How do I Install OfficeTalk onto a peer to peer network?

Before starting the OfficeTalk installation in a peer-to-peer network environment such as Windows For Workgroups, a choice must be made as to which network machine will act as the 'OfficeTalk Server' (i.e. the machine on which the central OfficeTalk database resides). This choice should be made based on the following considerations:-

• This machine must be available whenever an OfficeTalk user wishes to access OfficeTalk.
• It must have sufficient resources to hold the OfficeTalk database and meet the demands placed on it by the OfficeTalk users.

Having chosen a suitable machine, a decision must be made as to which drive and directory the OfficeTalk database will be created in. This choice should be made based on the following considerations:-

• The OfficeTalk database must not reside in the root (top-level) directory of any drive.
• Users must be given full access to the directory in which the OfficeTalk database resides and all of its subdirectories.

Having made the above decisions you can now start the OfficeTalk installation procedure.

On the machine designated as the OfficeTalk server perform the installation . The database path requested by the installation program is the path decided above. The executable path requested by the installation program can be a different path to the database path if you wish to keep the OfficeTalk data files separate to the OfficeTalk program files.

Having successfully completed this stage of the installation you must now ensure that the above directories can be accessed by any of the other machines on the network. How to do this is dependant on the type of peer-to-peer network used (e.g. how to share directories and how to connect to remote directories will be discussed in your network manuals).

The next stage of installation must be performed on each of the machines that will be running OfficeTalk excluding the OfficeTalk server. Perform the network setup. The network setup will ask whether to copy the OfficeTalk executables locally or run them from the server. It is recommended that the executables are run from the server as this will greatly ease the upgrade process in the future.

OfficeTalk should now be installed and ready to use.

Index How do I Install OfficeTalk onto a Novell Network?