Solus 3.... AGAIN!

[mattpant]

Does anybody know when a new release of SOLUS3 is due out, and what they plan to include / fix and break in it this time.

 

I have NEVER had a successful SIMS update since moving over to Solus3 (The deployment service which was suppose to make things, easier and quicker!) - OK Solus2 wasn't great, but it worked!

 

Did I hear at some point that plans for Solus3 were to include some sort of Solus2 backward compatibility mode, where by IF an update hadn't taken place on a workstation, and the user clicks on the SIMS icon, instead of a useful message saying Incompatible Database or some other random message, it would kick start into running the update.

 

We are also waiting for functions like the better handling of computer system name changes....

 

Why some of these features were not included in the product before it was released to the public at the start I will never know!

 

Any feedback, pre-release notes of forthcoming updates etc would be grateful!

 

Thanks

 

Matt

[achedgy]

Just battling with PC name change now, Solus completely refusing to accept it... Sigh (and the heads PC of course)

[synaesthesia]

Delete from environment, re-add to environment, problem solved (as renames are something we quite often do to get someone up and running quickly). Never had an issue with it here.

 

More usefully, what steps have you taken already? Why is it failing, any relevant messages, event logs etc that may shed light?

[MrMat]

As above!

 

Alternatively uninstall the agent before the name change, perform name change, re-add machine using new name.

 

If the name change has taken place before you had chance to uninstall the agent (and consequently you are now unable to uninstall using the DE because of the name change) you can easily uninstall the agent remotely using CMD/WMIC

 

wmic /node:**COMPUTER NAME** product where name="SOLUS 3 Agent" call uninstall /nointeractive

 

Once finished, remove the now offline agent from DE and then re-add using new name.

[GREED]

Mr Neal promised on twitter last night new Solus 3 will be great

[SBennett]

I know how you feel. First SOLUS 3 deployment yesterday. Been firefighting issues since then. Some PCs that do not have SOLUS installed. Not too much of an issue, but the ones that do have it installed, and then coming up with incompatible database!! At least with SOLUS 2 you can reinstall easily, unlike SOLUS 3 which seems to take its sweet time...

[matt40k]

You forgot the quotes mate, remembers he's a sales guy, so great means face lift. To counter my cynicalism, they do have a good team who's building a better product with every release.

[synaesthesia]

It'll always be good to actually say what the issues are. So often "It's rubbish, it doesn't work" etc when noone's actually said what exactly isn't working, as I said above. May well be something simple. The biggest problem in the majority of Solus deployments will without doubt be the human element, and there's lots of us to help with that!

[SovietRussia]

We have never ever had any issues with Solus 3!

[clareq]

Why can't we re-install the solus agent? Too often I find a machine where the agent is installed, but the service fails to start. A simple, quick solution should be to simply re-install the agent, but no. We have to wait until the machine isn't in use, uninstall the agent, remove the machine from Solus3, re-add it, hope the agent installs this time. What should have been a great tool, if thought through, is a headache, as I have to check machines for running agents.

It's not the best antivirus, but look how Sophos handles agents on machines. I just assign the agent by GPO and Sophos knows it's there. puts it in the correct group if it was there before, or puts it in an "unassigned" group if it hasn't seen it previously.

[MrMat]

To be fair though, that sounds more like a permissions/network/settings issue rather than a SOLUS issue. If the service is failing to start I would assume that it's something blocking it or it's been changed to manual start rather than automatic etc. Also, if it's the fact that the service is simply not starting rather than it being completely dead, you can remotely access a machines services (Administrative Tools - Services - Connect to another computer...) to start the service manually (depending on network/permissions again).

[sparkeh]

Mr Neal promised on twitter last night new Solus 3 will be great

Great we can all relax then

(Don't suppose any detail was forthcoming)

You forgot the quotes mate, remembers he's a sales guy, so great means face lift. To counter my cynicalism, they do have a good team who's building a better product with every release.

As I've said before, the current version does the job ok, the UI is diabolical but I believe that is getting an overhaul at some point?

My only issues really are the name change thing and this:

Why can't we re-install the solus agent? Too often I find a machine where the agent is installed, but the service fails to start. A simple, quick solution should be to simply re-install the agent, but no. We have to wait until the machine isn't in use, uninstall the agent, remove the machine from Solus3, re-add it, hope the agent installs this time. What should have been a great tool, if thought through, is a headache, as I have to check machines for running agents.

