DameWare NT Utilities 6.x fails to start / 'no network'

[KC]

Hi,


In order to research the feasibility of moving onto *nix based systems I am currently testing Windows-only applications under WINE 1.1.8 on Mandriva Free 2009.
The application I am currently testing is Raxco's DameWare NT Utilities (including DameWare Mini Remote Control), latest version as available after registering.

I have found that there is an AppDB entry for DameWare stating that the last few versions are 'Garbage', yet no specific testing results were posted other than comments along the lines of 'Won't start, so nothing else tested' which was rather poor and disappointing.
For this disappearing problem exists a part-way solution; see below.

As stated I have available to me WINE 1.1.8, highest version taken from the online repositories of Mandriva at the time of writing.
I found that I was required to have an EXE installer in order to make WINE start the installation process, MSI files appear unsupported and throw an unrecognized format error.
After completing the installation with the EXE installer format I was able to launch DNTU.exe (main program executable) and was briefly greeted with the program's display before it promptly disappeared again.
A short run through Google revealed that placing the following 4 files into "~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32" copied from a native Windows XP Professional machine would resolve the disappearing program issue:

activeeds.dll
activeeds.tlb
adsldpc.dll
wldap32.dll

So now I can roam around inside the application.
However there is another issue, it complains there is no network, and thus the usability of the program is reduced to nothing, being a network tool.
I noticed that after a few attempts to connect to the network, DameWare NT Utilities will do the disappearing act again, and one has to restart it to continue.
I must note that DameWare also possesses a tendency to crash on native Windows machines if left to run for a day or more (forgetting to shut off your workstation past DHCP lease time will do it, for example, or re-plugging the network cable after some time), so you could take that with a grain of salt perhaps, but it is more easily reproduced under WINE.

Looking further, I find this:
http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-0344b43 ... 6855283afd

Which tells me to edit /etc/hosts if hostname -i reports back addresses starting with '127'.
This brings up another problem, the network uses DHCP with 3 day leases.
It would then be pointless to add the host's IP address to /etc/hosts as it will be automatically renewed 3 days later, breaking the edit and possibly causing IP assignment conflicts followed by name resolution errors.

How would one solve this?
Setting the host to static addressing is not an option.

[vitamin]

In order to research the feasibility of moving onto *nix based systems I am currently testing Windows-only applications under WINE 1.1.8 on Mandriva Free 2009.
The application I am currently testing is Raxco's DameWare NT Utilities (including DameWare Mini Remote Control), latest version as available after registering.

Instead of that utility you should be using SSH & VNC. That's all you need to "remotely control" any *NIX host.

Wine does not support windows networking so anything associated with AD won't function on Wine. Even if you take some dlls from windows. You should look at samba for any AD/windows networking integration.

[KC]

In order to research the feasibility of moving onto *nix based systems I am currently testing Windows-only applications under WINE 1.1.8 on Mandriva Free 2009.
The application I am currently testing is Raxco's DameWare NT Utilities (including DameWare Mini Remote Control), latest version as available after registering.

Instead of that utility you should be using SSH & VNC. That's all you need to "remotely control" any *NIX host.

Wine does not support windows networking so anything associated with AD won't function on Wine. Even if you take some dlls from windows. You should look at samba for any AD/windows networking integration.

Strange, I got the impression WINE was capable of networking, especially because of the 'platinum' and 'gold' lists proudly displayed on the front page of this website, which display some programs heavily dependant on specific kinds of networking.
I will assume you meant WINE does not support Windows-domain specific networking.

Sorry, but DameWare is a Windows-only tool aimed at managing Windows hosts, hence why WINE is investigated; and we have to maintain the contract we have for DameWare for the forseeable future to manage our +900 workstation park if no workaround can be made along this path.
Failing the network test, WINE will have to be abandoned as a solution.
It might be a nice thought, but we're physically and financially unable to migrate our entire userbase to *nix overnight, it has to be gradual.

That said, SSH is nice for VPN-like functionality, but useless as corporate VPN is already in place, stacking network tunnels would be bad for performance and create unnecessary administrative overhead.
VNC is severely lacking in functionality compared to DameWare Mini Remote Control in that it does not support RPC to remotely install the remote control services and encryption + domain logon.
Have used it before, yes, but it is not up to the tasks we need to perform unfortunately.

Thank you for your input, I will look for other solutions.

[vitamin]

I will assume you meant WINE does not support Windows-domain specific networking.

That's exactly what I said - "AD/windows networking".