Clients & Profits FAQs | Cross-Platform

Q. How exactly does the "cross-platform" capability work?

There's no difference in the Clients & Profits application itself; the same application can be used on both PCs and Macs. Only the Clients & Profits Players are different. There's a different C&P Player for each computer "platform." There are several platforms: Windows 95/98/ME/XP/NT/2000, and Power Macintosh. Each C&P Player is tailored for its specific platform, taking advantage of its performance characteristics.

Q. Can we switch Mac users to Windows users later if we buy more PCs?

Yes. You can exchange your Macintosh serial number, merging its users into your Windows serial number. (Or vice versa, should you decide to dump your PCs!) There's a small exchange fee for the swap, and you'll have to reserialize your Windows players with the new serial number.

Q. Are there any special installation steps needed to set up a cross-platform Clients & Profits system?

There are two important steps:

1) First, you'll need to create a folder on your file server that allows access from both Windows and Macintosh users (that's the hardest part). Otherwise, the database can be named in any way as long as it ends in .DF1. This extension is recognized by the C&P Player as a Clients & Profits database on any Windows or Mac computer. Note: if you're still using Windows 3.1 on some PCs, your database name can't exceed 7 letters plus the .DF1 extension.

2) Second, set up the access privileges for the shared C&P folder. Anyone who will be accessing the Clients & Profits database needs to have read/write access to the shared folder on the Windows server. If not, they won't be able to mount the volume and open the database like everyone else. Also, if both Windows and Mac users will be accessing the Windows 2000 or NT server, you'll need to configure the server to allow Mac access. You'll find more information here

Q. What's faster: Windows or Macintosh?

It's close. With computers these days, it's impossible to buy a slow one! Windows-based Pentium 4 systems are about as fast as the Power Mac G4s. The new G4s are optimized for graphics, so they aren't much faster for network-based applications like Clients & Profits. But the combination of the iMac, OS 9, and AppleShare 6.0 make for an exceptionally fast network -- that's much easier for ordinary people to manage. It's a superior choice for Mac-based shops that are considering converting to Windows NT but don't have a Windows expert on staff (which is virtually a requirement).

Q. What's faster: Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95, or Windows 3.1?

Since Clients & Profits is a multi-user relational database, throughput is the key to its performance. Since Windows XP, 2000 and NT have an optimized input/output system, they are the fastest platforms for running Clients & Profits. Internal testing shows that Windows XP and 2000 are superior platforms for Clients & Profits, and are the most highly recommended.

Windows ME, Windows 98, and Windows 95 are virtually identical and not particularly quick, but are all far faster than Windows 3.1 (which is still used typically on a shop's oldest, slowest PCs that aren't worth upgrading).

Many factors influence a system's speed, such as the amount of RAM available to Clients & Profits. If Windows doesn't have enough free RAM for Clients & Profits, it uses the hard disk as "virtual memory" instead. Since accessing the hard drive's virtual memory is much slower than actual RAM, it can dramatically slow down Clients & Profits. That's why you need 16mb of RAM to run Clients & Profits on both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 (and even more RAM will help, especially if you run several programs at once).

In addition, Windows XP, 2000 and NT are optimized so well for the Pentium II/III processor that it does everything fast -- especially printing to screen. Windows NT is expensive (costing around $250 if purchased separately) and somewhat fussy to set up and configure. Also, your PC will need at least 64mb of RAM to run Windows NT effectively, as opposed to 32mb with Windows 95. At this time, Windows NT is a better choice for accounting workstations than graphic workstations.


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