TaskMaster Specification...
TaskMaster
has been tested on a variety of equipment
and configurations over the years. The following equipment
specifications should be regarded as the minimum required to
enable the system to run optimally. These are for guidance
only. Lesser specified machines can be used though performance of the
system will be impaired.
Furthermore, TaskMaster has been designed and tested for approximately 5 concurrently connected networked users of the system. The theoretical limit, as laid down by Microsoft Access 2000, is 256 concurrent connections. TaskMaster is not restricted in anyway from a licensing point of view to the number of concurrent connections made within the same office. However, performance of the system may be impaired as the number of users increases.
Client Computer
The following is the recommended specification for each client computer that will be using TaskMaster:
- Pentium 266 MHz CPU or equivalent (AMD K6-266 MHz for example).
- 64 MB of RAM.
- Monitor with minimum screen resolution of 800x600.
- CDROM drive for installing the software.
- If TaskMaster is to be networked, a suitable network card and cabling, and a drive mapping to the central location on the server where the TaskMaster Data file is to be stored.
- Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Workstation computer operating system.
- Microsoft Word 97 or Microsoft Word 2000 – necessary for automatic document assembly. (TaskMaster does not work with previous versions of MS Word).
- Microsoft Access 2000. TaskMaster comes supplied with the run-time version of Microsoft Access 2000. Consequently, the full version is not strictly required. However, if you wish to use the spell check facilities within TaskMaster, you will need to use the full version of Microsoft Access 2000 as these are not supplied with the run-time version.
- TaskMaster, or more accurately, MS Office 2000 and hence the MS Access 2000 Runtime Library relies on technology contained within MS Internet Explorer 3.02 and above. Version 5.0 of MSIE is supplied with TaskMaster but must be installed separately.
Server Computer
The following is the recommended specification for the server machine where TaskMaster is to be used in a networked environment:
- Pentium II 300 MHz CPU or equivalent (AMD K6-2/300 for example).
- 128 MB of RAM. The amount of RAM will depend on the other services running on the server at the same time. In a small business environment, the server will generally be offering other facilities.
- CDROM drive for installing the software.
- Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Workstation or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server computer operating system. These are needed if the TaskMaster Data File optimisation tools are to be installed on the server. Of these four, MS Windows NT Server is the prefered option to do the connection and resource limitations of the other operating systems. If this is not the case, any network operating system, capable of supporting long file names and connection by Microsoft based client machines will do.
- The server machine should NOT double up as a user’s machine. This will cause problems with the configuration of TaskMaster for individual users and will impair the performance of the system.
Additional Information
TaskMaster was originally developed for use with Microsoft Word 97 and MS Access 97. When Microsoft released the 2000 version of those products, TaskMaster was recompiled to take advantage of those new versions.
Since then, TaskMaster has been successfully installed on systems running MS Windows 98 through to XP Professional and MS Word 2007 with the MS Access 2000 Runtime library installed. To my knowledge, it has not been installed on any systems running MS Access 2003 or MS Access 2007 though there is no known issue that would cause a conflict.