Dominic Thomas

Join Date 07/2003

Problem with one secondary

I have a primary running Server 2003 controlling a pair of secondaries, one running Win XP and the other Server 2003. The XP system is fine, but after a reboot of the Svr 2003 secondary this morning, when I try to move the mouse onto that secondary the pointer disappears completely and the keyboard on the primary becomes unresponsive. The only way to wake up either mouse or keyboard is to CTRL-ALT-DEL, at which point they work - until I click Cancel to return to the desktop, when both mouse and keyboard freeze again. The only solution at this stage is a reboot of the primary.

The problem seems to be linked to the Srv 2003 secondary in that when I perform CAD on the primary to recover the pointer, the Task Manager appears on the secondary - but all these problems still happen even with Multiplicity unloaded on the secondary! The "Troubleshooting" option on the secondary also displays "WINLOGON.DLL has failed testing" - the other two systems do not show any problems.

All three systems are running the latest build, and I have tried uninstalling, rebooting and reinstalling on both the primary and the problematic secondary without improvement.

Advice would be very welcome, please.

thinkdesk

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Something has prevented the winlogon dll from being installed on that secondary which is why you lose the mouse.

Firstly does multisrv32.dll exist in the Multiplicity directory?

If yes, does it exist in the registry? It should be here : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\Multi

Also what version of Multiplicity do you have installed?

BTW unloading Multiplicity from the secondary machine system tray icon just unloads the clipboard management part of Multiplicity. It does not disable the service which handles incoming connections.

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Hi, Neil, thanks for such a rapid response.

MULTISRV32.EXE does exist in the Multiplicity folder, but the registry key seems to point to MULTIWIN32.DLL in that folder instead. Should I edit this manually, perhaps?

The version installed on all three systems is shown in Stardock Central as "1.05c.005", and on the Advanced page of the Settings dialog as "Multiplicity Pro 1.06".

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Just to clarify - the Multiplicity folder contains MULTISRV32.EXE and MULTIWIN32.DLL, but no MULTISRV32.EXE as mentioned in your post.

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Sorry, my clarification needs clarifying - those are reaallyconfusing file names!

The Multiplicity folder contains MULTISRV32.EXE and MULTIWIN32.DLL, but no MULTISRV32.DLL as mentioned in your post.

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c242

Join Date 03/2001

+384

That seems to be a common problem with 2003 server, I have this, too. Multiplicity only works when fresh installed and never does again after the next reboot of the w2k3 server (reported this in the past).

Dominic : By setting the hotkeys to switch to the primary You can gain control again without rebooting.

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Thanks for the hotkey tip, Carl - that certainly saves some fuss!

My Svr 2003 installation has been working OK for six months or more, though, so not quite like your problem. It's not clear what changed to break Multiplicity, though.

Any more thoughts from Stardock on this problem, by any chance? After a wonderfully prompt first response, things have gone very quiet...

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c242

Join Date 03/2001

+384

After startup the server always reports that one service couldn't be started. I think that is multiplicity.

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Not in my case - the service appears to start correctly, and the only sign (apart from the symptom itself) that there is a problem is that the Troubleshooting function on the tray icon reports "WINLOGON.DLL has failed testing". This seems to be a common problem, from what I'm now reading here, but one without any clear solution from SD as yet...

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What happens if you run multisrv32 -uninstall and then multisrv32 -install ?

EDIT: Sorry that was for carl

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Dominic: When winlogon.dll fails testing it usually points to either the dll not being in the registry correctly. Usually caused by these 'anti spyware' tools which love to block things without understanding them or asking the user.

Your issue seems different as it is present, but not responding correctly.

What is the date of multiwin32.dll?

If you download http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html and run it on the secondary, what does a Find handle show when you search for Multiplicity? Likewise what about on the working machine?

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The date of MULTIWIN32.DLL on all systems is 28/08/2006.

Running ProcessExplorer on the three systems shows very different results. If you can provide an email address, I can send the screenshots?

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c242

Join Date 03/2001

+384

Neil : That one worked !

Can't reboot the server at the moment though.

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dominic: Please mail them to neil@stardock.com

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Thanks, Neil - on their way to you now.

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Based on the ProcessExplorer screenshots, which showed that MPVISTA.EXE was also active on the faulting secondary, Neil suggested that I delete or rename this file in the Multiplicty folder. This program is only supoposed to operate in a Vista environment, so it's not clear why it was running under Server 2003, but after a reboot the system now passes its Troubleshooting function and all seems to be working well.

My thanks to Neil, and to Carl for his advice as well.

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