In most cases, and in the absence of information suggesting otherwise, MicroSabio recommends that the A-Shell installation program be run FROM EACH of the PCs that will be running A-Shell. While this seems a little redundant, and is in fact a little redundant, there are reasons for doing it this way. So here are the recommended steps:

1   Create the folder on the server where A-Shell is to be installed. You can use any name you want, but MicroSabio recommends—for historical purposes and the sake of consistency—the folder "VM." You also need to create a network share, which should also be named "VM." Note: DO NOT share the entire c:\ drive; this is guaranteed to create headaches.

2   Working on one of the workstation PCs (not the server), download the applicable version of A-Shell for Windows from the MicroSabio downloads page.

3   From the workstation, install A-Shell by running the installation program. When asked for the location into which to install A-Shell, enter: \\servername\VM\miame. As you will see the \vm\miame\ part is already included; just replace c:\ with \\servername\.

4   Finish running the installation program.

5   Run A-Shell to confirm that all is well. A few LOG and DIR commands is enough. What we're confirming is that the desktop shortcut you created actually executes A-Shell as intended, and that miame.ini—A-Shell's initialization file—is being found and processed. Don't proceed until you're happy and convinced that all is working, by which we mean that you click on the desktop shortcut and A-Shell runs as expected.

At this point, the workstation you've been working on should be perfectly set up for A-Shell, and you know how to run the installation procedure. Now go run it again—the same steps, starting with #2 above—on each of the PCs that will be using A-Shell.

It would appear that you are installing the same software into the same location multiple times. That is actually true. But the installation program is smart and knows to not actually copy files that are already present and up to date, and the installation is being rerun not for the A-Shell files but for Windows files over which A-Shell has no control. Subsequent installations will be much faster than the first one, and at the end of the process each PC will be properly and completely set up.

The final step of the process is performed after you have finished installing A-Shell from each of the PCs. It does not matter which PC runs this procedure, but it needs to be done after all the installations.

6   While running A-Shell, go to Help...Check for Updates. This will insure that you have the latest copy of A-Shell on the server. Run the installation as you have the other times, and you're done. You only need to run this once, and not from each PC.

Note that you must not run A-Shell from any one PC while you are installing from another PC.

Also note that despite the multiple installations, all the PCs are running off the same server-based copy of A-Shell.