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You may be wondering about how you can connect one weather station to multiple computers in your local network. It is possible with Virtual Weather Station and the appropriate file sharing permissions on your network. If you are running Windows XP or above it is possible to enable guest file sharing with read only access to your Virtual Weather Station directory and allow users of your home or work network to remotely connect and download data from a single weather station.
It is recomended that you are using the following software and operating system packages:
- Ambient Weather Virtual Weather Station Internet Edition
- Windows XP, Vista, or 7
- A Home or Work Network that Supports Windows File Sharing
Step 1: Enable the Guest Sharing Account on your Computer
With Administrator permissions you need to open Computer Management on your computer. It is located under Administrative Tools in the Control Panel. You might need to show the Classic Control Panel to see all icons listed including the Administrative Tools.
- In the Computer Management go to Users and Groups and select the Users Folder
- Enable the “Guest” account. Unselect “Disable.”
- Click “Apply” and “OK” and exit the windows. Now exit Computer Management
Step 2: Allow Everyone to have Read-Only Access to the VWS folder
Now go to your C: drive or the drive that you installed Virtual Weather Station to. Select the “vws” folder and right click it and left click “Properties.” Go to “Sharing” and click “Share” to share the folder.
Click “Share” and finish the wizard. Then exit all the property dialogs and close the Explorer Window for your drive.
Step 3: Configure Virtual Weather Station to use “Stationless” mode
First open the network share on your computer by using the “Run” command. It is either located in the Start Menu or you can use “Windows Key”+”R” to activate the Run dialog. Type in the network path to the machine with the weather data. For example: “\\” + “machinename” + “\vws.”
Now open Virtual Weather Station. If you haven’t configured a weather station previously then a dialog will prompt you to, else you need to go to the proper menu item to configure station settings. The menu is “Communications” and you need to select “Communications” again under the menu.
Using the following dialog you can configure Virtual Weather Station for Stationless Mode:
Under the first dialog that shows select “Stationless” as the Weather Station. Under the advanced Stationless settings enter the path to the data.csv file that contains weather station data. Please note that your Weather Station computer must be generating CSV data in the “vws\csv” folder.
If you would like to use more advanced features of the Virtual Weather Station select “Run VWS Remotely” and point it to the “vws” network folder path. For the CSV path it should be pointed to “vws\data\csv\data.csv.”
Now, why won’t my station data update on my remote computer? Remember that you must set on your Weather Station computer, under “CSV Settings,” to generate CSV files every 3 seconds.
Here is a screenshot of the dialog under “Settings” > “CSV Export” that should be set on your primary weather station computer:
Complete
Now your secondary desktop should be able to access weather information from your primary weather station.
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