Installing EarMaster School in a Network

Installing EarMaster School in a Network

	EarMaster School 5.0 can be installed and integrated in a network so users can use their personal EarMaster profile from any client. EarMaster School can even run directly from a server without installation on the clients, but you can also install it on the clients to reduce network traffic (described in step 3).


Installing (for the administrator)

1	Install EarMaster on the server. Run the installation program and follow the instructions. On the page Select Additional Tasks, be sure to set the Destination of shared data files setting to Server install! This will place the shared data files in a subdirectory to the installation directory (can be moved to another location later, see instructions in the "Administration" section), and it will install the client setup utility (described in step 3). Note: When you have installed EarMaster on the server you can run the program file (Ear50s.exe) directly from the server on any client. When you run EarMaster from a shared network drive it will automatically look for the data files in the folder from where the program file was called and not on the local computer.

Run EarMaster once from a client computer to configure it

Make sure you run EarMaster from a shared drive on a client, and not directly on the server. This will force EarMaster to load and save the administration settings together with the program file on the server and not, as usually, in the registry of the local computer.

You are asked if EarMaster should use the Windows login to identify users.

If all users have their own login in Windows - Answer Yes! EarMaster will then get this username from Windows to identify what user settings to load. If you answer No, EarMaster will show a login window every time it is started.

You are asked to create your self as a user (Administrator) in EarMaster.

If you answered No in the previous question you must remember the username and password entered here because only the Administrator can give other users "Teacher" and "Administrator" rights. Do not use your Windows admin password because EarMaster uses only a soft encryption algorithm that is easy to break for a skilled hacker.

If you answered Yes in the previous question then you cannot enter a username and password. Instead EarMaster will attach the new Administrator user to the current Windows user account.

After choosing a MIDI device for this client and a screen instrument for your user profile, you can enter the Registration name and serial number for this network installation.

Opening help files from a network drive is not allowed by the security in Windows Vista (and latest updates of Windows XP). Therefore the online help in EarMaster does not work when it runs from a server. To solve this you can install EarMaster on the clients (step 3) or find solutions here: support.microsoft.com/kb/896054

Running a program from a network drive gives a security warning in Windows Vista asking you to confirm running the file. To avoid this warning you can install EarMaster on the clients (step 3) or you can change the security settings:
Go to “Internet options” in the Control panel. On the "Security" tab, add the name of the server where EarMaster runs from (e.g. \\MYSERVER) to the "Sites" for "Local intranet". Then set the security level for "Local intranet" to "medium-low" or if you want a higher level, modify it to a custom level with "Launching applications and unsafe files" set to "Enable".

Now EarMaster is configured to run on any client!

Optional! Install EarMaster on the clients

If your network is slow or overloaded you can install EarMaster on each client to reduce the network traffic. The program files of about 6 MB will then be loaded from the client and not from the server.

To install EarMaster on a client, run the "ClientSetup.exe" program once on each client. The client setup program is in the same folder as the EarMaster program file on the server.

Add teachers

New users are added automatically to EarMaster when they run it for the first time (unless you disable this feature in the Administration settings). Users that are automatically created when they log in, will however only have student user rights to begin with.

To give the teachers immediate access to the facilities they need to use, you should add them as Teachers in EarMaster. If each user have their own account in Windows then you must know their Windows user name to do this.

To add a teacher:

- Find User maintenance in the Tools menu.

- Click on the New user button in the toolbar.

- Type in the full name and username on the User tab and set the Access level on the Access tab to Teacher.

- Finally click Add to create the user in EarMaster.

Repeat these steps until all teachers are created in EarMaster.


Creating students and classes (for the teacher or administrator)

5	Add students Users can be added to EarMaster in two different ways: a. Find User maintenance in the Tools menu. Choose New user to create a new user. Note: if all users have their own account in Windows, you must know their windows username to create users this way. b. Go to the computer lab with your class and let each student run EarMaster. When EarMaster is executed by a Windows user that is not yet created in EarMaster, this user is (by default) automatically created.

Create a class

You are not required to group the students in classes, but it is a very good idea if there are many users. When all the users for the class are created in EarMaster, do the following:

- Find Class maintenance from the Tools menu.

- Click the New class button to create a new class.

- Give the class a name and click the Add/remove button to add students to the class.

- In the new window that shows up, select the users that should be added to the class and click Add.

When the year or semester is gone and the name of the class changes to a new number, just go to the Class maintenance to change the name of the class. You don't need to add the users again.