[SIMS] Installing sims for the first time. A few problems

[fredted40x]

Hi,

SIMS has been setup on the server by an outside guy and its now up to us to install it onto the workstations. WE have made a few guesses but would like to ask for some assistance.

The setup files are located on the server so we have mapped the sims folder onto the admin account. The local program files is left default on the c drive.

The shared program files has been linked to \\server\sims but we are unsure if this is correct.

When we try and log in after installation we get error 0.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Fred

[synaesthesia]

Add the sims directory (so if you've mapped a drive to s:\ then s:\sims) to your environment paths.
Make sure the connect.ini file in the sims directory on the computer points to the correct path (i.e. s:\sims as per above example)

[vikpaw]

Firstly, is this outside guy an official approved support entity? Else, you'll be hard pushed to get support from Capita or your local team whoever that might be.
I'd make sure you have an account on Capita's SupportNet website as you're going to be in for some fun

Are you running simsinst.exe from the setups directory to do the install? A typical routine would be this:

So you map a drive to the sims share e.g. S:, which could be \\server\share, within which is the sims folder.
Run S:\sims\setups\simsinst.exe
Choose to install as a sims workstation.
Choose S:\sims for the first input, and S:\sims\setups for the second input, and the local c:\program files\sims\sims .net\ for the last input.
This should then put on all the pre-requisites and run the install files.

Which version of SIMS do you have installed at server level? The latest needs Microsoft .Net framework 4 (Extended)
You get that far right with no error?

On first run it will ask you to locate the SIMS install, so i would select in the first input S:\sims and in this location there should already be a central connect.ini file. This will contain the details of the server and database instance name where sims is stored.

You must have got vaguely that far, to have the reason 0 error. It's worth double checking things though.

Does SIMS work okay on the server? If it's a problem everywhere the install could be borked, and detaching and reattaching the db could help.

If it does work on the server, make sure that access to the server / share is okay. Usually i'd check permissions on local machine folders too, but for now if you're admin that should be okay.

As synaesthesia said ensure the connect.ini is correct, local and on server.

If it's a new server, e.g. 2008 or above, check the firewall, by default SQL ports will be blocked and need opening in order for you to make the connection. Also, make sure all the SQL services on the server are running okay.

If you still have the issue, there are a list of things to go through on a supportnet KB article, but start with that for now.