Managing MS DTC

In order to manage transactions, you must first start Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC). If you have not started MS DTC on your MTS server, clients cannot access the transactional packages that you are managing.

To configure and run MS DTC clients on a Windows NT machine, the user must have write access to the local registry and remote read access to the server's Software\Classes key.

To start or stop MS DTC:

In the right pane of the MTS Explorer, select the computer on which you are managing transactional packages.
Open the Action menu and select Start MS DTC or Stop MS DTC. You can also right-click and select Start MS DTC or Stop MS DTC in the right-click menu.

You can also configure DTC settings, such as the location and size of the DTC log file, using the Advanced tab of the Computer property sheets.

To configure MS DTC settings:

In the right pane of the MTS Explorer, select the computer on which you are managing transactional packages.
Open the Action menu and select Properties. You can also right-click and select the Properties option from the right-click menu.
Select the Advanced tab. You can adjust how transactions are displayed in the Transaction List and Trace Message windows. You can also change the location or size of the MS DTC log. Increasing the size of the MS DTC log lets you run more concurrent transactions.

Important MS DTC has an upper limit on the size of the log file:

On Windows NT, the maximum log size is 512 MB.
On Windows 95, the maximum log size is 64 MB.

Do Not Compress the MS DTC Log File

The MS DTC log file cannot be compressed.

Removing DTCXATM.LOG Files

Before upgrading your installation of MTS 2.0, delete the DTCXATM.LOG file. Note that you must stop the MS DTC service before deleting DTCXATM.LOG.