How To - Connect a new ESC workstation

Overview:

Even if you have already installed and are using ESC on your network, ESC will not automatically connect to an existing database when installed to a new computer. It must be configured to find and properly authenticate to the database on the server computer. The steps below will cover all of the factors related to getting your new workstation connected to the database with ESC version 9.0 or higher.

Details:

  1. Go to any computer that can connect to ESC already and log into the database.
  2. Once in ESC, click on Help-->About to get system details.
  3. Note the following from the About screen then click OK:
  1. Server name*
  2. Database name
  3. Authentication
  4. Library
  5. Version

*NOTE: If you accessed ESC from the Server computer directly, you may find that the server name is listed as (LOCAL)\ESC. This is not the actual server name but you can easily get the server name in Windows by clicking on Start-->Run and in the run box type CMD and press OK. A small black DOS window will appear and all you need to do is type in HOSTNAME and press ENTER on your keyboard. The actual server name will appear just beneath the first line.

  1. Now go to the new ESC computer and start up the ESC software. Once it loads, click on File-->Open Company. In the open Company Box, enter in:
  1. Enter the server name exactly as it was listed on the other computer. It will probably include the backslash ESC reference also (i.e. Servername\ESC).
  2. Network Library can be left as Named Pipes but if you know that it uses Winsock TCP/IP per the other computers settings, change it.
  3. Uncheck the Windows Authentication check box IF the authentication noted in step 3 was set to SQL. If it was set to Windows Authentication, leave it checked.
  4. Enter in a valid ESC login name and password.
  5. Type in the exact database name and be sure not to leave any spaces.
  6. Click OK and ESC should connect to the database.
  1. If you receive a connection error, please try the following things:
  1. Switch the network library to the other choice (Named Pipes or Winsock TCP/IP).
  2. Confirm that the computer is able to see other computers on the network. This can be done by doing a ping test. In Windows click on Start-->Run and type CMD and click OK. A black DOS window will display and all that needs to be done is type the word PING a space and then the server name (an example of this is: PING SERVER) and hit ENTER. If you get 4 replys, this verifies that the workstation is able to connect to the server. If you get failure messages, contact your computer tech for assistance.
  3. Disable any local firewalls that are running including the Windows Firewall as well as third party firewalls like those that come with Norton Interent, Mcafee Internet, Zone alarm, etc.
  4. Confirm that the server name is spelled exactly correct and that the backslash and not the forward slash was used. (i.e. should be Server\ESC and NOT Server/ESC)
  5. Try and use the server computer's IP address instead of the computer name. This will only work if the ESC SQL Server computer has a local static IP address assigned. If so, replace the server name with the IP address like so: 192.168.0.1\ESC
  6. Be sure that the Windows Authentication check box is unchecked if you are set to SQL Authentication. If you are using Windows Authentication and cannot connect, please read through this article that can help you further.