as Word Docs can also be slow.
Can anyone help please.