[Athen] Sharing Jaws and Zoomtext licenses Across Subnets?

Sean J Keegan skeegan at stanford.edu
Wed Feb 23 10:06:00 PST 2011


> For jaws do local installs instead of
> network installs of the program. Create
> a system environment variable with the
> name LSFOREHOST and variable that is the
> IP address of the license server on the
> computer u want jaws to run.

We basically did what Jeff outlined, but still had license access issues
with JAWS when spread across the campus and dealing with multiple
subdomains or subnets. We opened all the relevant firewall ports and
tried several different solutions, but could not get JAWS on the local
machine to "see" the license server. The only time we could get it to
work was when the machines were both on the same subnet.

Freedom Sci was really no help whatsoever as it took multiple phone
calls to find someone who could even identify the correct ports that
JAWS required to interact with the license server. At one point, we had
a tech who reported that it just was not possible to run JAWS in a
network environment (that was a *very* short conversation). When we
reported the error message we kept getting, tech support said that it
was likely firewall issue even though we had followed their directions
regarding open ports. In the end, the response I got was "sorry, but is
there anything else I can help you with?".

As we had an immediate situation that required access to a specific
computer, we just reverted a license back to a local install for the
specific machine. Not ideal, but it took care of the short-term problem
and has given us some time to review different technology for the long
term. As nearly all of the students prefer to use their own computer, I
am looking at NVDA for the computer labs and then loaning out JAWS - or
another screen-reader - to students as requested.

So, in short, we couldn't find a workable solution that would support
the entire campus and are planning to try some other solutions (e.g.,
Supernova, Serotek, etc.) to see what may work.

Take care,
Sean

--
Sean Keegan, M.S.
Associate Director, Assistive Technology
Office of Accessible Education - Stanford University
http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae




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