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PTC X/Server 8.7
PTC X/Server 8.7 is the latest version of PTC's newest interoperability
product, PTC X/Server, a high performance X/Server for Windows
environments.
With this release, PTC X/Server improves performance and supports
the latest standards while maximizing application compatibility
and minimizing the need for specialized configurations for specific
applications.
For a list of fixes included in this release as well as other MKS
X/Server releases, see Fixed Problems
below. Details on the new features of this release can be found in
the following sections:
New Features in Previous Releases
Hardware and Software Requirements
- Windows compatible x86 PC
- Windows® XP
- Windows® Server 2003
- Windows® Server 2003 R2
- Windows® Vista
- Windows® Server 2008
- Windows® 7
- Windows® Server 2008 R2
- Windows® 8
- Windows® 8.1
- Windows Compatible x64 PC
- Windows® XP x64 Edition
- Windows® Server 2003 x64 Edition
- Windows® Server 2003 R2 x64 Edition
- Windows® Vista x64
- Windows® 2008 Server x64 edition
- Windows® 7 x64
- Windows® Server 2008 R2 x64 Edition
- Windows® 8 x64
- Windows® Server 2012 x64 Edition
- Windows® 8.1 x64
- Windows® Server 2012 R2 x64 Edition
- Windows® Server 2003, Windows® Server 2008, and Windows® Server
2008 R2 for Itanium-based Systems are supported with the 32 bit
X Server.
- Typical installation requires 40 Mb of disk space.
Installing PTC X/Server
If you have SCO XVision Eclipse, you must
uninstall
it, or install PTC X/Server on another machine.
When installing PTC X/Server you must install from an account
with local or domain administrator privileges. You do not need to
be an Administrator, but your login ID must be a member of the
local or domain Windows Administrators group before you can install.
All PTC X/Server products share a common installer. If you are
installing from a CD, insert the PTC X/Server distribution CD; the
installer should start automatically. If you are installing from
an electronic distribution, run the self-extracting installer.
To install PTC X/Server, click the Install X/Server button
and follow the instructions on the dialogs that appear.
Note: You should turn off all virus protection software
before installing PTC X/Server. Such software can sometimes cause
the installation to be interrupted and rolled back. Once you have
installed PTC X/Server, you can turn virus protection back on.
For step-by-step installation instructions and an installation FAQ,
see http://www.mkssoftware.com/support/install.asp.
Silent and Administrative Installations
For step-by-step installation instructions and information on
administrative and silent installations for PTC X/Server see
http://www.mkssoftware.com/support/install.asp.
Uninstalling PTC X/Server
Uninstalling PTC X/Server
To uninstall PTC X/Server, use the following procedure:
- From the Control Panel run Add/Remove Programs.
- Remove PTC X/Server.
You must reboot your system before reinstalling PTC X/Server.
Uninstalling SCO XVision Eclipse
- From the Control Panel run Add/Remove Programs.
- Remove SCO XVision Eclipse. (This is only necessary if the
XVision X server is installed. This X Server was normally only
installed with previous versions of MKS Toolkit for
Interoperability and MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers.)
You must reboot your system before reinstalling PTC X/Server.
Activating PTC XServer
PTC XServer version 8.7 is copy protected and requires activation
against the MKS Activation Server (located at
http://www.mkssoftware.com)
to operate. The software is node fixed (that is, it is attached to a
single computer system) and user counted (the Named Authenticated
Users must be specified and are enforced). This activation takes place
after installation, so you need to plan your product rollout so you
do not find yourself with unactivated software on users' machines.
-
If your site has many different serial numbers and, in the past, have
used only one of them on many machines, you will either need to contact
MKS Sales to have these serial numbers bundled under one serial number
or use each of these serial numbers as they were purchased (that is,
install a single license on no more than one machine; install a five
user license installed on no more than five machines with one user
each, and so forth).
-
If you have used a single serial number to download the new version
of PTC XServer during the update process and rolled out to many
machines, you will need to specify all serial numbers that need
to be updated as each serial number has a notion of the version number
requested and will not activate unless it has been updated.
-
If you have some serial numbers under a valid PCS contract and
some that are not, and they have not been retired, you will be
unable to update any of your serial numbers until you bring all
licenses in use under a valid PCS, or retire unused licenses
permanently, or submit to MKS Personnel in writing, you will not
update said serial numbers to any later version, unless you purchase
an update license at a later date.
Further information about PTC XServer 8.7 activation and the information
which is sent to and stored on MKS computers can be found here:
http://www.mkssoftware.com/docs/activation.
You can view the MKS Product Activation FAQ at
http://www.mkssoftware.com/support/kb/activation.
For questions related to sales issues, please e-mail:
MKSToolkitInfo@ptc.com.
For questions related to support issues, please email:
MKSToolkitSupport@ptc.com.
We, the PTC XServer Product Team, sincerely value and appreciate
your business and want to do everything we can to ensure a
successful implementation of our products.
Known Issues
The following known issues exist in PTC X/Server:
- Overlay Planes using NVIDIA Cards on Vista.
- Currently, issues exist with using Overlay Planes on
systems with NVIDIA cards running Windows Vista. To implement
Overlay Planes, X11 uses two separate Win32 windows (one for
the main plane and one for the overlay). Normally, Windows
expects one window with two layers, so problems can result.
There are two approaches to dealing with this issue.
- Do not initialize the main plane. This results in a GPF
when NVIDIA
nvogl32.dll (or
nvogl64.dll) calls
wglSwwapLayerBuffers().
- Initialize the main plane. This works on all systems
except those using NVIDIA cards and running Windows
Vista. On Windows Vista, the main plane of the overlay
window is not transparent and is 100% black, thus
obscuring the main plane behind it.
