How to Set-Up Donor Manager to run on a Home Network

Do you have a favorite tip that you'd like to pass on to everyone else? What shortcut do you wish you had discovered your first week of using the program? Post it here! Share what you have learned!
Post Reply
SammyBean
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 5:21 am

How to Set-Up Donor Manager to run on a Home Network

Post by SammyBean »

OK - I think that I have figured out how to set up DM to run on My Home Network. Here is how I did it:
  • 1 - Install DM on my desktop computer
    2 - Make the Folder where I installed DM a "Shared Folder"
    3 - Copy the four files (vfp6*.*) in the \windows\system32 folder to this shared folder
    4 - Then on my laptop, create a New Shortcut on the Desktop that opens the executable file "donor.exe" which is located in the shared folder on my desktop computer
The advantage of this setup is that there is only one current data folder to maintain. The disadvantage is that I cannot run DM on my laptop when I am away from my home network. Also, only one of our computers can run the DM program at any given time.

ps. Thanks to the tips posted at "Running from USB?"
SammyBean
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 5:21 am

Update: How to Set-Up Donor Manager to run on a Home Network

Post by SammyBean »

My previous post dated Jan 27, 2009 describes how to set-up Donor Manager to run on a Home Network under Windows XP. But I recently upgraded both our Laptop and Desktop comupters to run under Windows 7 Pro (64 bit), and this procedure no longer works. However, using the following steps, I was able to get Donor Manager to run with a synchronized database on both the laptop and on the desktop. Here is what I did:

1 - Installed Dropbox (see http://www.dropbox.com) on both the desktop and the laptop.
2 - Created a dropbox folder on the desktop called Donor5 that I configured to share with the laptop
3 - Installed Donor Manager on the desktop into the Donor5 shared dropbox folder on the desktop
4 - Installed Donor Manager on the laptop into the Donor5 shared dropbox folder on the laptop.

Now I can run Donor Manager on either the desktop or the laptop (but not both at the same time) and the DM database will remain synchronized. This installation is also better that the previous one under Windows XP because in that setup, the Donor Manager program was only installed on the desktop, so when we had the laptop away from our home network, the Donor Manager program was not available. Now we can use the laptop, with Donor Manager installed on it when we are away from our home network, and have full access the the program and the database. If we make any changes to the database on either computer, those changes are synchronized with the other computer through Dropbox.
SammyBean
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 5:21 am

Re: How to Set-Up Donor Manager to run on a Home Network

Post by SammyBean »

I am posting an update to the steps that I previously posted for setting Donor Manager to run on a Home Network. The reason for that is that I realized that I inadvertantly omitted some important info about perserving your existing database information. Here is the updated version:

1 - If you have already been using DM and have an existing database, make sure that you first back it up using the Tools; then Full Backup function to save your information to a separate folder on your hard-drive.
2 - Install Dropbox (see http://www.dropbox.com) on both the desktop and the laptop.
3 - Create a dropbox folder on the desktop called Donor5 that is configured to share with the laptop
4 - Install Donor Manager on the desktop into the Donor5 shared dropbox folder on the desktop.
5 - Install Donor Manager on the laptop into the Donor5 shared dropbox folder on the laptop.
6 - Open Donor Manager on either the Desktop or the Laptop and Restore your original database files that you backed up in Step 1 by using Tools; then Full Restore
7 - The database will be automatically synchronized on the other computer via the dropbox folder.

I recently used this method to install DM on THREE systems: a Desktop with a dual-boot (Win 7 and Win XP) plus on my wife's laptop. It doesn't matter which one of the three is being used; the DM database is always up-to-date.
TomKaufman
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 5:34 am
Type the middle number, please (202): 202
Location: Royal Palm Beach, FL
Contact:

Re: How to Set-Up Donor Manager to run on a Home Network

Post by TomKaufman »

Nice tips Sammy specially to synchronize data on the other computer via the dropbox folder.
Post Reply