Cannot Open Status.Dat
Daniel Bohner
I'm a support guy - not a PeachTree person, so help me where you can.
My client has about six machines access Peachtree on a shared server
drive. Starting last week - one machine would get an error message
stating "cannot open p:\peachw\company\status.dat" (slightly changed
to accomidate file structure).
One machine was affected by the issue last week. I checked the share
and the users was able to update create and delete files (test.txt -
that I created). After trying a lot of stuff I removed PeachTree and
reinstalled - after the reinstallation they were able to access
PeachTree.
This morning four machines were not able to access (and they got the
same error message - cannot open status.dat). Later in the morning
all but one machine was able to get into PeachTree.
Anyone have an idea what might be going on?
Your time and contributions are appreciated!
Daniel Bohner
drbo...@existinglight.net
www.existinglight.net
208.250.1917
Fred Deinlein
I try to start up PCAW, I get a series of error messages that say: "File
system error number: 20 {path to status.dat, company.dat, options.dat, etc}"
before I can even get to a point where I can select a menu. The unhelpful
explanation for this message is that it is "related to swap file space; run
defragmentation and chkdsk". I did in fact have a swap space shortage as a
result of a recent memory upgrade, but fixing that did not fix the error.
Even more interesting, I am able to run PCAW when logged in as
administrator, but not when logged in as myself. I was running PCAW
without setting up user accounts, but even setting up specific accounts for
myself did not fix the problem.
This appears to be some kind of permissions problem, but a check of file and
directory attributes offers no clues as to what kind of problems they might
be.
-- --------------------
F. Deinlein
fredx...@erols.com (remove xxx)
"Daniel Bohner" <drbo...@existinglight.net> wrote in message
news:f09efbe8.04100...@posting.google.com...
Ralph A. Jones
boot/logon? And in sync with your datapath= statement in your
[peachtree].ini file? If not, users can throw on Zip drives or
thumb/jump drives that can screw up your drive designations and, hence,
your Peachtree network datapath.
In any event, trouble-shooting step number one is always re-boot the
troublesome machine (step number two often being re-boot the "server"
machine). Hopefully this will re-establish the network drive/share (in
accordance with the datapath= statement) and Peachtree will be happy,
happy, happy again.
Naturally, since the data is sitting in a network share, users can
manually navigate to the data from the Peachtree "Open Company" routine,
even map a network drive to it, but this is usually a wee bit too
cumbersome and technical for your Average Joe user who just wants his
software to work so they can see how much cash came in today.
Fred Deinlein
running on a stand-alone PC; no network drives are involved. Googling
through some old postings, there are references to users having to set
permissions to registry keys for individual users. I haven't tried that
yet, but it didn't work for another person.
--
fredx...@erols.com (remove xxx)
"Ralph A. Jones" <rajones@SPAM_ME_NOT_AT_tconl.com> wrote in message
news:ZNh8d.6$n_5....@news.uswest.net...
Carla F.
all versions of peachtree up to 2003 at least rely on an .ini file in the
windows directory - opening that up in notepad you can see where the
computer is looking for data and program files. PCW2003 is pcw100.ini but
the older ones were something like paw70.ini. Can't remember exactly....
It's pretty easy to look at and correct if it's not pointing the way you
want it to.
carla
"Ralph A. Jones" <rajones@SPAM_ME_NOT_AT_tconl.com> wrote in message
news:ZNh8d.6$n_5....@news.uswest.net...
Fred Deinlein
error would not explain why I can run PCAW as administrator but not as a
normal user.
--
F. Deinlein
fredx...@erols.com (remove xxx)
"Carla F." <brat...@gilanet.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:2slcnjF1mbj8eU1@uni-
berlin.de...
John E. Wilfong
Hi Daniel,
I think Fred Deinlein's posts are hitting on the solution to the problem. He too may benefit from
the following to see if it fits him as well...
I agree that it looks like a permissions problem. By any chance, did you reinstall as a user setup
with administrator privileges? If you did, this would explain why PT worked good after your
reinstalled. Now to explain why it failed later... Did the client happen to setup each user with
their own account around the same time the problem popped up instead of using the user name you
signed in as? If so, this would explain the future problems. There are two simple ways to test a
permission problem. One is to go to the affected PC and check if the user is set up as
administrator or as a limited user. If limited user, or something other than administrator, set the
users access as administrator and check their access to PT again. If they can now access it you do
indeed have a permissions problem. The other way to check is to simply right click on the peachtree
icon and select Run As... A dialog will appear. Select the radio button 'The following user:' and
enter the user name and password you installed PT with. PT should run.
Now I don't recommend stating that all the users need administrator access to run PT. This is
actually not true. (Although this is the simplest and quickest solution.) The client may have
invoked Limited User for a reason. It is also not good to leave XP signed on as administrator as
the users will have free access to everything. I would set the user to Super User instead of
Administrator at a minimum. But even that may not be necessary. There are some registry changes
dealing with security that can be done too. If you need additional help with this I will look up my
notes. I believe Chad Gross was the original poster of these changes. Maybe he can chime in at this
point if this is found to be the problem you are experiencing.
Personally, I ran into permission problems when updating the payroll tax service. I was running PT
as administrator but had installed PT as another user also set up as administrator. PT ran
perfectly but when registering the tax service a registry key needed changed. This key was set up
that only the installing administrator could change it so it would change back automatically
without an error and the tax service would not install. I had support scratching thier heads on
this one. They gave me about three keys when I finally stumbled onto the problem.
--
-john
Fred Deinlein
that said one had to be a Win2K Power User in order to run PCAW. I tried
that and it solved the problem. I'm not sure I understand the rationale for
this, but it seems to work while still not requiring that the user have the
full privileges of Administrator.
Thanks all for your suggestions.
F. Deinlein
fredx...@erols.com (remove xxx)
"John E. Wilfong" <jwil...@noaolspam.com> wrote in message
news:xn0doa8j...@text-west.newsfeeds.com...
> Daniel Bohner wrote:
[snip]
> Hi Daniel,
>
> I think Fred Deinlein's posts are hitting on the solution to the problem.
[snip]