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Update on user machines.

Koldov

By Koldov
in MIS Systems

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Koldov

Koldov

Posted
Posted

Hi All,

 

So I'm sure this has been asked a few times already, however I can't find the thread that has a definative answer.

 

With the latest update I am faced with trying to update the teachers laptops. Traditionally, this requires me trying to wrestle the laptops from the teacher during the school day (like trying to rip their right arm off) signing on as administrator and running SIMS for it to update itself.

 

We are still on SOLUS 2, so I would like to ask if anyone can give me the steps to allow SIMS to update itself while the teachers are logged on and they run SIMS under their own account?

 

Teachers are only standard users on Win7 laptops and do not have administrative rights.

 

Kol.

Valyyn

Valyyn

Posted
Posted
We give the staff security group Full Control permissions to the SIMS (and PARS in our case) folders in Program Files. This seems to be all they need as no staff are admins, but they can all run SIMS and PARS updates.
clareq

clareq

Posted
Posted
You probably don't want to know this but ...! SOLUS3 can download in the background.

 

It might download in the background, but it only loads if the machine is on when the update is deployed, else it will fail. While this works fine for my desktop machines, which I can wake up and deploy SIMS to via SOLUS 3 out of hours, it is not a viable solution for the 100+ staff laptops we have. Staff bring these machines in from home, boot them up, and expect SIMS to work immediately. With the right permissions on the machine this is the case with SOLUS 2. It doesn't happen with SOLUS 3. When I was on the course for SOLUS 3 I raised this with my instructor. His reply was to call in all laptops the day before I do an update. Apart from the fact that this will never happen (teachers don't like letting go of their laptops), where exactly am I meant to put 100+ laptops, powered up, overnight, while I run SOLUS 3? It's a great solution for desktop machines, but laptops still need to pull the updates. I'm dreading the day SOLUS 2 ends.

Rawns

Rawns

Posted
Posted (edited)

SOLUS3. It will download it and apply it and you can still leave staff with restrictive access.

 

It might download in the background, but it only loads if the machine is on when the update is deployed, else it will fail. While this works fine for my desktop machines, which I can wake up and deploy SIMS to via SOLUS 3 out of hours, it is not a viable solution for the 100+ staff laptops we have. Staff bring these machines in from home, boot them up, and expect SIMS to work immediately. With the right permissions on the machine this is the case with SOLUS 2. It doesn't happen with SOLUS 3. When I was on the course for SOLUS 3 I raised this with my instructor. His reply was to call in all laptops the day before I do an update. Apart from the fact that this will never happen (teachers don't like letting go of their laptops), where exactly am I meant to put 100+ laptops, powered up, overnight, while I run SOLUS 3? It's a great solution for desktop machines, but laptops still need to pull the updates. I'm dreading the day SOLUS 2 ends.

 

If the bulk of the upgrade has been installed throughout the school (ie, there is a 'successful' or 'partially successful' upgrade in SOLUS3), the laptops will upgrade automatically when they come online and SOLUS3 sees that the are out of date. It is a pain though having to wait for the upgrade to download and install, and if users are impatient and try to run SIMS beforehand, then it will require them to reboot to complete the upgrade (something SOLUS3 does not inform them of).

Edited by Rawns
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kennysarmy

kennysarmy

Posted
Posted

Our staff can also 99% update their own workstations and they are non-admins....sometimes however the update seems to remove the old version and then not install the new, that's the only time we need to logon and run the install again as admin.

 

Is nt there something called simsperm.bat that sets the permissions to allow non admin security groups to do the self-update?

kennysarmy

kennysarmy

Posted
Posted
It might download in the background, but it only loads if the machine is on when the update is deployed, else it will fail. While this works fine for my desktop machines, which I can wake up and deploy SIMS to via SOLUS 3 out of hours, it is not a viable solution for the 100+ staff laptops we have. Staff bring these machines in from home, boot them up, and expect SIMS to work immediately. With the right permissions on the machine this is the case with SOLUS 2. It doesn't happen with SOLUS 3. When I was on the course for SOLUS 3 I raised this with my instructor. His reply was to call in all laptops the day before I do an update. Apart from the fact that this will never happen (teachers don't like letting go of their laptops), where exactly am I meant to put 100+ laptops, powered up, overnight, while I run SOLUS 3? It's a great solution for desktop machines, but laptops still need to pull the updates. I'm dreading the day SOLUS 2 ends.

 

Progress eh?

PotNoodleTech

PotNoodleTech

Posted
Posted
To be honest I've always been very happy with Solus2 it's worked solidly here for 5+years. Whenever the LEA update our SIMS I inform staff that it'll take an extra few minutes to get into SIMS (and remind them again in morning brefing) and they don't mind. Very occasionaly an update fails and I manually install it - I put this down to teachers either closing down SIMS/update or logging off mid update (but have never proved it).
clareq

clareq

Posted
Posted

If the bulk of the upgrade has been installed throughout the school (ie, there is a 'successful' or 'partially successful' upgrade in SOLUS3), the laptops will upgrade automatically when they come online and SOLUS3 sees that the are out of date. It is a pain though having to wait for the upgrade to download and install, and if users are impatient and try to run SIMS beforehand, then it will require them to reboot to complete the upgrade (something SOLUS3 does not inform them of).

 

This is not our experience - a partially successful upgrade of desktop machines, if there are one or two off at the mains, will not automatically upgrade those machines once they are powered up. The teacher gets an incompatible database error message and I have to manually redeploy the update to that machine.

bossman

bossman

Posted
Posted

Just ran the latest updates using Solus 3 which updated our database from our Summer to Autumn 2 (4 Database updates in total) plus the File server and 117 workstations flawlessly, the staff are over the moon with the speed increase although it was mighty fast beforehand.

 

Solus 3 seems to be getting it's act together so I would advise moving and getting used to its interface.

 

Experiencing it from first deployment stage to now it is 100% better and I can only speak from my experience..............I'm happy :D

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round2it

round2it

Posted
Posted

solus 3 is working very well here it does have its qwerks but does the job.

 

main thing is the firewall has to be set correctly or you cant install the client.

  • Thanks 1
matt40k

matt40k

Posted
Posted
something called simsperm.bat

 

Go wash your mouth out with soap for speaking of such a thing in 2014, it should die with XP. It annoys me almost as much as when I hear "turn off UAC"

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