New NX6 setup slow on clent PCs

[PintoBeans]

First I'll give a brief background about my setup and situation.
-We are a small company with 15 seats of NX.
-Previously each user's PC had a complete install of NX5
-Being a smaller company this wasn't a problem however now that we're starting to grow it's becoming an issue
-We are currently running NX5 and in the process of testing NX6
-We'll need to be able to continue running NX5 while we make the transition into NX6

Here's a rundown of what I've done so far in setting up a dedicated server/host machine and the client machines
-The Host/Server PC is running Windows XP SP3 with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 Ghz Processor and 2 MB of RAM.
-I Installed NX6 licensing and NX6 on the Server/Host machine on a Secondary internal drive (Drive "D")
-I used the license file for NX6 as the license file for LMTOOLS
-I "shared" the folder that NX6 is installed on with the rest of the network users
-I made sure I disable the windows firewall security for this shared folder
-Installed NX6 using a mapped drive installation on the PC clients and pointed them to the Server/Host PC

Here's the problem I'm having.

-When I start NX6 on the Client PC's it takes forever for them to start up (it never took this long when NX5 was installed directly on each PC)
-When I look at the Task Manager on the Host/Server I notice there is a huge spike every time one of the Client PCs fires up NX6 or someone switches modules in NX6 (going from modeling to drafting)

A few questions I have regarding my situation.

-Does this server/host pc have good enough specs to be acting as a server/host for the clients in this setup?
-Do I need more memory in the server (will these speed up the loading of NX6 on the clients)?
-Is there a better way to set this up for faster response times on the clients?
-Where are each individual's load options,tool bars and preferences saved when a server based setup is used?
-Can I designate where the user's setting are saved?

Any help or input on my current situation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advanced!

 

[jackley]

I think the ideal situation is to load the license on a network machine and the program on the individual machines.

That will be the most optimal setup.

Justin Ackley
Designer

 

[Dave K]

I worked at one company that had NX installed on a server, and everyone else ran it as a client. It was very slow, and they switched to installing it locally, after setting up the computers to accept "pushed" installs from the remote IT computer.


"-Can I designate where the user's setting are saved?"

Yes. We use a custom .bat file to launch NX, which points to a .dat file, containing the environmental variables. This section puts the personal settings in a location, on the server. It does not save all of the settings, so I encourage users to create a "role" for themselves too, in case they change computers, etc. Also, the users personal folder has to be created ahead of time.

###################################################################
# Customer Defaults
#
# Defaults for entire site
UGII_SITE_DIR=${NX_CUSTOM_DIR}\CustomerDefaults
#
# Each user gets their own defaults file, in common directory
UGII_LOCAL_USER_DEFAULTS=${NX_CUSTOM_DIR}\CustomerDefaults\${username}\NX5_user.dpv

-Dave
Everything should be designed as simple as possible, but not simpler.