Error: "Machine Name not Unique" when opening Tax from AO Practice Manager on a Terminal Server Environment

This support note applies to:

AO Tax (NZ)
AO Practice Manager (NZ)
AO Practice Manager (AU)
AO Tax (AU)

Article ID: 35832

When opening MYOB Accountants Office (AO) Tax from AO Practice Manager in a Terminal Server environment, you may experience the error "Machine Name not Unique".

Each workstation using System Services must be identified by its own unique machine name. When System Services detects that the machine name is already in use, it triggers the above error. For example, when all users log onto the same Terminal Server.

You can resolve this error by following the three steps. This will allow System Services to identify users by their windows username instead of their machine name.

Prior to commencing these steps, we recommend that you have file extensions turned on. Step-by-step instructions are available in Viewing hidden files, folders and drives or enabling file extensions in Windows.

1. Create the MYOBAO.cmd file

Open My Computer and browse to the drive where the MYOBAO folder is located.
Right-click in the drive and from the New menu select Text Document. A new text document .txt appears.
Change the name of the New Text Document.txt to MYOBAO.cmd and press ENTER. The MYOBAO.cmd is created.
Right-click the MYOBAO.cmd file and select Edit.

Copy the following script and paste it into the MYOBAO.cmd

If you're using a...	Copy and paste this script into the MYOBAO.cmd file
32-bit operating system	@ECHO OFF SET CLIENTNAME=%USERNAME% start "MYOB AO" "C:\Program Files\MYOB\Central\Deploy\ClientFrameWork.exe"
64-bit operating system	@ECHO OFF SET CLIENTNAME=%USERNAME% start "MYOB AO" "C:\Program Files (x86)\MYOB\Central\Deploy\ClientFrameWork.exe"

From the File menu select Exit and save your changes to the file.

2. Create the new desktop shortcut

Right-click the MYOBAO.cmd file created above, and from the Send to menu select Desktop. A shortcut is created on the Windows desktop.
On the Windows desktop, right-click the Shortcut to MYOBAO.cmd file and select Properties. The Shortcut to MYOBAO.cmd Properties window opens.
Click the Change Icon button. The Change Icon window appears.
Click the Browse button and navigate to X:\AONET\MYOBAO\AOSQL\Central\Deploy\ where X:\ is drive letter of the installation location of AO. The contents of the Deploy folder appears.
Locate and select the ClientFrameWork.exe file and click Open. The executable is selected.
Click OK twice. The Shortcut to MYOBAO.cmd now displays the Clientframework.exe icon.
Right-click the Shortcut to MYOBAO.cmd and select Rename. The name becomes editable.
Change the icon name to MYOB AO and press ENTER on the keyboard. The name of the desktop icon now displays as MYOB AO.

3. Copy the desktop icon to all user desktops

Right-click the MYOBAO desktop icon and select Copy. The icon is copied.
Right-click the Windows Start button and select Explore All Users. The All User Start Menu appears.
Select the Desktop folder in the left-hand navigation pane. The contents of the All Users desktop folder appear in the right-hand pane.

Alternatively, from Windows Explorer you can navigate to C:\Users\All Users\Desktop.
Delete the existing MYOB AO shortcut. The shortcut is deleted.
Right-click in the All Users desktop folder and select Paste. The MYOBAO desktop icon appears in the folder.
Click Close. The All Users desktop folder closes.

The batch file created appears on all users' desktops when they log onto the Terminal Server. When opening MYOB AO from the new shortcut, users will now be able to open Tax from AO Practice Manager.

If you continue to experience this error when logging into AO using the batch file, right-click on the MYOBAO desktop icon and select Run as Administrator.