Frequently asked questions for Sharing
Troubleshoot for sharing issues
Q: I have two computers in a Workgroup with same user account and sharing doesn’t work.
A: Please refer to the demo for how to share a BCM Database at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102258501033.aspx
Q: Windows Desktop Search can search the BCM database, but the instant search within outlook does not seem to in a shared environment.
A: Outlook instant search can search local BCM Database. Although in case of a shared remote database it’s not currently supported by outlook.
Q: How do I separate sharing Business and Personal Contacts?
A: You should keep your personal contacts and information in Outlook contacts on his PC, and use BCM contacts for business.
Q: All users running XP or Vista with Office 2007 and Some Anti-Virus S/W cannot connect to the machine with the BCM 2007 database.
A: ou need to make sure to have port 5356 opened for outlook.exe on both remote and local machines for send and receive. 5356 is the TCP port that SQL Server instance uses to access the shared database.
Q: I have a local database that I want to move to a server and hence share it with my colleagues
A: You should use Admin Tool to achieve this.
Q: Can we stop the MSSMLBIZ SQL service on client machines to save local machine resources?
A: Yes, you can stop the service only if you don’t have an offline database on your local machine.
Q: Can the database administrator select what data to share with the other users?
A: BCM currently shares all the records in the database with all the shared users.
Q: If a user wants to make the BCM database available to all the colleagues, is it required to install BCM on each machine?
A: Yes, it is required to install BCM on every machine, so that the BCM forms and folders will show in Outlook, but you'll connect them all to the same database. Also, you don’t really need BCM on server machine if it’s only used for hosting database.
Q: I have shared out the database successfully from the server computer. When trying to connect to it from the client computer, I got the error message “Cannot find computer xyz. Confirm that the remote computer exists and that it is available on the network.”
A: Try pinging the server computer from the client. If it cannot ping the server computer, make sure that the firewall on server computer has exception for “File and Printer sharing”. If the exception is there, it could be that the server computer and client computer are not in the same subnet. You can verify that by looking at the IP address of these two machines. If they are in different subnet, follow the steps below
1. Open Windows Firewall Settings by going to the Control Panel, Security Center, and clicking on the Windows Firewall
2. Switch to the Exceptions tab; find exceptions for File and Printer Sharing, if the exception is not checked, check it
3. Click on Properties of this exception, and click on the “Change Scope”
4. In the “Change Scope” dialog window, if it shows “My Subnet Only”, choose “Custom List” and enter the IP addresses of the client computers (separate each with a comma).
Q: I have shared out the database successfully from the server computer. When trying to connect to it from the client computer, I got the error message “Cannot access the database server on computer xyz.”
A: There are multiple possible causes for this as listed below:
1. Check the SQL Server on the host computer, see if the SQL instance for shared database is still running (By default it is ‘MSSMLBIZ’). You can check that from Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server 2005 -> Configuration Tools -> SQL Server Configuration Manager -> SQL Server 2005 Services. If the service is stopped or paused, start the service.
2. If the service is running, see if its TCP protocol is enabled and correct TCP Port assigned. This is in the same configuration manager dialog, under SQL Server 2005 Network Configuration -> Protocols for InstanceName (By default MSSMLBIZ). If the instance’s TCP/IP protocol is ‘Disabled’, enable it. Right click on “TCP/IP”, select ‘Properties’ and go to tab ‘IP Addresses’, if the IPAll-> TCP Port is not set, set it to ‘5356’. Note that the SQL instance needs to be restarted after changing the setting.
3. If there is no problem with SQL Server instance, see whether a firewall exception for “Microsoft Small Business” exists in Windows Firewall Settings. And if it is there and checked, see if your need to change the scope of this exception, you can follow similar steps as turn on “Fire and Printer sharing”.
4. If you cannot find firewall exception for “Microsoft Small Business” in Windows firewall Settings, you can manually add one exception for TCP port 5356.
5. Note that if the shared DB is hosted in a SQL Instance not by default name “MSSMLBIZ”, and if its TCP Port is not the default value ‘5356’, you can connect to it by typing “serverName\InstanceName, portNumber” instead of just “serverName” in “Create or select a Business Contact Manager database” dialog while connecting from client.
Q: I made the changes in Windows Firewall settings and SQL Server instance as above, and still get the same errors.
A: Please see if there are other firewall services other than Windows Firewall running on the server computer. If so, please refer to each of these firewall solutions’ user manual and manually enable the firewall exceptions for both “File/Printer Sharing” (TCP Port 139) and TCP port 5356. This needs to be done on each firewall service running on the server computer.
Q: When trying to connect to it from the client computer, I got the error message “Cannot find any Business Contact Manager databases on computer xyz. For more information about possible causes, click Help.”
A: This is mostly due to reason that the database is not correctly shared to the user on the client computer. You can verify that by running the following SQL command as the shared user from the client computer:
Sqlcmd –S “tcp:serverName\instanceName,portNumber”
If this command fails, make sure that the database is not private, and that the intended shared user account does exist on server computer and has been granted shared user access to the database.
Q: I can connect to the shared database from client computer through SQL command or Management Studio fine; however, I could not connect through BCM client.
A: The Business Contact Manager Database must be of same version and locale as the BCM installed on client computer. We do not support sharing between different versions of BCM, e.g. sharing won’t work if having BCM 2003 on the server and BCM 2007 on the client. Neither do we support sharing between different BCM locales. User cannot share a German BCM DB and connect to it from an English BCM client. Please note that BCM locale here is independent from OS user locale settings. If the OS setting is German and BCM is English, then the above sharing scenario will work.
Q: I get the error message “Cannot verify your remote user account on computer xyz. For more information, click Help.”
A: See if the server computer has “Simple File sharing” enabled, if so, it needs to be turned off. On Windows XP Pro it can be found from explorer window -> “Tools” -> “Folder Options” -> “View” tab -> In Advanced Setting, see “Use simple file sharing (Recommended)”, make sure to uncheck this setting.
Or you can do this by running to the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and going to the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\ForceGuest
Set this value to be 0.
Sometimes the server computer needs to be restarted to let the change take effect.
