Strange behavior moving from W2K TS to W2K3 TS

[Guest Miles B]

(Please excuse the long post, I want to give all the details to help you

understand this problem and our environment. Thanks).

 

We are receiving strange results moving a Point-of-Sale (POS) application

from W2K TS to W2K3 TS. The difficulties *appear* to be entirely W2K3 related

in the way it handles traffic.

 

Existing W2K TS Server hosts TS and the application. Dual Xeon processors

with 4 GB RAM, plenty of hard drive space, 15 remote "cash register"

connections running POS application and printing to Epson TM88 thermal

receipt printer on LPT1 using Generic/Text Only driver.

 

New W2K3 TS server being used as pass-through TS server only to application

running on W2K server - the one noted above. Dual Xeon processors with 4 GB

RAM, plenty of hard drive space, same remotes and printing setup: no change

at the remotes except they now connect through the W2K3 server.

 

Broadband at all locations is minimum 768 up and down, much higher at the

server site.

 

Why we want to move to W2K3 TS: easier printer redirection and to use

customer display connected to COM1 on remotes.

 

Problem/strange behavior. When users connect to the current W2K TS server

the application runs smoothly and receipts "fly" out of the printer. When

they connect via the new W2K3 TS server receipts "creep" out of the printer

line by line as if it was a dot matrix printer. Nothing has changed in the

application, only the connection server has changed.

 

We also have speed problems when we turn on communications with the customer

display on COM1. My first concern is the printing.

 

What we have done.

1. Moved the application to the new W2K3 TS server - rather than using it as

a pass-through only to the application server. Results: none, printing still

creeps along.

 

2. Installed ThinPrint to accelerate printing. Results: no improvement.

Because we are using the Generic/Text Only printer driver ThinPrint was

doubtful we would see any improvements but we tried anyway.

 

Do any of you know: is there an inhernet, big change in the way W2K3 handles

remote print jobs that is the root of this issue? Seems to me that remote

printing was truly improved in W2K3 vs W2K TS so this is even more puzzling.

 

Feel free to contact me directly for all/more details

(miles@PacificComp.biz) but please post basic replies to the Forum for the

benefit of all.

 

Thank you and Aloha,

Miles

 

Pacific Computer Systems

Honolulu, Hawaii