TN IT104 Improving InTouch NAD Performance

Description

This tech note provides instructions on improving the startup performance of an InTouch NAD client.

• Author: Rich Brooks
• Published: 10/21/2014
• Applies to: InTouch (v7.x and higher)

How and When to Use this Guide

Remote desktop WindowViewer sessions may be slow the first time Network Application Development (NAD) is used. The full InTouch application is copied over the network from a shared folder. This is most obvious for large applications or with slow networks. Subsequent startups of the client session do not need to be slow with the following tweaks to the default NAD configuration file.

Instructions

Each InTouch client has a win.ini configuration file. The configuration file is found in the C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Wonderware folder. Add or update the following parameters under the [InTouch] section. If the parameters are not found, InTouch uses the default setting.

ViewNADCopyApplicationOnStartup=0

The default setting for ViewNADCopyApplication OnStartup is one. This only needs to be set to one the first time to force a full download of the application. It may be set to zero after the application is downloaded to the client. NAD will then only copy the files that have changed. It does a file-by-file compare to identify what has changed. The full project may be manually copied into the NAD folder if needed.

ViewNADClearNADCopyDirectory=0

When the ViewNADClearNADCopyDirectory line is set to one, the WindowViewer clears the contents of the local NAD directory. A full copy of the application from the master location is then required. When set to zero, the NAD directory is not cleared.

ViewNADShutdownWaitPeriod=5

30 seconds is the default ViewNADShutdownWaitPeriod value. If this parameter does not appear in the win.ini file, the default values is used for the shut-down sequence. Reduce the value to 5 seconds for improved performance.

ViewNADRestartWaitPeriod=5

90 seconds is the default ViewNADRestartWaitPeriod value. If this parameter does not appear in the win.ini file, the default value is used for the restart sequence. Reduce the value to 5 seconds for improved performance.

ViewNADCopyAllFiles=0

The default value for ViewNADCopyAllFiles is zero. All files will be copied from the master application if the value is set to one. Ensure that this parameter is set to zero to avoid copying files unnecessarily.

This is a default configuration found when NAD is enabled.
[InTouch]
ViewNADCopyApplicationOnStartup=1
ViewNADCopyApplicationDirectory=C:\Users\<user name>\Wonderware\NAD
ViewNADPollingPeriod=10000
ViewNADOnApplicationChanged=3
ViewNADClearNADCopyDirectory=0
ApplicationDirectory=C:\USERS\<user name>\WONDERWARE\NAD
ViewManagedApp=0
ApplicationDirectory.IView=

This is a recommended configuration. The critical parameters are highlighted.
[InTouch]
ViewNADCopyApplicationOnStartup=0
ViewNADCopyApplicationDirectory=C:\Users\<user name>\Wonderware\NAD
ViewNADPollingPeriod=10000
ViewNADOnApplicationChanged=3
ViewNADClearNADCopyDirectory=0
ViewNADShutdownWaitPeriod=5
ViewNADRestartWaitPeriod=5
ViewNADCopyAllFiles=0
ApplicationDirectory=C:\USERS\<user name>\WONDERWARE\NAD
ViewManagedApp=0
ApplicationDirectory.IView=

Confirmation of Success

Reboot the terminal session to restart the WindowViewer. The startup time will be significantly faster.