This issue has been submitted to NVIDIA and their development
group is looking into the problem as NVIDIA bug number 479862.
- Wandering Overlay Planes with NVIDIA Cards.
- On systems using an NVIDIA video card and running Windows
XP, 2003, or Vista, moving the main window causes the overlay
to wander with respect to its parent. The main window itself
is not moving. However, if the display is repainted, everything
is where it is supposed to be. For this reason, the overlay
plane is currently hidden during such a move (when full window
drag is enabled) and shown again once it reaches its
destination. Once Microsoft provides a fix for this problem
(Microsoft SXR081104600800), an environment variable will be
available to turn this behavior on and off.
- NuTCRACKER Platform Applications and Black Screens with NVIDIA Cards
- When PTC X/Server is running on a system with a NVIDIA
video card and has both Hardware Acceleration and Direct
Rendering enabled, a request to use direct rendering from a
NuTCRACKER Platform application using OpenGL results in
nothing but a black screen. Disabling either Hardware
Acceleration or Direct Rendering should solve the problem.
NVIDIA is aware of the issue and questions about the
availability of a fix should be referred to them.
- NuTCRACKER Platform Applications and Direct Rendering
- When direct rendering is enabled for a NuTCRACKER
Platform application that uses OpenGL and an XServer is set
to use Direct Rendering, there
are times (very random) when the client application appears
to freeze when exiting (CTRL-C does not work and you must use
the
kill -9 command to force it to exit). In this
case, the Microsoft Win32 library OpenGL32.dll is waiting for
a thread to set a variable that it never will because during
DLL_PROCESS_DETACH, only one thread remains
running. This has been reported to Microsoft as
SRX081104600852 and appears only to be a problem when running
Windows XP, Windows 2003, and Windows 2003 R2. On Windows
Vista, you may see a slight delay at process exit but the process does exit.
- Connecting to CDE on Solaris Using IPv6.
- You must use either use an IPv4 IP address or disable
IPv6 XDMCP when connecting to an IPv6-enabled Solaris
system running CDE. You can disable IPv6 XDMCP by checking
the Disable IPv6 on the XDMCP Advanced Settings
dialog.
- XRemote and RPS.
- If you wish to use Remote Program Starter (RPS) to
start X clients over XRemote, you must manually set the
display name for the RPS command to match the XRemote proxy
server display.
- XVSpy.
- Do not use a font server while recording an X session.
- Terminal Emulators.
- When using an embedded emulator in-place, only a limited
implementation of the emulator toolbar support is available.
- When using an emulator in an ActiveX document container
application, the emulator's printing facilities are not
available.
- When using an embedded emulator in-place in Microsoft Word,
or in an ActiveX document container application, the emulator's
context help does not work.
- To upgrade desktop VT320 applications, the VT420 emulator
must be installed.
- Vision Resume.
- To use Vision Resume with XRemote, you must disable
host access control for PTC X/Server.
- When used with Vision Resume, Netscape might display
"Sequence lost". You can safely ignore this message.
- Some SCO UNIX X clients, such as scocal and scocolor,
work with Vision Resume when PTC X/Server is using a
PseudoColor display but not when it is using a TrueColor
display.
These clients will fail with third-party X servers when
running with Vision Resume, unless the following lines are
appended to the server's rgb.txt file (for example,
/usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt):
203 203 192 scoBackground
11 0 113 scoForeground
255 240 248 scoTopShadow
255 206 137 scoActiveBackground
43 45 49 scoActiveForeground
254 222 255 scoActiveTopShadow
172 186 204 scoAltBackground
0 0 255 scoHighlight
If you have problems starting a Resume session, ensure
a link has been made between /usr/bin/xresume and
/usr/local/xserver/bin/xresume
(see the Help topic 'Configuring Vision Resume on UNIX'
for more details).
- If on starting a Resume session you see the error
message "Cannot relocate your Resume session to that
display" this may be caused by a network naming problem.
Try displaying an X client from the UNIX host that you
run the proxy server on to your Vision X Server, using the
X Server's full DNS name (for example,
xclock -display myPC.myCO.co.uk:0).
If this reports "Cannot open Display" then you have a naming
problem—try adding the full DNS name to
/etc/hosts.
- Multiuser Windows environments.
- PTC X/Server Printing does not work on Windows 2000
or Windows Terminal Server running in multi-user mode.
You can use LPD Printing in these environments.
- PTC X/Server 3D.
- Restrictions
- Backing store shouldn't be used with
the GLX extension.
- OpenGL extensions are not available.
- Notes
- The GLX extension is enabled by default. The
GLX extension can be disabled using the PTC X/Server
Configuration program.
- If you experience problems with colors when
running OpenGL applications on a 256 color display,
setting the X/Server default visual class to TrueColor
may improve the situation.
To do this, choose:
X/Server Properties > Color tab > Let me specify a particular default visual class.
- Matrox Millennium video cards running in 16-bit
color can prevent some OpenGL applications from
running or displaying correctly. Matrox has been
informed of this problem.
Customer Support
Contact PTC MKS Toolkit customer support at:
Additional MKS Interoperability Resources
There are several other sources for additional information
about our MKS Interoperability products.
We have general product information, including technical
specifications, detailed utility listings, and datasheets at:
We offer a resource kit including example scripts, additional
utilities, more tutorials, and a wide variety of other useful
information at:
We have several additional articles, tutorials, and white
papers about using features of MKS Interoperability products at:
Through the years, we have accumulated a lot of technical
details about the MKS Interoperability products and have put this
information in a searchable database at:
Our customers commonly ask certain questions. These questions
and their answers are in our Frequently Asked Questions pages at:
Known installation issues are listed at:
Fixed Problems
Several problems were fixed in PTC X/Server 8.7.
These are listed at:
Fixed Problems in Previous Releases
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