Starting and Stopping the DP4 System Service

The DP4 System components vary according to how you configure your system. For example you may choose to access DP4 databases remotely via TCP/IP networking, or to enable such access to your local database for other users. This topic is briefly introduced in Customising StartUp.

No matter what components are loaded as part of the DP4 service you will use essentially the same techniques to start and stop the DP4 system. However the details differ according to the version of Windows in use.

Windows NT, 2000, and XP or later

A Windows database manager called DP4SRVR.W32 or DP4SRVR.W64 is provided as standard in the base system installation. It is loaded and unloaded when the DP4 System or DP4 Enterprise service is started and stopped.

DP4 System (to 4.619) or DP4 Enterprise(from 4.620) should appear in the list of services in the Windows NT Control Panel (but see the information on branding in the Guide to DP4 configuration for how to change the name of this service). This service, which usually runs DP4SRVR.W32, needs to be started before DP4 programs can run (though in normal operation DP4 programs will attempt to start the service if it is not already running). If the service is not listed refer to Installing DP4 as a Service.

By default, the startup type of the DP4 System service is Manual. Such services can be started and stopped by a user or dependent service:

To start the DP4 service, select it and click on the Start button
To stop the DP4 service, select it and click on the Stop button

You can change the DP4 service type to Automatic if you want it to start each time the system is booted. You should do this if the machine is intended to act as an unattended server for other DP4 users to access, or if you log on in an account that does not have the right to start and stop services manually.

To reconfigure how the DP4 service is started:

Log on to a user account that has membership in the Administrators local group
Navigate to the the Services option in Control Panel (in Windows 2000 and later this is inside the Administrative Tools applet)
Click on the DP4 service to select it
Click on the Startup button. Use the Service Startup dialog box to configure when and how the service is started and to specify the user account the service used to log on. (As with most services, DP4 logs on to the Local System account, and this should not usually be changed as it prevents the service interacting with the desktop)

You may wish to enable the "allow service to interact with desktop" checkbox. This will allow the DP4 service to display an icon in the taskbar which you can use to access version information and to stop the DP4 service. This option is enabled by default if you run srvw32 −install with DP4 Enterprise.

One important point about "Manual" and "Automatic" services is that they are unaffected by users logging on and off.

The DP4 service can be started and stopped from the command line using srvw32 -start and srvw32 -stop (or srvw64 -start etc if you have installed the 64-bit version of DP4), but this requires local administrator rights prior to release 4.621. You can also start and stop Windows services using net start service_name and net stop service_name. The name of the DP4 service is usually dfsolutions .

The DP4 system can be run as an application rather than a service. You should consider doing this unless you require remote users to be able to access databases when no one is logged on. Whether it is run as an application or as a service depends on the command tails used to load it:

`SRVW32 -LOAD`	runs DP4 as an application
`SRVW32 -START`	runs DP4 as a service

You should use SRVW32 -UNLOAD to unload DP4 as an application and SRVW32 -STOP to stop it as a service.

SHUTDOWN -STOP and SHUTDOWN −NOREMAIN can also both be used to unload DP4.

Running the DP4 system as an application rather than a service has the following advantages:

You do not need administrator rights to stop and start the DP4 system. (On Windows 2000 "Power Users" can also start and stop services, including the DP4 system, though you will need 4.621 or later to able to start and stop the service with srvw32.exe -start/-stop)
You can access databases held on network drives. When run as a service the DP4 system cannot access network drives because the local system account is not allowed access to them.

Windows 95,98,Me

A 32-bit Windows database manager called DP4SRVR.W32 is provided as standard in the base system installation.

Running any DP4 programs will automatically load the DP4 system if it is not already running and place a DP4 icon in the "system tray" area of the task bar at the foot of the screen. To unload the DP4 server right-click on the DP4 button in the application bar and select Shutdown from the menu that appears.

To force the DP4 server to start automatically whenever Windows 95 is started:

In the StartUp folder (in Start Menu\Programs\) create a shortcut to the DP4 loader program SRVW32.EXE.

You can start the DP4 system manually under Windows 95 with any of the following commands: SRVW32, SRVW32 -LOAD, SRVW32 -START

These are currently equivalent, but in future SRVW32 -START may run DP4 in a way which causes it to survive a user log off and to be runnable before a log on (using the Windows 95 equivalent of NT services). The first command is not recommended as it does not work on Windows NT.

You can use use SRVW32 -UNLOAD or SRVW32 -STOP to stop DP4.

SHUTDOWN -STOP and SHUTDOWN −NOREMAIN can also both be used to unload DP4.

If you want the DP4 menu program to start automatically when Windows is started, in the StartUp folder create a shortcut to DP4.EXE.