IBM i Access for Windows

This document describes the PC5250 path changes made in V6R1, and the reasons why those changes were made.

Description

For most of its history, IBM i Access for Windows has defaulted the PC5250 files path to a location based on the Access for Windows install path. This path is the one that PC5250 uses to find and store files. For example:
C:\Program Files\IBM\Client Access\Emulator\Private

This path has been problematic for some users, since by default, only administrators may have write privileges on this path. To deal with this problem; the choice of using the user's own "My Documents" path, or a fully-qualified path of their choosing was provided.

One problem with this set of choices is that it does not mirror those given by the IBM Personal Communications (PCOMM) product, so the options were inconsistent with this product which provides the user the choice of their user-specific Application Data path or the common (all-users) Application Data path, instead of My Documents and the Install path as bases, respectively.

The second problem with the previous design is that, starting with Windows Vista and its User Account Control (UAC), which is on by default, the install path is not, by default, writable by any user of the PC, including administrators. So, PC5250 IBM i Access for Windows default setting would not work.

For these reasons, it was concluded that the choices, as well as the default path, needed to change to be consistent with PCOMM. In V5R4 service pack SI25949, the default path changed only when running on Vista; however, the new choices were made available via the special options *MYAPPDATA and *ALLUSERSAPPDATA, that may be specified when running cwbcfg.exe or on the PC5250 tab of IBM i Access for Windows Properties. In V6R1, the old choices will no longer be valid, being completely replaced by the new choices.

The new default, *MYAPPDATA and the *ALLUSERAPPDATA, will be in effect on all versions of Windows, not just Windows Vista.

New choices

1. The per-user application data folder My Documents (*MYDOCUMENTS) path is being replaced by Application Data (*MYAPPDATA) path.
2. The common application data folder Install (*INSTALL) path is being replaced by Common Application Data (*ALLUSERSAPPDATA) path.
3. The new default path is *MYAPPDATA (previously *INSTALL).

Installing V6R1 on a clean PC

Customers; who install V6R1 on a clean PC, will find and store the PC5250 files in the new path locations. These paths can also be modified via the cwbcfg.exe tool or via the Access for Windows  Properties on the PC5250 tab.

Migrating to V6R1 from a previous version

Customers who upgrade to V6R1 from a previous version, who may have chosen one of the old choices before, will be migrated to the appropriate replacement path.

After installing V6R1 you will need to reboot the PC, and just after logging on to the PC, the PC5250 files stored in the old location will be copied to the new location, leaving the original files unmodified.

Users that used to have the PC5250 files stored in the old common/shared path location (*INSTALL) will have their files copied to the new common/shared path location (*ALLUSERSAPPDATA). This will occur once for all users (if any) who were using the old *INSTALL location.

Users who were using the *MYDOCUMENTS path location; will have their PC5250 files copied to the new *MYAPPDATA location. This will occur only once per user.

For the users that were using a user-specified location, they will continue to use that location to store and find the PC5250 files.

Access for Windows will keep track of whether or not the files were copied, and will log the names of all the copied files. Icons or other things that may use the old path will not be fixed; only the registry location where PC5250 looks in for this path will be fixed.

Notes

• The customer's files in the old PC5250 path location will NOT be deleted; they will only be copied to prevent other application from being affected in case they rely on these files. Changes made to the files residing in the old location do not affect PC5250.
• The new PC5250 path location will contain a log file (cwbemcpy.log) if files were copied there, showing what the old location was and whether the files were successfully copied to the new location.
• The program cwbsvstr.exe, which runs via the Run key in the registry, is the one that copies/migrates the PC5250 files from the old PC5250 path locations to the new PC5250 path locations. This program is expected to run every time after a user logs on; if the program does not run then PC5250 may fail finding the files.
• If PCOMM is installed and NOT the PC5250 component of IBM i Access for Windows, PCOMM has its own GUI that is used to manage the PC5250 path setting, so the PC5250 tab in IBM i Access for Windows properties is not created. In such a case, files are copied as PCOMM manages all of them, however cwbcfg.exe will still run to change the PC5250 paths, in case someone might want this.
• The copy of PC5250 files from new path locations to old path locations is not supported when uninstalling V6R1M0 Access for Windows and installing a previous version. The PC5250 files created in the new path are not deleted at un-installation time, but previous versions of PC5250 will not be able to find those files.