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Premiere Compatibility

(version 5-10/2003)

Issues concerning workstations, particularly the NT family (Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP)

Article by John Clegg

Premiere runs successfully under Windows 9x, and in most cases under Windows NT4. However, there are some problems in running under Windows 2000 and Windows XP if the user is not logged in as an administrator.

Some problems put up an error message and then allow you to continue. These are nearly always due to file permissions, and whilst you can sometimes continue you may not get full functionality. Some of these problems may go away if you try to log in to Premiere as SYSDBA - this enables the writing of a local file that can eradicate the problem for the future - or at least until you change the SYSDBA password next!

Many problems arise from the workstation not being able to find the database - ie you put in your username and password and then the "wiggling link" wiggles forever until you get a message about being unable to connect to the database. These issues are marked with (connect) in the title.

The registry and DCOM issues are easy to recognise if not diagnose, because you will get an error message telling you that you have insufficient rights to access the registry!

As I said, most of these issues are only apparent if you try to log in as an ordinary user. Logging in as an administrator hides the problems. However you need to be logged in as an administrator to fix most of them. Be prepared to log between an administrator and a user account many times in fixing these.

Try the following:

Check your printer driver

Maybe your workstation has no printers - but Premiere requires at least one to be installed in software even if there isn't one in hardware (if you see what I mean). Just install something really basic - Epson LX300s are OK - so that the basic files are set up to keep Premiere happy. Without some form of printer being present you won't even be able to spool prescriptions because basic printer files are needed to construct the spool file.

Check your Services file (connect). 

This is in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc. The file name is services. (note, no extension after the . makes it harder to open. The easy way is to run Notepad, and then drag the file from Windows Explorer into the Notepad window).

Near the bottom there should be lines looking like:

 The important line is the gds_db line - if it is missing just type it in exactly as shown, then save the services file. Its position in the file isn't important, but common sense suggests keeping it in numerical order.

WARNING - notepad has a nasty habit of saving files with .txt on the end, even if they already have an extension, so fred.ini can become fred.ini.txt and be unusable. The easy way to avoid this is to make sure that when you save the file the "Save as type" box is changed to All files, and the filename is entered completely, in this case "services." - make sure you put the full stop on the end. If it goes wrong, go back to it in Windows Explorer, right click it and rename it.

Check your BDE setup (connect).

BDE - the Borland Database Engine - stores the configuration of the link to your Premiere server.

Click Start, then Settings, then Control Panel.

Run the BDE Administrator (NB it may not be there - particularly in Windows 2000. If this is the case you can find it at C:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE\BDEAdmin.exe)

Look down the list in the left hand pane for "ibasemcs". Click once on this, and then in the right hand pane look for SERVER NAME. The entry should be of the form

server:d:\wincare\pcs.gdb

"server" should be your server name (often NT4PSBS, or CLINICAL), and then the part after the colon should be where the pcs.gdb file is when looked at from the server. This is not standard network format (known as UNC) so be particularly careful to get it exactly right. If you change it, click back on the name "ibasemcs" on the left, and a green arrow will appear beside the name. This confirms that you have made a change. Commit it by clicking the blue curly arrow at the top, or abort it with the red curly arrow.

Now click once on IBusers on the left. The SERVER NAME should be

server:c:\program files\interbase corp\interbase\isc4.gdb

Make any necessary changes exactly as for ibasemcs, but note this will often be on a different disk letter from pcs.gdb.

When you have done, close BDE Administrator.

Check Prempaths.ini (connect)

Open the file "c:\program files\torex medical\premiere\prempaths.ini". It may not be there - if not see below "Check file permissions". It should look like:

SERVERNAME: server
SERVERPATH: \\server\torex\Premiere\PremProg\
CLIENTPATH: d:\WINCARE

Check that server matches your server name and the clientpath is as it was in the BDE Administrator setup.

If you make any changes make sure you save the changed file!

Avoiding "Unable to find user" problems

The first time you log in to a new installation of Premiere, log in as SYSDBA. This allows the program to initialise some security arrangements that can't be initialised if you do not log on as SYSDBA.

Check file permissions

If you get a message telling you that Prempaths.ini doesn't exist it is probably because file permissions are wrong (Windows 2000 and XP).

Another symptom of this is if you have the Prempaths.ini file but when you log out of Premiere you get an error called DOIT referring to file permissions. Whatever the problem it is because Premiere writes to prempaths.ini when it exits, and for whatever reason it can't.

