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System Requirements
Windows Terminal Services

System Requirements

The following sections contain system requirements for Microsoft® Project 2002 and Microsoft Project Web Access.

Microsoft Project Standard

Operating system

The recommended system for Microsoft Project Standard is Microsoft Windows® XP Professional on a computer with a Pentium III class processor and 192 MB of RAM or higher. A Pentium 133 MHz or higher processor is required.

The following operating systems also support Microsoft Project Standard:

  • Windows 98 or Windows 98 Second Edition
  • Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), or Windows NT® Workstation or Server 4.0 with Service Pack 6 or later
  • Windows 2000 Professional
  • Windows XP Professional or later
Available disk space

Microsoft Project Standard requires the following disk space, depending on the type of installation you choose and the system configuration:

  • Typical installation: 105 MB (or 55 MB on a system that also has Office XP installed)
  • Complete installation: 310 MB (on a system that does not have Office XP installed)
Other requirements
  • CD-ROM drive
  • Super VGA or higher resolution monitor (at least 800x600, with 256 colors)
  • Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse®, or compatible pointing device
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later (Internet Explorer 5.5 or later recommended)

The following items or services are required to use certain features:

  • 14,400 or higher-baud modem to enable connectivity.
  • Multimedia computer to access sound and other multimedia effects.
  • Internet access via a 14.4kbs or greater modem or a high speed connection to accommodate Internet functionality. (Payment of a separate fee to a service provider and local or long distance telephone charges may be required.)
  • Microsoft Project Server to enable Web-based team collaboration.
  • Windows-compatible network and MAPI-compliant messaging systems to enable e-mail-based team collaboration.
  • Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 or later, or Oracle 8 or later, for database storage of projects.

Microsoft Project Professional

Operating system

The recommended system for Microsoft Project Professional is Windows XP Professional on a computer with a Pentium III class processor and 256 MB of RAM or higher. A Pentium 133 MHz or higher processor is required.

The following operating systems also support Microsoft Project Professional:

  • Windows 98 or Windows 98 Second Edition
  • Windows Me, or Windows NT Workstation or Server 4.0 with Service Pack 6 or later
  • Windows 2000 Professional
  • Windows XP Professional or later
Available disk space

Microsoft Project Professional requires the following available disk space, depending on the type of installation you choose and the system configuration:

  • Typical installation: 105 MB (or 55 MB on a system that also has Office XP installed)
  • Complete installation: 310 MB (on a system that does not have Office XP installed)
Other requirements
  • CD-ROM drive
  • Super VGA or higher resolution monitor (at least 800x600, with 256 colors)
  • Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse®, or compatible pointing device
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later (Internet Explorer 5.5 or later recommended)

The following items or services are required to use certain features:

  • 14,400 or higher-baud modem to enable connectivity.
  • Multimedia computer to access sound and other multimedia effects.
  • Internet access via a 14.4kbs or greater modem or a high speed connection to accommodate Internet functionality. (Payment of a separate fee to a service provider and local or long distance telephone charges may be required.)
  • Microsoft Project Server to enable Web-based team collaboration.
  • Windows-compatible network and MAPI-compliant messaging systems to enable e-mail-based team collaboration.
  • Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 or later, or Oracle 8 or later for database storage of projects.

Shared Components of Microsoft Project

Shared components of Microsoft Project are installed in the folder Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared. Shared components from a version of Microsoft Project earlier than Microsoft Project 2000, or a version of Microsoft Office earlier than Office 2000, remain in the folder Windows\Msapps.

Microsoft Project Web Access

Operating system

The recommended system for Microsoft Project Web Access is Windows XP Professional on a computer with a 300 MHz class processor and 192 MB of RAM or higher. A Pentium 133 MHz or higher processor is required.

The following operating systems also support Microsoft Project Web Access:

  • Windows 98 or Windows 98 Second Edition
  • Windows Me, or Windows NT Workstation or Server 4.0 with Service Pack 6 or later
  • Windows 2000 Professional
  • Windows XP or later
Available disk space

Depending on your system configuration, 5-15 MB of disk space is required to install Microsoft Project Web Access.

Other requirements
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later (Internet Explorer 5.5 or later recommended)
  • Super VGA or higher resolution monitor (at least 800x600, with 256 colors)
  • Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse®, or compatible pointing device
  • The following items or services are required to use certain features:
  • An e-mail system such as Microsoft Exchange, Internet SMTP/POP3, IMAP4, or MAPI-compliant messaging software for e-mail notifications and team collaboration.
  • Internet access via a 14.4kbs or greater modem or a high speed connection to accommodate Internet functionality. (Payment of a separate fee to a service provider, and local or long distance telephone charges may be required.)
  • Multimedia computer required for sound and other multimedia effects.
  • Microsoft Office XP license required for administrators for full interactivity of Office Web Components in order to create Portfolio Analyzer views.

