Forecaster.ini...or maybe outie?

With a 4 month old in the house, I can't resist a belly button joke :) I wanted to take a moment to share a little shortcut concerning managing Forecaster 7.0 applications. The installation of the Forecaster 7.0 client is a pretty simple affair, a few clicks of Next>Next>Next and you are done. Then you can apply the service pack and be ready to go fairly quickly.

And let's assume that you want to connect to existing Forecaster databases. So you launch the Forecaster client from Start>>All Programs. But there are no companies listed other than the Demo database. That is because the connection information is actually stored locally for each user. From the login window, you can click Manage Applications to enter the connection information (Name, SQL Server, and Database) for each company you wish to open in Forecaster. You can also test the connection from this window.

But, let's assume that you have 10 different Forecaster databases you want to use. And let's say that you have installed the Forecaster client on a terminal server, and there are 10 different users that will need to access it. That amounts to setting up 100 different connections since the connection information is stored locally for each user.

There is an easier way, though. Just copy the Forecaster.ini to the profiles of the other users. This file contains the connection information and can be found in
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Forecaster
(for Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7, C:\Users\LOGIN\AppData). It makes managing the connections simple, and ensures that connection information stays consistent for all users.

A simple little fix, and I even make a backup copy to keep for new installations.