If Prempaths.ini isn't there you will need to copy it from \\server\torex\premiere\prempaths.ini to c:\program files\torex medical\premiere\prempaths.ini.

To correct the permissions, in Windows Explorer go to the folder c:\program files, then right-click on "torex medical" and select Properties. Click on the Security tab, click Add, double-click Everyone and click OK and make sure Full Control is ticked. Then click on Advanced and tick the "reset permissions....." box at the bottom. Click OK and OK and you should be OK!

Put an entry in your hosts file (connect).

I have had to do this one in the past in desperation. It happened because I had two IP addresses for the same server in WINS, and despite removing one, workstations didn't seem to be able to forget the problem. By adding the server name to the hosts file on each workstation then at least the workstation always knows exactly where the server is, and arguably this is faster anyway, particularly on slow networks. For networks with two sites and a slow link I would recommend it to reduce network traffic.

The hosts file is in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc. The file name is hosts. (note, no extension after the . makes it harder to open. The easy way is to run Notepad, and then drag the file from Windows Explorer into the Notepad window).

You should add the line:

192.168.0.1    server

Of course you should substitute your server IP address and name!

Make sure you save the hosts file - see the notes on Notepad under the Services file section.

Check Registry Permissions

This one has been found to be necessary on NT4 and above workstations. I'm not sure if it is still necessary, but I do it on all my machines as a precaution.

WARNING - fiddling with the registry is not to be taken lightly, if only because everyone everywhere tells you that you do it at your own risk and they won't support you if you screw it up. The same is true here! Having said that, you shouldn't have any trouble if you are careful and back up the registry before you start. No idea how to back up the registry?? Then this isn't for you.

Log in as an account with Administrator privileges.

Run REGEDT32 or REGEDIT (NB, it must be REGEDT32 for NT4. Some of you NT4 users may prefer REGEDIT, but it can't do what we need to do here. In Windows 2000 and XP REGEDIT does it all)

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Torex Medical (NB, there may be other similar branches such as Torex Medical Limited - ignore these)

Click on the Security menu, then Permissions. Click on Everyone and set permissions to Full Control (if Everyone isn't there add it). Make sure you elect to change permissions on all sub-keys, children etc. I am being deliberately vague here for two reasons - firstly it is different between NT, 2000 and XP, secondly if you can't work it out you shouldn't be here!

Close Regedt32

Some new ones I have found! (Apr 2002 and June 2002)

If you get a message along the lines of "Exception EOleError in module PremiereMain/WinApp at ....... Error creating system registry entry" then try these - but not otherwise!

Find the following registry entries and change their permissions to Everyone, Full Control as above:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\premieremain.ClinicalUI
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\premieremain.Clinical
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\premieremain.SystemInfoLib
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\premieremain.PremiereLib
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WinApp.TxAppointments
 

The following have been found to be causing problems on some machines, but by no means all! Change them to Everyone, Full Control as necessary.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{074C6641.....................
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{3973E103.....................
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{9AA321E8.....................
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{9AA321FF.....................
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D1C45352.....................

The names are considerably longer than shown, but you will be able to identify them from the information given)

Check DCOM setup

This one is really obscure and has only been found to be necessary on Windows 2000 - and then not always!

Click Start, Run, and type DCOMCNFG, then Return

Answer Yes to any impenetrable warning messages - these relate to programs that have not fully installed their DCOM elements. Some of these will be Microsoft programs - amazing but true!

Find the line that starts {074C6641 and click on it once

Click on Properties, then Security

Click "Use custom configuration permissions", then the associated Edit button

Give Everyone Full Control

Problems with Windows XP

These have been reported by other people. I haven't checked them thoroughly.

• Must log in as an administrator - this is presumably a permissions problem, and needs tracking down some time! Applying some of the permissions fixes above may work for XP.
• Problems with screens not changing - eg you double-click a patient in appointments and the record opens in Premiere, but remains hidden. You have to switch to it manually. This is a known issue with Delphi and XP, and will be programmed out of Synergy! However, there is a workaround for Premiere. if you go to the Microsoft Website and download and install the TweakUI for XP (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp) you will then have a TweakUI entry under PowerToys in your Run Programs menu. Look in the menu tree for General, Focus, and you will be able to turn this behaviour off.
• Path Links won't run on XP. It has been suggested that running the program in NT compatibility mode might help - Right-Click the icon and select Properties. Select the Compatibility Tab and tick the box. Select Windows NT 4.0. HOWEVER - I have successfully installed and run it under XP with Premiere, so I can't comment on why it won't run!