Fri Sep 22, 2006 7:16 am
Running FL Server in Windows 2003 User Account
As I couldn't find any help on my problem, now that I have solved it it may be useful to someone else too...
When running FL Server in Windows 2003 Server in a user account, it appeared on the Global List but players could not connect (the dreaded timeout screen).
When I ran it in the Administrator account, or from the user account using "Run as..." Administrator, all was well. But when running in the user account with "Run as..." Administrator, whenever IFSO restarted it, it would of course start in the user account and would be visible but inaccessible again.
I was not using the built-in Firewall, nor any other, and although the server is a commercial one and uses a dedicated gateway, this was not the problem either.
Directx 9.0c is also installed and diagnosed OK.
I tried making the user account a Power User, an Administrator, giving it ownership of the FL Server.exe, full control over the program, and every other seemingly relevant thing I saw in passing. Still the same.
Finally, as a "let's see what happens if...", after enabling the Firewall in Administrator, and adding FLServer.exe as an exception, when I started FL Server I was informed that a so-far unseen process named "Microsoft DirectPlay8 Server" had been blocked by the Firewall, and I was then able to tell Firewall to allow it access. It then appeared in the exceptions list together with FLServer.exe. By the way, disable File Sharing in the exceptions list if it appears, unless you need to have it enabled for your own use.
This did the trick.
Switching to the user account, I was able to run FL Server together with IFSO with proper control over all functions, and once I had copied the player files from the Administrator account to the user account and configured IFSO with the correct paths, FL Server was flying again.
It now runs sweet as a dromedary freighter in the basic game...?? (After it had me in frustration for a couple of days).
Another possible problem-causer that I caught in passing, or maybe just a red herring, is that our commercial server had been set up with two IP addresses, presumably one to allow us remote access on a separate IP while the server does its business on the other one, but this led to a bit of uncertainty when I was able to connect with Remote Desktop on either IP. So I removed the one not used by FL Server, and it's running fine at the moment.
By the way, we found FLMonitor.exe (http://iain.cx/articles/flmonitor/) which is meant to run FL Server as a service, but found that we could then not communicate with FL Server with IFSO anyway, so I abandoned the idea of running it as a servce, since IFSO does the restart fairly well most of the time, other than when FL Server hangs with the dreaded "send report to Microsoft?" screen.
Hope this is of use to someone sometime.
Edited by - StarTrader on 9/22/2006 8:25:38 AM
When running FL Server in Windows 2003 Server in a user account, it appeared on the Global List but players could not connect (the dreaded timeout screen).
When I ran it in the Administrator account, or from the user account using "Run as..." Administrator, all was well. But when running in the user account with "Run as..." Administrator, whenever IFSO restarted it, it would of course start in the user account and would be visible but inaccessible again.
I was not using the built-in Firewall, nor any other, and although the server is a commercial one and uses a dedicated gateway, this was not the problem either.
Directx 9.0c is also installed and diagnosed OK.
I tried making the user account a Power User, an Administrator, giving it ownership of the FL Server.exe, full control over the program, and every other seemingly relevant thing I saw in passing. Still the same.
Finally, as a "let's see what happens if...", after enabling the Firewall in Administrator, and adding FLServer.exe as an exception, when I started FL Server I was informed that a so-far unseen process named "Microsoft DirectPlay8 Server" had been blocked by the Firewall, and I was then able to tell Firewall to allow it access. It then appeared in the exceptions list together with FLServer.exe. By the way, disable File Sharing in the exceptions list if it appears, unless you need to have it enabled for your own use.
This did the trick.
Switching to the user account, I was able to run FL Server together with IFSO with proper control over all functions, and once I had copied the player files from the Administrator account to the user account and configured IFSO with the correct paths, FL Server was flying again.
It now runs sweet as a dromedary freighter in the basic game...?? (After it had me in frustration for a couple of days).
Another possible problem-causer that I caught in passing, or maybe just a red herring, is that our commercial server had been set up with two IP addresses, presumably one to allow us remote access on a separate IP while the server does its business on the other one, but this led to a bit of uncertainty when I was able to connect with Remote Desktop on either IP. So I removed the one not used by FL Server, and it's running fine at the moment.
By the way, we found FLMonitor.exe (http://iain.cx/articles/flmonitor/) which is meant to run FL Server as a service, but found that we could then not communicate with FL Server with IFSO anyway, so I abandoned the idea of running it as a servce, since IFSO does the restart fairly well most of the time, other than when FL Server hangs with the dreaded "send report to Microsoft?" screen.
Hope this is of use to someone sometime.
Edited by - StarTrader on 9/22/2006 8:25:38 AM
