Remote Desktop Connections

[Gumby]

A rather catastrophic disk crash has left me setting up a new Cortex instance. Catastrophic in that I had a backup of the Cortex database and not much else. Yup, forgot to get the round toit to get more NAS space for backup of history files etc. Also a bit annoying 'cos I did finally get round to creating a script to automatically move log files into Year/Month directories to stop the main log directory ending up with so many files that things get slow.

As a side effect, the event has forced me onto Windows 7 and a USB PCU, as the most available solution was to install Cortex on a pre-existing Win 7 VM running on a Mac Mini. I mention that specifically for Chris Hunter *

Since I've lost all my twiddles, I've had to remember and then go looking for solutions to the typical RDP issues of speech synthesis not working after disconnecting. I've found that the tscon.exe solution is still the chosen method, but the exact configuration seems to vary. There are methods based on a batch file (which was what I used on XP), a shortcut with equivalent command, and what seems to be a neat solution using the task scheduler to spot a session disconnect and run the tscon command in response.

Given the narrow window I have for HA experimentation, I'd be interested in responses with any alternatives/further details in order to update the FAQ. The session identifier seems to be rather key to it all.

As an aside, I also discovered a neat solution to the long standing RDP/mouse tracking/accuracy issue. There is a registry entry which allows you to increase the rate at which mouse event are sent to the client documented here: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;196460.


* Yes, OSX screen sharing offers an alternative to RDP when going Mac to Mac, but the graphic responsiveness of RDP is still better. Screen Sharing is like VNC.

[Andrew Millne]

For RDP disconnect I have a batch file on the desktop I use to exit the RDP session

tscon %sessionname% /dest:console

[chris_j_hunter]

sorry to hear and, 'though can't really help, it's good to know you're still active !

but, interesting ... responsiveness is a sometimes issue for us, so we're always on the look-out for ways to ease the load on the CPU - we got a useful improvement from stopping Windows doing its indexing thing (to help searches, apparently, 'though goodness knows, because searching in Windows 'XP has always been amazingly awful), but otherwise we rely on keeping things as focused as we can on just Cortex ... so, your separating-out of History files seemed to offer a new hope - as a result of which we created folders for previous years, and dragged the relevant files into them, leaving just this year's in the regular History folder ... but notice no difference !

our CPU runs at 90-100% all the time, so we've been looking to update the PC - there's no budget for it, though, plus we're not convinced Intel's current range (second third & fourth generation) offers a basis for improvement with 24/7 reliability (we need to get video aspects - as in AUIs etc - onboard while we're about it) ... we do have a not-so-new Mac Mini still in its box, which we could divert from its intended use of Ethernet network server, but the VM approach wouldn't be cheap (Parallels + Windows Pro needed for RDP, IIUC), and the extra layer it involves must have a cost (in CPU load) ...

the RDP issues you highlight are a heads-up for us - for when we do get the network going (in a month or two, hopefully) ...

researching tscon.exe, unlocking & locking issues seemed to come up a lot !

[Gumby]

Hi Chris,
I moved log files (not history files) mainly because Windows takes an age to fill the explorer window if there are lots of files and it maxes out the CPU. No idea if it has significant effect on Cortex when it is running normally. The mouse update rate fix seems to help a bit. We'll see how my VM experiment turns out, I'm planning to get the original Atom based PC running again just in case.

[marcuslee]

Also a bit annoying 'cos I did finally get round to creating a script to automatically move log files into Year/Month directories to stop the main log directory ending up with so many files that things get slow.

I've had to remember and then go looking for solutions to the typical RDP issues of speech synthesis not working after disconnecting. I've found that the tscon.exe solution is still the chosen method, but the exact configuration seems to vary. There are methods based on a batch file (which was what I used on XP), a shortcut with equivalent command, and what seems to be a neat solution using the task scheduler to spot a session disconnect and run the tscon command in response.

Hi Gumby,

If you do ever get to recreate the top 2 points (batch file for History re-filing, and task scheduler spotting RDP disconnects), I don't suppose you'd mind sharing. I think they're good ones, and probably a bunch of us would benefit from it?