[wplug] running windows programs remotely

Juan Zuluaga jz31416 at yahoo.com
Tue Sep 20 19:19:49 EDT 2005


Greetings, 

I am new to this, so be patient;
the Latin American library collection where I work has
acquired, through the years, a number of CDs with
miscellaneous material. Some CDs contain files that
can be viewed with external software (PDFs, mp3, txt,
html, etc). But some CDs have to run an installation
and interface program (generally Windows9X based); I
guess some are CDS/ISIS viewers (an old database
engine/format), some seem VB programs to read Access
files, etc. These CDs were made, years ago, for
standalone consultation.   

Could there be a way to make these CDs (or a copy of
them on hard drive) remotely accesible and interactive
for users connected via web (DSpace|Greenstone-like or
library OPAC)? 

I thought about installing the CDs plus a VNC server
in a Windows 98 machine (1) (or on a Windows emulator
layer on top of linux); of course this setup is highly
unsecure -- it will just be used on a local network.
-- any comments on this setup? What other ways could
something like this be accomplished? Are there
better/more secure ways to run remotely a Windows
program and see the graphic output on your local?
(ideally, the client computer should not have to have
any additional software installed, other than a
browser and Java -- no X server, say).

There are dozens of these CDs in the library and they
seriously run the risk of dying, of software
obsolescense and lack of access via the catalog.  

-- Cheers, 

juan pablo zuluaga


		
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