Select Start>All Programs>NewViews 2.0>Windows Service Installer from the Windows start menu.
Instead of left-clicking on the menu item as you would normally do, you have to right-click and then select the Run as administrator pop-up menu item. The NewViews server runs as a Windows Service and administrator access is required to install a Windows service. The dialog window shown above should appear.
Click the <Install> button.
The service will be installed and started as a Windows service. You can accept the defaults as shown above. When Server Database is empty, c:/nv/server.nv2 is used by default, where c:/nv is the NewViews folder. The server database will be created automatically if it doesn't already exist, although you will be prompted to confirm. When empty, the Service Executable is NewViews itself and you would rarely need to change this.
You will be informed when the service is successfully installed and running, but there is no other visible indication to confirm this because the service has no direct user interface. The next step will open an interface on the NewViews server.
See Running the Server for additional details.
Open a workstation and use it to open the server.
There is no direct user interface on the server. You use a workstation to open a remote server just as you use a workstation to open a remote accounting database. The difference between a local and remote database is that to open a remote database, in addition to the File field, you must also enter a URL or IP in the Server field. In the example above "benn7" was entered as the URL and "server" was entered in the File field. Then double-click on the row to open a window on the server. A window with three panes opens up similar to the one shown below.
Explore the server window.
The previous step opened a window with three panes, displaying server information. This window appears on the workstation computer, allowing you to manage and monitor the server, although the server computer itself may be at a remote location and possibly in a locked room, the proverbial "closet". The top pane has a table of database groups. Two special database groups are added automatically when the server is installed, named "DEFAULT" and "SERVER", as shown above. You can add any number of database groups and give them names, but for now we only need the pre-defined groups, and they might be the only database groups you'll ever need (see Database Groups for more on database groups).
Click on the SERVER database group on the top pane and then click on the only row of the middle pane (the row with File field set to server). Connections to the server appear in the bottom pane. Here there is only one connection. We are on the workstation, viewing connections on a remote server, and thus seeing our own connection to that server. It should be pointed out that NewViews is inherently multi-user and any number of workstations can view and access the server at the same time and therefore there could be many connections in the bottom pane displaying connections to monitor the server itself.
Set passwords for the SERVER and DEFAULT database groups.
In the top pane, position on the Password field of the SERVER item and press <F3>. Use the SERVER password dialog as shown above to set a password for the server. Then repeat the process to set a password for the DEFAULT database group. That is, position on the DEFAULT row's Password field, press <F3> to bring up the password dialog, and set the DEFAULT database group password. For more on the purpose and importance of these passwords see Database Groups.
Access to each database group is controlled by a password. Client workstations can see the list of databases under a database group only if they have the password. This is in addition to user passwords that control access to accounting databases. Note that a client workstation can display or manage the server itself only if they have the server database group password. The password you set on the SERVER database group in this step is in effect the server password, limiting the ability to display database groups, connections, and so on, or to set any database group passwords.
Setting the server password is so important that there is also a command to set or modify: File>Set Server Password. This command can be run from anywhere on the server. The command is actually redundant because you can set or change the password field on the SERVER group, so the command is merely for extra convenience.
Add one or more accounting databases under the DEFAULT database group.
The middle pane displays the databases being offered for the database group that is currently selected in the top pane, which is the DEFAULT database group in this case. Click on the DEFAULT database group in the top pane and the middle pane will be empty because there are no databases under the DEFAULT group (yet). Earlier, when you clicked on the SERVER default group there was one row in the middle pane for the server, but that row was pre-defined.
So in the middle pane, press the <Insert> key to add a row and fill in the File field with the path to an accounting database file. In the figure above we have selected c:/nv/demobooks/database.nv2. You have to type this value into the File field manually. You can't pick the file from a file explorer because you are actually working on the client workstation, not the server computer, and the file you specify is actually in the server computer's directory system.
Each database row in the middle pane adds a database that will be offered to any client workstation that uses the database group. You can add any number of databases under any database group, (except the special SERVER group) but we have added only one, c:/nv/demobooks.nv2 in the middle pane above. The list of databases under a database group form the list of databases offered when a user presses <F3> on a workstation login table File field. For more on database groups see Database Groups.
Add an accounting database row to workstation login table.
Run the workstation and press the <Insert> key to add a row to the login table. Position on the File field and press <F3> to select a file from a pick list as shown above. In the figure above there is only one file because we only added one file to the DEFAULT group on the server. We can add more files to the DEFAULT group and they would appear in the pick list above.
When using database groups you need to specify the database group name on the login table. If the login table has no database group column, issue the View>Details menu command to expose it.
This is a good time to point out that the login table above does not have a column for the database group, and the DEFAULT database is assumed. If you are using additional database groups then switch the login table to the Details view by clicking the View>Details command. Switch back to the client workstation window and add a login row as shown above. In the figure above the first row is for the server database and the second for the application database c:/nv/demobooks/database.nv2. Note that <F3> has been pressed on the File field and there is only one database in the selection list because there is only one database under the DEFAULT database group on the server. Note that the workstation does not display a Database Group field so the database group is assumed to be DEFAULT except for the server row. For more on managing multiple database groups see Database Groups.
The workstation login table row.
After selecting the file, the workstation login row appears as shown above. Note that the User field is used when the accounting database is opened and in this case the user is ADMINISTRATOR. You can change this to a different user, depending on the particular accounting database being opened, but you must know the user names in advance, as providing any form of pick list for users would be a security violation.
Double-click to open an accounting database.
When you double-click on the accounting database a window will open on the database. The window shown above is typical. When you open an account database, the window that opens will be configured exactly as it appeared when the same user last viewed that database. Also, if a password has been set for the user in the accounting database, it will be collected the first time the user open the database from the workstation, but not on subsequent times, unless the password has been changed in the meantime.
You are up and running.
You can now open windows on the server or any accounting database. To offer additional accounting databases open the server by double-clicking on the "server" login item, and add more rows under the DEFAULT database group.