Microsoft KB Archive/818212

= How to use Office XP in a clustered server environment =

Article ID: 818212

Article Last Modified on 7/27/2006

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APPLIES TO

 Microsoft Access 2002 Standard Edition Microsoft Excel 2002 Standard Edition Microsoft FrontPage 2002 Standard Edition Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000.2 Standard Edition Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 Standard Edition Microsoft Word 2002 Standard Edition, when used with:  Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server</li></ul>

<ul> Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server</li></ul> </li></ul>

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SUMMARY
''Microsoft Office XP programs are supported in a clustered server environment. However, failover is not always seamless. Some user interaction may be required when your computer shifts to the failover server.

Clustering: Linking individual servers physically and programmatically and coordinating communication between them so they can perform common tasks.

Failover: A process that automatically shifts its workload to another server to provide continuous service if any one server stops functioning.''

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INTRODUCTION
This article describes the expected Microsoft Office XP behavior and the optimizations that are required when you use Office XP in a clustered server environment.

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MORE INFORMATION
If all the necessary working file components are local when the server becomes unavailable, you do not notice the shift. However, each program notifies you of the existence of any edit conflicts after a reconnection to the server is made and you try to save to the shared copy of the file.

You are notified by messages that have options you can click, such as Merge changes. You are notified of any edit conflicts that result from your loss of exclusive access (file lock) to a shared document. Your document is left in a recoverable state after the document server shift. Unsuccessful read/write commands are retried, and Office programs do not typically stop responding because of the document server shift. If the document is password protected, you may have to retype the relevant password information to access the network copy of the file after recovering from failover.

Every time that you try to save to the parent copy of a shared file, all Office programs check the last date and time that the network version of the document was saved. These are compared with the last date and time that the Office program registered that the document was saved. If there is a mismatch in the times or in the dates, you receive a message about the edit conflict. This message provides options you can click for additional actions. The options depend on the particular program's ability and configuration.

Note Microsoft Access 2002 and Microsoft Outlook 2002 do not currently support Windows Clustering environments (for more information, see later in this article).

If you run Office XP from Windows Clustering, failover is not seamless.

Optimizing Microsoft Word 2002
Word saves any network documents it opens in a local Temp folder, and then uses that copy as the working document (if the Make Local Copy of Files stored on Network or Removable Media check box is selected on the Save tab in the Options dialog box). Therefore, you can continue working without interruption if your computer connects (shifts) to a different server in the cluster or if it is disconnected from a clustered document server.

Word 2002 has the Merge functionality. With the Merge functionality, multiple users can edit one document &quot;at the same time&quot; by creating copies of the document for each user and then merging them back together. Although this editing does not truly occur at the same time, users do not have to wait for a file to be unlocked before they start to work on it.

Word has two options for multi-user editing:
 * When the user tries to open a locked file, a &quot;locked file&quot; message is displayed . Therefore, Word provides the option Create a local copy for later merge.
 * When the user tries to save a file on top of an existing file (on the File menu, click Save As), Word provides the option Merge changes in existing file.

Optimizing Microsoft Excel 2002
Network resiliency is configurable by using registry and by using a policy, but there is no user interface. The registry keys are:

Value Name:

Value Type: DWord

Value Data: 0 or 1

Value Name:

Value Type: DWord

Value Data: 0 or 1

The program policy is as follows for the default user of Excel 2002 under Miscellaneous:
 * Locally cache network file storages
 * Locally cache PivotTable reports

By default, Excel 2002 OLE sub storages are stored locally and then their file handles are reestablished to make it more likely that a network file user can recover their data if the current server shifts (changes, disconnects, or crashes). In Excel 2002, network resiliency is subdivided:
 * Network resiliency for Visual Basic and OLE (on by default).
 * Network resiliency for PivotTable caches (off by default; however, PivotTables are resilient and the file can be saved even if the cache is lost).

Optimizing Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
No optimizations are required. PowerPoint 2002 incrementally loads network files in memory when you open a presentation. While in an idle state, the program loads the remaining pieces of the presentation in memory. Additionally, if you edit an OLE object in PowerPoint, a temporary document is generated and stored locally.

Optimizing Microsoft FrontPage 2002
No optimizations are required. FrontPage stores network file components in a local Temp folder, and then uses these components as the working copy. When they are required, these temporary files are passed as the working file to other programs for editing.

Optimizing Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 2.0
No optimizations are required. PhotoDraw 2000 2.0 is designed to have all document components present on the client side. Therefore, disconnection from the server has no effect, unless you try to save the file to the server before the computer is reconnected to a server.

Microsoft Access 2002
Access MDB files are multi-user databases that allow more than one user to edit the file at the same time. Additionally, the Jet Database Engine has an extensive locking scheme to prevent inadvertent overwriting of changes made to database records in a multi-user environment.

Note A failover while a user is reading or writing data in an Access database could cause data corruption in the Access database.

Microsoft Outlook 2002
Outlook Personal Folder files (PSTs) are designed for use as single-user storage. Outlook does not support the use of PSTs stored on a network share.

Additional query words: failover wd2002 wdxp xl2002 xlxp ppt2002 pptxp phd2000 phdxp fp2002 fpxp acc2002 accxp ol2002 olxp crash hang lose drop

Keywords: kbclustering kbprb KB818212

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