After installation, clients can connect to the Microsoft Project Server using Internet Explorer. Clients accessing the Microsoft Project Server must have a Microsoft Project Web Access client access license.

See Also

Some of the features available to Microsoft Project users depend on which Web browser is installed on users' computers, and on which Web server components are installed on the organization's servers. For more information, see the Internet and Intranet Technologies section of the Microsoft Project Server and Web Technologies resource kit article.

Some data access features available to Microsoft Project users depend on the data access components that are installed on users' computers and the database servers that are available on an organization's network. For more information, see the Microsoft Project Server and Web Technologies resource kit article.

Microsoft Project provides you with the flexibility to customize and install Microsoft Project in a number of ways. For more information, see the Basic Server Installation resource kit article.

Windows Terminal Services

Organizations that use Microsoft Project in cross-platform, legacy hardware, or terminal-based environments can use Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Edition or the Terminal Services feature of Windows 2000 (Terminal Services). The Windows Terminal Services environment allows different types of hardware platforms to act as Windows-based terminals running Windows-based 32-bit applications from a back-end Windows NT-based server.

The Windows Terminal Services configuration is a particularly compelling solution for managing the coexistence or migration period of an enterprise upgrade to Microsoft Project 2002. Running Microsoft Project under Windows Terminal Services may reduce management costs, because it shifts the primary hardware requirements from the user's computer to a centrally maintained server. It also provides a scalable solution for reducing cost of ownership without compromising productivity. Another compelling reason for running Microsoft Project under Windows Terminal Services is to get performance benefits over slower connection speeds.

How the Windows Terminal Services Platform Works

Windows Terminal Server and Windows Terminal Services contain both server and client components. The server components can host multiple, simultaneous client sessions on Windows NT Server. The client components contain only the minimum amount of software necessary to start the client computer, establish a connection to the server, and display the user interface.

All other operating system functions run on the server, including applications such as Microsoft Project. When running an application on a Windows Terminal Services computer, a separate instance of the application is opened on the server and all customizations are stored in a storage area for each individual user.

Running Microsoft Project on Windows Terminal Services

To run efficiently on the Windows Terminal Services platform, an application must meet the following requirements.

Separate application settings and user settings

In Microsoft Project, you can customize application and user settings and have them persist between Microsoft Project sessions, without interference from the settings of other users.

Application settings and user settings are stored as follows on Microsoft Project Server:

  • Application settings are stored as registry entries in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree.
  • User settings can be stored as registry entries in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER subtree, or as files in the Windows\Profiles\<Username>\Application Data folder.
Flexible path names in the registry

Installation locations can change, leaving hard-coded path names pointing to invalid sources. To run well under Windows Terminal Services, an application must have the flexibility to redirect these paths as necessary.

The Windows Installer, which is included in Microsoft Project, keeps track of installation locations and installed files. If the default server is unavailable, the Windows Installer redirects the connection to the next available source.

Support for environment variables

Environment variables are useful for administrators who want to create a different storage path for each user. For example, an administrator might want to store Microsoft Project files of all users on one server by setting the path to the following:

X:\Userdata\xl\%Username%

To work correctly, the environment variable %Username% must be expanded for each individual user. Because the Windows Terminal Services platform saves files using hard-coded paths, ordinarily it would not correctly expand an environment variable if the server were mapped to a different drive letter. However, Microsoft Project uses the detection capabilities of the Windows Installer, which automatically detects the next recognized storage location.

Use of the Temp folder for non-persistent data

Older versions of Microsoft Project store some user data files in the Temp folder. Under Windows Terminal Services, however, storing user data in the Temp folder creates a security risk and can cause conflicts between user settings, because all settings are stored in the single server-based Temp folder.

To avoid this problem, Microsoft Project uses the following folders for user data storage:

  • Windows\Profiles\<Username>\Application Data folder (under Windows NT 4.0)
  • My Documents folder

Benefits of Windows Terminal Services

Microsoft Project detects when it is running on Windows Terminal Services and optimizes its behavior automatically. For example, it uses a lower resolution for application splash screens to display them more quickly.

Running Microsoft Project in the Windows Terminal Services environment is a desirable option for corporations that require complete central control over the user environment, even to the level of total system lockdown. To configure and control user settings in Microsoft Project, administrators can use system policies. Microsoft Project provides the same level of support for system policies when running on Windows and Windows Terminal Services platforms.

Another compelling reason for running Microsoft Project under Windows Terminal Services is to get performance benefits over slower connection speeds.

See Also

For information about installing Microsoft Project in a Windows Terminal Services environment, see the Windows Terminal Services resource kit article.

For information about using system policies in Microsoft Project, see the Using System Policies resource kit article.