Great Plains Accounting for Dos Transfer to Windows 2003 Server – Overview for it

Great Plains Accounting 9.5, 9.2, or earlier version was hosted in its time in Windows NT and Novell servers.   Typical client side was Windows 95 or Windows 98, possibly Windows NT workstation.  As you could imagine all that hardware is in obsolescence and probably subject to frequent crashes.  Obviously, first advise you can get from Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains resellers and consultants is to migrate from GPA to Dynamics GP.  If you decide on migration, you will get reasonable discounts for GP modules.  However, if you are still on Great Plains Accounting for DOS, it is likely that you have reasons to stick to this old accounting system.  There is the way to move GPA from old NT or Novell to something newer, Windows 2003 Server R2 (or Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2).  In this publication we will give you general advise, however migration itself is sort of surgery and it is not recommended to undertake it without access to Great Plains Accounting support team

1.       GPA and registry.  You normally launch GPA from mapped drive on the server.  This means that GPA for DOS doesn’t use registry and doesn’t require local installation.  All it needs is Btrieve requester and its component, and these files it takes from shared folder on the server

2.       Old Btrieve incompatibility.  Unfortunately on Windows XP you cannot run old Btrieve requester – it is not compatible.  This is why you will have to appeal to Btrieve successor – Pervasive SQL Server 2000

3.       Pervasive SQL Server 2000.  We recommend Service Pack 3.  This product is compatible with Windows XP SP2 (please, note, it is not compatible without changing settings with XP SP3, so we discourage you from using Windows XP Service Pack 3).  You should install it on the Windows 2003 Server with default settings as well as on the XP workstation.  Pervasive SQL 2000 requires license key if deployed on the server

4.       IPX/SPX.  We recommend this protocol for GPA for DOS on Windows 2003 Server.  Please be sure you added IPX/SPX on the server and all the XP workstations, and explicitly changed the settings to use 802.2 or 802.3 frame with specified internal network number

5.       GPA files copy to the new server.  You will likely need to copy them over through precise TCP IP connection (using laptop, for example with enough disk space), where you change IP address to be on the old 10BaseT network.  Please also copy BREQNT.exe and BREQNT.msg and BTI.cfg flies on the server from C:BTSWBIT to C:GPA

6.       Be ready to additional steps.  Workstations, printers setup are likely to be needed.  But, we hope that Windows 2003 server and XP workstations will let you to survive on GPA for DOS for another 10 years