[sims] Best way of allowing Staff to update SIMS?

[Rawns]

Exactly. It's no longer a case of 'if' but 'when' SOLUS2 support ends, and when you don't have a updated Setups folder available to build your own packages, and 10,000 other schools screaming for SOLUS3 help, it's going to be stressful for you.

[timbo343]

We use SIMSperm here. Works fine on all machines. Only have to look at Exams and Data officer machine once applied but its better than running round all machines.

[matt40k]

I'd rather not go down the app-v route, why spend extra money on licensing and server hardware making something that its not designed that way ? Are the clients low-end? In which case the school should be looking at a web based MIS if this is path they want to go down. Fair enough if you've done everything app-v and your running on atoms or something low power and SIMS is the odd one out

[AJWhite1970]

Run Sims as a portable app from a network share. Just one place that needs updating then....

[matt40k]

Run Sims as a portable app from a network share. Just one place that needs updating then....

 

No, it's not designed that way, although it should work, transferring 150mb+ for each user, everytime is not good idea for starters. Legacy apps, like Nova, will also need com components to be reg'd on your machine also.

[Ephelyon]

I'm aware of one local school doing that, though we don't do it here.

[vikpaw]

I'm just going to throw something out there, i'm not a splitter - honest.

Why not just remove the need for SIMS altogether? I'm looking at the answer in the sponsored ad at the top of the thread. SLG!

Most users don't need the full desktop app experience anyway.

[vikpaw]

I think you may also need to enable the "Launching programs and unsafe files" setting in "Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Internet Explorer/Internet Control Panel/Security Page/Intranet Zone"

That's already set in IE for the intranet zone. Though, that did remind me that i think something similar like that used to work. No matter, i was just mentioning it, not a big problem for me. In fact it's quite good to know that the staff are so fearful of breaking something their default answer is to ignore or say No when prompted to make a change to the computer.

 

What i don't get is why IE still controls workflow in Windows. Surely when it was ruled unfair to force IE on people, they should have removed Windows' reliance on it, especially for Security! Anyway, I digress.

[matt40k]

What i don't get is why IE still controls workflow in Windows. Surely when it was ruled unfair to force IE on people, they should have removed Windows' reliance on it, especially for Security! Anyway, I digress.

 

That's not part of IE, its Windows. Good browsers (Chrome) will uses the OS core libraries, like proxy library, rather then creating some new and try to make it work on each OS. It makes sense that a browser should use the OS libraries, so it should mean you just set the security up once, then it should work across all good browsers

[Arthur]

they should have removed Windows' reliance on it, especially for security!

Huh? IE (along with Chrome) are the most secure browsers available.

[CAM]

I'm just going to throw something out there, i'm not a splitter - honest.

Why not just remove the need for SIMS altogether? I'm looking at the answer in the sponsored ad at the top of the thread. SLG!

Most users don't need the full desktop app experience anyway.

 

Because SLG is expensive and overkill unless your staff are also making use of the SharePoint server. I helped set it up at my last place but felt that we were only using part of the functionality and that we could have got away with using something simpler and cheaper.

Edited May 21, 2013 by CAM

[Steve21]

The problem I find with Solus 3 is simply it won't work most the time as it "should". Out of the schools we support half are solus 3 (Capita Installs), half solus 2.

 

The solus 3 sites have lots of issues, things won't deploy always, certain updates won't work, it'll hang, last spring upgrade trashed a whole schools SIMs database, and required manual rollbacks from Capita etc.

 

The solus 2 sites work... and yeah work....

 

Love the idea behind Solus3, but just seems it's really not reliable still. Even when schools have had problems that Capita engineers have remoted on to fix, they haven't always been able to. And this is running on their own installed servers. Let alone school installed stuff.

 

Maybe it just happens to be luck and everyone else has it working fine, but from my personal opinion doesn't seem reliable

 

Steve

[vikpaw]

There are alternatives to SLG of course, e.g. TASC software. I was just saying there is another angle to view the problem from.

 

I use chrome. What i was saying is that the setting recommended be it applied by policy or set in IE, is under the heading Internet Explorer.

 

"Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Internet Explorer/Internet Control Panel/Security Page/Intranet Zone"

 

I know that some settings are picked up there, but they shouldn't be listed under IE, as i didn't think IE was allowed to be core anymore. It's like saying you're free to run Chrome, but inside the engine we're hiding an unnamed process that is really IE. I don't profess to know how it works just wondering. Is there a non-IE place to set these settings?

[zag]

Its a sad state of affairs when Solus 3 should fix all this but simple doesn't!

 

We elevate all teacher laptops to power users, this means they upgrade automatically using Solus 2.

[vikpaw]

So U Ls3 Edited May 21, 2013 by vikpaw

[Ephelyon]

Been chatting with @vikpaw about this and I thought I'd share the script I was talking about, for people with SOLUS trouble:

 

 

@echo off

echo Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")> CheckVer.vbs

echo Wscript.Echo objFSO.GetFileVersion(wscript.arguments(0))>> CheckVer.vbs

for /f %%i in ('cscript /nologo CheckVer.vbs \\[simsserver]\SIMSRoot$\SIMS\Setups\SIMSApplicationSetup.exe') do set LatestVer=%%i

del CheckVer.vbs

find "%LatestVer%" "C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net\SIMSLoad.ini" && goto :eof

start /w \\[simsserver]\SIMSRoot$\SIMS\Setups\SIMSInfrastructureSetup.exe {QuietMode} [sIMSDotNetDirectory]="C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net"

start /w \\[simsserver]\SIMSRoot$\SIMS\Setups\SIMSApplicationSetup.exe {QuietMode} [sIMSDotNetDirectory]="C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net"

start /w \\[simsserver]\SIMSRoot$\SIMS\Setups\SIMSManualSetup.exe {QuietMode} [sIMSDotNetDirectory]="C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net"

start /w \\[simsserver]\SIMSRoot$\SIMS\Setups\SIMSAMPARKSetup.exe {QuietMode} [sIMSDotNetDirectory]="C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net"

 

This is pretty basic one, but if you want to show progress on startup so people don't wonder why it's taking so long, make sure to deploy PSExec to all your workstations and then replace "start /w" with "psexec -accepteula -is \\%ComputerName% psexec -isx cmd /c".

 

Remember this is running as SYSTEM because it's a startup script, which is able to access the SIMSRoot$ share on our network but I don't know if that's an "oddity" or not. Either way there are Local Security Policy settings to enable that if it's not the case for you.

[matt40k]

This topic reminds me when I had a school blame "Cr@pita" because SOLUS2 kept failing to download the update - because the SIMS server was connected to the network via a 22 MB\s wifi connection with low signal strength.

[Rawns]

This topic reminds me when I had a school blame "Cr@pita" because SOLUS2 kept failing to download the update - because the SIMS server was connected to the network via a 22 MB\s wifi connection with low signal strength.

 

Oh my life! That's classic!!!