However, there are a few important points you need to remember to avoid any problems.  These notes ONLY apply to running the NetCFax server on a Windows 2000 or 2003 server system, and are not applicable when the server is an XP Pro machine.

We suggest you read the information provided here carefully, even if we are telling things you already know, as we believe you will find the short time it requires to have been worthwhile in the long run.

But to cut directly to the chase for those who perhaps get impatient, the bottom line of all the technical information we have provided is actually very simple - ALL YOU NEED TO REMEMBER IS THAT YOU MUST ALWAYS LOGIN TO THE WINDOWS SERVER USING THE ORIGINAL Windows Login Account THAT WAS USED TO INSTALL THE FAX SERVER WHENEVER YOU WANT TO START and RUN THE NETCFAX SERVER.

You can do this on the machine itself, or you can use an RDP Session and it will work just fine.

NB - This login account restriction does not apply to starting or running the fax clients under RDP sessions !

When you log into a Windows Server to install the NetCFax Server (or any other software for that matter) you almost always have to use a Windows Login Account (WLA) that has Administrator access rights. This is simply to allow the Windows Registry to be updated with various important settings and pointers that are needed by most Windows software. However, because Windows "Servers" also act as domain controllers and can also provide what is called "Terminal Services" that in turn supports the Remote Desktop Protocol Sessions (RDP Sessions), Windows Servers do things rather differently when software is installed when compared to the normal way we are used to seeing it installed.

The most important of these changes as far as NetCFax is concerned is where Windows tells the installer the standard and well recognized WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder is located. It does of course still exist, but to allow the Windows Server to handle RDP sessions, it actually use a special sub folder located in the well recognized "Documents and Settings" folder tree.

These folder are virtually all WLA oriented, so if you look at this folder tree in Windows Explorer, you will see sub folders named for each and every WLA the machine supports. What is even more confusing to many people is that within each users folder, there is a WINDOWS folder, and even a WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder. What happens is that it is these WINDOWS folders that are used in place of the normal WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder for all the files that are normally installed into the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder on W98, ME and W200 Pro systems.

This is not a problem in normal operations, but for a system such as NetCFax, that stores and expects to access both the fax engine and the fax controller database from within this important folder, it has very important ramifications. The main one is that when any other WLA is used to login, either directly on the machine, or using an RDP session, the "Documents and Settings\username\Windows" folder for that particular WLA does NOT of course contain the required files.

As an example - if you used the (default) WLA of "Administrator" to install the NetCFax Server, the fax engine and databases are placed in the folder "Documents and Settings\Administrator\Windows". If you then login using a different WLA of say "Bonny", and try to run the fax server, NetCFax will be looking for the data in "Documents and Settings\Bonny\Windows", and of course, they will not be there.

Running the Fax Server and Fax clients on the same Windows Server machine, with clients being accessed under RDP sessions

The other issue that can occur is when you feel you want to have both the NetCFax Server and the NetCFax clients installed on the the same Windows "Server" machine, but also want the fax clients to be accessed via Remote Desktop sessions. This may however cause problems.

We strongly recommend that if you are using a Windows "server" to host the NetCFax server, you do NOT allow the clients to be installed and used in RDP sessions on this same machine as this may cause problems with sending faxes.  We suggest that you either install the fax server on a different PC (it can be running almost any version of Windows) and then install the fax client on the Windows Server and then be accessed by all client machines via RDP.  The alternative is to install the fax server on the Windows Server machine, and then install the fax clients locally on each of your networked machines, or possibly even use a different Windows Server system for the Fax Client and provide RDP sessions for them from that machine.

Using the Fax Printer under RDP sessions

A secondary problem is also caused by running the NetCFax client in an RDP environment, and that is connected to the Fax CLIENT printer driver that is used to create faxable data. If you are running an instance of a fax client that is installed on a W23K server WHEN USING THE CONSOLE ON THAT MACHINE ITSELF then you can use the standard Fax client printer as normal.

However, if you are running any instances of a NetCFax client that is installed on a W23K server under an RDP session, you CANNOT use the standard NetCFax Client Printer. If you do so the request for a name for the faxable file created will not appear on your console, it will appear on the CONSOLE OF THE MACHINE ITSELF. In this scenario, you MUST install and use the special NetCFax Remote Printer driver we have provided when creating faxable data under an RDP session. All of the files required to do so are in the \PRINTERDRIVER subfolder of the NetCFax client install tree, together with detailed instructions how to do this.

We hope this bit of background information has been useful to you...