Hello everybody, we are glad to announce that a new version of Tabbles, 3.1.25, is finally here. It contains support for Windows 10 and some major bug fixes. In particular, it fixes some annoying problems you had when using Explorer in some situations, and some crashes which were apparently not uncommon on many machines. Read more at our changelog.

We got a lot of reports about these issues, so the new version should make quite a few of you happy!

Tabbles on Windows 10

We got Tabbles to run on Windows 10!

Please let us know if you have any trouble with it, as usual.

To remove this message, first you have to understand the difference between a Windows username and a Tabbles username.

Understanding your Windows and Tabbles usernames

Your Windows username is the thing you type here when you login to Windows:

Sometimes Windows does not ask you your Windows username, but only your Windows password:

in this case, you might not know what your Windows username really is. To find out, open a terminal and type

echo %username%

and your Windows username will be printed. In my case, it is “mau2″, as you can see:

Now you know how to find your Windows username.

Your Tabbles username, on the other hand, is the one you type here to login to Tabbles:

for Tabbles Cloud, or here for Tabbles Lan:

So now you know the difference between Windows username and Tabbles username.

When does the error message appear

The error appears when you have two different windows users (either on the same machine or on different machines) and you are trying to use both with the same Tabbles user.

Why does the error message appear

It is a security measure, meant to avoid that two different persons use the same Tabbles user, and therefore the same activation key.

The first time you start Tabbles with a given Tabbles user, your Tabbles user becomes bound with your Windows username. From that moment, that Tabbles user can only be used with that Windows username, otherwise you get the license violation message.

Typical cases where you will get the problem

1) you have two machines, and therefore two Windows users, one on each machine; but these Windows users have a different name; and you are trying to use both users with the same Tabbles user.

2) you have only one machine, but you have two Windows users on that machine; and you are trying to use Tabbles with both, with the same Tabbles user name. For example, you have a Windows user called “administrator” and a Windows user called “Jack”. You login into Tabbles the first time with Administrator, so your Tabbles user name becomes bound to “administrator”. Then, when you use windows as “Jack”, you start Tabbles and you get the error.

How to solve the problem

1) If your problem is #1 above, this means that you have two machines with two different Windows users, and these Windows users have a different name. If you want to use Tabbles from both machines, you have to create a new Window user on one of the machines, whose name matches the one on the other machine, and start using Windows with that user instead. In other words, you cannot have a Windows user called “mike” on one machine, and another called “mike_evans”, or “administrator”, on another machine. After you created the new Windows user, you will need to rebind the Windows username to the Tabbles user (see below).

2) if your problem is #2 above, i.e. you have just one machine but two different Windows users on it, you will have to decide which Windows username will be able to use your Tabbles user. Then, you will have to rebind that Windows username to the correct Tabbles username (see below).

How to rebind the Windows username to the Tabbles username

If you bought a Tabbles activation key, this is easy. First, login to Windows with the correct windows username you chose above. Then start Tabbles with your Tabbles username. In the Tabbles menu, just click “help” -> register, and then click “Revert to Tabbles free”.

Then all your Windows users will be unbound from that Tabbles user. Then, reenter the activation key, i.e. register again. The current Windows username will be bound to the current Tabbles user, and the problem will be gone.

If you did not buy a Tabbles activation key, i.e. you are using Tabbles free, please write to us at bugs@tabbles.net, because the procedure is more complicated and depends on whether you are using Tabbles Cloud or Tabbles Lan.

Whether you use Tabbles Lan or Tabbles Cloud, it is possible that you may encounter this problem when trying to login:

If you have a Tabbles environment with multiple machines, this message may appear only one some of your machines (those where Sql Server is not installed). This howto will help you in this case as well.

To troubleshoot this problem, you need to use Microsoft Sql Server Management Studio (hencefort SSMS).

Start SSMS. (If you have a Tabbles environment with multiple machines, SSMS must be started from the same machine where the Tabbles client which is failing to connect is installed. If you don’t have SSMS installed on that machine, you need to install it there first.)

You will be presented with the login dialog:

1) Now, if you are using Tabbles Cloud, enter the following :


server name: sql1102.shared-servers.com, 1089
Authentication: Sql Server Authentication
login: tabblesClient
password: client

And press “connect”. If it does not work, either your internet connection is down, or there is a firewall or an antivirus blocking the connection to our Cloud Sql Server. In this case it is the job of the network administrator to allow traffic to pass. Try disabling the firewall or the antivirus.

If it does work, then Tabbles should work too. If it does not, contact us at bugs@tabbles.net.

2) If you are using Tabbles Lan (i.e. you are using your own Sql Server) enter the following:

server name: MACHINENAMESERVERNAME
Authentication: Sql Server Authentication
login: tabblesClient
password: client


(in the “server name” field, you might need to enter only MACHINENAME, instead of MACHINENAMESERVERNAME. This depends on how you configured Sql Server. We cannot know that.)

If it does not connect, there are several possibilities:

1) you might have forgotten to enable Sql Authentication on your Sql Server. See this howto for details.

2) if you are not on the same machine where Sql Server is installed, you might have forgotten to make Sql Server accessible from other machines. See this howto for details.

3) your network connection might be down or unstable.

4) you might have a firewall or an antivirus blocking the connection to your Sql Server. Try disabling them.

5) you might not have created the Tabbles database yet. You should first press the button “create database”, before you try to create a user or to login.

If it does connect, then Tabbles should connect too. If it does not, please write us at bugs@tabbles.net.

Sometimes, when trying to set up Tabbles Lan, the “create database” button succeeds, but then you try the “create user” button and you get “Error connecting to database“:

In this case, the reason is almost certainly that you did not enable Sql Authentication in your Sql Server installation. (Windows authentication only allows you to create the database, but then, to create the user and login, you need Sql Authentication. )

Here is how to enable Sql Authentication with Sql Server Management Studio:

Connect to the server as admin:

Right click in the server node and choose “properties”:

and then

Press OK.

Restart the server with Sql Server Configuration Manager.

Now the “create user” button should work.

To repeat, this howto is only useful if the “create database” button works, but the “create user” does not. Elsewhere we will deal with the case where the “create database” button does not work.