Check who is accessing Dynamics GP shared dictionary files

By Steve Endow

There are lots of customers who continue to install the Dynamics GP client application on user workstations, or customers who have GP installed on multiple Terminal Servers.  As a result, many of them use "shared dictionaries", where the FORMS.DIC and REPORTS.DIC files are stored on a centralized network share.

There are some downsides to using shared dictionaries with Dynamics GP, but the convenience generally wins out, so people continue to use shared dictionaries.

One thing to remember with shared dictionaries is that when importing a package file to a shared dictionary (typically FORMS.DIC or REPORTS.DIC), you should make sure that the dictionary is not in use.  While you may be able to import package files to active shared dictionaries many times without any issue, I have seen situations where the shared dictionary was corrupted as a result of an import.

Today I was explaining this precaution to a customer, and he mentioned that he didn't know how to tell if the dictionary files were being accessed by any users.

Here is how you can check if users are accessing the GP shared dictionary files.

Open Computer Management on the server where the network share and dictionary files reside.  On the left, expand Shared Folders and then click on Open Files.


In this example, you can see that my user account is accessing the GP share, and that I am accessing the FORMS.DIC file.

Ideally, you would ask the user to close GP, which should close the connections.  If the users have left for the day but are still connected, you can select one ore more of the the open files, right click, and select Close Open File.  You can also right click in the white space below the open files and select Disconnect All Open Files.