Running a single instance of application from network computers

[Mark_Yedinak]

I can envision this causing issues in the future. What happens is the application closes unexpectedly? The file will be there and you won't be able to start the application because it will think one is already running. Preferred method would be to have a server which the application registers with. The application will have a heartbeat so the server will know it is still running. When the application exits it will unregister with the server. If the application exist unexpectedly and doesn't unregister the server will automatically unregister it after some specified period of time with no heartbeat.

I have seen application have issues with network drives because they may not be running as the logged in user, such as run as administrator, and that user does not have access to the network drive.

I should also note that I am not a fan of network shared variables. I prefer using a messaging protocol to pass information between distributed devices/applications on a network.