It's not the best antivirus, but look how Sophos handles agents on machines. I just assign the agent by GPO and Sophos knows it's there. puts it in the correct group if it was there before, or puts it in an "unassigned" group if it hasn't seen it previously.

Both things are just plain daft.

[clareq]

I do access the services remotely and attempt to restart the service. It fails to do so. All our SIMS machines are subject to the same GPOs, and built in the same way, from the same image, so I doubt very much it's permissions, as it only effects 5-10% of machines. Which machines it affects is random.

[GREED]

You forgot the quotes mate, remembers he's a sales guy, so great means face lift. To counter my cynicalism, they do have a good team who's building a better product with every release.

 

I paraphrased... I know that is what he meant to say (committing Phil now...)!

 

Great we can all relax then

(Don't suppose any detail was forthcoming)

 

Something about it being 4 clicks and done... that was all. C'mon he has to keep some surprises for BETT!

[Cache]

Why can't we re-install the solus agent? Too often I find a machine where the agent is installed, but the service fails to start. A simple, quick solution should be to simply re-install the agent, but no. We have to wait until the machine isn't in use, uninstall the agent, remove the machine from Solus3, re-add it, hope the agent installs this time. What should have been a great tool, if thought through, is a headache, as I have to check machines for running agents.

It's not the best antivirus, but look how Sophos handles agents on machines. I just assign the agent by GPO and Sophos knows it's there. puts it in the correct group if it was there before, or puts it in an "unassigned" group if it hasn't seen it previously.

 

I've managed this in a variety of ways.

 

You can try a repair install / manual upgrade if the upgrade has failed to work by exporting the agent installer from Solus 3 and running it on the local pc. Sometimes I've needed to specify a log file location sometimes I haven't, it seems to do as it wants.

 

To reinstall a system that isn't working at all, I've taken a copy of the Solus3 program files folder, uninstalled the agent, checked the service has been removed, reinstalled Solus3 manually, stopped the service, overwritten the Solus3 program files folder and restarted the service.

 

Amazingly Solus3 repicked this machine up ok, however it is such a faff I don't think I would do it on a regular basis. I only had 5 machines with major Agent problems after doing the 3.6 update.

[scholarpack]

It's a mystery to us why it's the responsibility of customers to do their own software updates. I'm pretty sure they have better things to do..

[matt40k]

You know @PhilNeal going to quote you when they announce a (true) cloud SIMS

[GREED]

Windows? IOS? In fact just about every software I can think of. Everything except cloud hosted solutions...

[GREED]

You know @PhilNeal going to quote you when they announce a (true) cloud SIMS

 

True cloud? Lets see... because I then challenge every customer to ensure they know as guardians of the data where their data is being stored... sorry, but it is nice to be on the otherside of that argument for a change!

 

On the other hand, yes it is valuable ammunition... lets not keep supplying him with it! I must say i do see what Richard is saying... his and most other MIS solutions have the updates done for them now. I think this is quite limited to this market, certainly within the consumer market.

[matt40k]

Lets see... because I then challenge every customer to ensure they know as guardians of the data where their data is being stored...

 

You've just made RackSpace and Microsoft cry - you haven't heard about private cloud and the whole mashup of hybrid-ness so you can physically locate the servers but have the power of the cloud.

[scholarpack]

Windows? IOS? In fact just about every software I can think of. Everything except cloud hosted solutions...

 

Sure, native operating systems might ask you first ... but even then it's only one click.

 

Remind me of the last time you had to roll out a manual update on modern enterprise software like Heroku, Salesforce, Google Apps, Office 365 or Oracle. It just doesn't happen. Because most other verticals wouldn't stand for it..and neither should schools.

[matt40k]

Oracle

 

Go wash your mouth out with soap then go stand in the corner.

[scholarpack]

Go wash your mouth out with soap then go stand in the corner.

 

You've got to admire the way they have transitioned from old school applications to absolutely killing it in the cloud sector over a period of about 5 years.

[matt40k]

I wouldn't quite say killing it, development has speed up on the application side. Forced to adapt to a changing market perhaps.

[GREED]

Sure, native operating systems might ask you first ... but even then it's only one click.

 

Remind me of the last time you had to roll out a manual update on modern enterprise software like Heroku, Salesforce, Google Apps, Office 365 or Oracle. It just doesn't happen. Because most other verticals wouldn't stand for it..and neither should schools.

 

I think that is my point, cloud solutions are fine, yet anything still installed locally in some way still needs intervention for updating. All the examples used are hosted applications... so we are not disagreeing?