MicrodigitUK Posted May 22, 2019 Posted May 22, 2019 (edited) I've emailed Civica to clarify which parts of the SP800 tills don't support Windows 10 - 64 bit as I have a till running Windows 10, 64 bit with with the touch screen and various bio metric/pin entry readers. The only things I cannot test is the connection to the NRS system - unless anyone has instructions on how to add tills to the NRS system :-D @mdrabble Any news back from Civica if the SP800 will run Windows 10 - 64 bit? I have the same question for them so interested in the response they gave you. Edited May 22, 2019 by MicrodigitUK
mdrabble Posted May 22, 2019 Posted May 22, 2019 I had a reply saying they have asked their production team for information. I P2V’d the NRS box last night so I can have a play with the config settings etc. I’ll post NRS reply and also if I have any luck getting an SP800 - Win 10 64 bit till working. 2
mdrabble Posted May 24, 2019 Posted May 24, 2019 Still no reply from NRS - so in the mean time....... My P2V of the Win7 box running the system worked fine - Box was running Win7 x64 Pro, so I have managed to do an inplace upgrade to Win 10 X64 pro - and upgrade from SQL2008r2 to SQL 2014 and the thing still works. I have a till running Win10 x64 and can see the database but I think I am missing a step somewhere as the till isn't talking to the system correctly (at the moment) Does anyone have any details on how to add a new till to the NRS system? Normally I wouldn't bother spending time on something like this - but since they want £159 a till to replace the drive with an SSD running Win10 (32 bit) and then charge me a further £800 for an engineer to do the work AND insist the tills wont run x64 when they clearly do in my opinion is a bit of a take!
mavhc Posted May 24, 2019 Posted May 24, 2019 Hardware people know nothing about software. Always been true, more important now when everything is software.
azureusnation Posted May 29, 2019 Posted May 29, 2019 That is my next project across our trust. Except the Crucial BX500 128GB i get are £17.99 each, might have to buy bulk... hmmm 400 should do the trick. When our system is up for renewal we're tendering to other suppliers as Civica just want to replace everything here now anyway so we may aswell try and make a break for it and get new kit and maybe a better software solution.
sonofsanta Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 (edited) I had a reply saying they have asked their production team for information. I P2V’d the NRS box last night so I can have a play with the config settings etc. I’ll post NRS reply and also if I have any luck getting an SP800 - Win 10 64 bit till working. @mdrabble--did you get Win10 x64 working on the SP800? We've got those tills and they're still doing okay, so I'm not inclined to pay Civica for an upgrade, especially when I challenged them on the use of a WinXP derivative during installation back in 2013. I seem to recall being promised they'd be compatible with an upgrade down the line, though of course I can't find that in writing now. Got a meeting with our account manager on Thursday as I'm so sick of their support being such terrible value for money--was just trying to argue the £295 Sync2 nonsense today after I chased them off the back of a WisePay email giving us a three week deadline, and it transpires the Bursar already paid them back in February and they just haven't done a damn thing about it. We've never had an update to our server software in 6 years (incidentally--we're running V6 and always have been, on whatever POSReady2009 OS the SP800 is running) and in some instances we're paying something daft like £100 maintenance a year for biometric readers that only cost £200 in the first place, which is a p155take on the levels of a PC World warranty. It's frustrating that the system itself does, in general, work pretty well, because as a company they're bloody awful. EDIT: lololol the Bursar just forwarded on our annual bill. £750 for "software support" which apparently doesn't include any actual support, judging by the lack of updates and the £295 charge for any actual work that requires doing! I suspect I am not going to be in the finest of moods for this meeting on Thursday... Edited June 3, 2019 by sonofsanta
pete Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 It's frustrating that the system itself does, in general, work pretty well, because as a company they're bloody awful. EDIT: lololol the Bursar just forwarded on our annual bill. £750 for "software support" which apparently doesn't include any actual support, judging by the lack of updates and the £295 charge for any actual work that requires doing! I suspect I am not going to be in the finest of moods for this meeting on Thursday... Have NRS gone significantly downhill since the Civica takeover, or have they always been terrible as a company? We had them in a while ago bidding for catering across a MAT and they made a big thing about upgrade paths for tills (we've been burnt before).
sonofsanta Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Have NRS gone significantly downhill since the Civica takeover, or have they always been terrible as a company? We had them in a while ago bidding for catering across a MAT and they made a big thing about upgrade paths for tills (we've been burnt before). They always felt a bit... amateur and disorganised. We only found out our account manager had changed when I tried to phone his mobile and got someone completely different, as they'd cancelled the contract on that number and it had been reassigned. Support have been okay (though as an amusing aside, one of their engineers who came to visit once went on a rant about the government restricting computer development as Moore's Law limited how fast they could improve processors; I had to explain it was not that kind of law) but generally a bit disjointed and half-arsed, e.g. we make use of a loan system separate to FSM and while we can add kids to it, we have to phone up support to have them removed, and have been promised an update to resolve this for years. The change since the Civica take over seems to be an enormous hiking of prices.
mavhc Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Anyone who uses mobile numbers for business is disorganised, plus terrible for security if they're using sms based 2FA, now someone knows which number to steal
mdrabble Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 @sonofsanta I managed to get it half working.... Removed the existing SSD and inserted a new SSD - just so I can swap drives and hand the til back to the canteen staff in time for lunch times! Installed Win10 x64 and the touchscreen drivers. Installed VC 2005, 2008, 2010 Installed SQL Express 2008 and attached the blank databases (not sure why there were there) Installed the Loopback adapter with the address 192.168.0.1 (all tills seem to have this configured ) Added a reg frag I took from a working till - just so I have the correct database/ip details. Installed Truste - and able to run Truste.exe so I can run the admin side from till When I ran the TillXP.exe, it came up with the till suspended screen - when I entered the id number to open the till, not all the till/epos screen appeared - so I am assuming I have missed something. Need to see if I can find some RAM as the tills only have 2GB so not ideal!! - especially as they all seem to run SQL Express! Will be looking at the thing later on this week - annoyingly, emailed Civica for an update from them to see what isn't 64bit compatible and I'm still waiting for a reply! 2
sonofsanta Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Will be looking at the thing later on this week - annoyingly, emailed Civica for an update from them to see what isn't 64bit compatible and I'm still waiting for a reply! If they try to fob me off with that excuse following the meeting this Thursday (I know full well the sales bod won't have an answer) then I'll chase them too, and let you know if I get an answer! Cheers
Edu-IT Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 @sonofsanta I managed to get it half working.... Removed the existing SSD and inserted a new SSD - just so I can swap drives and hand the til back to the canteen staff in time for lunch times! Installed Win10 x64 and the touchscreen drivers. Installed VC 2005, 2008, 2010 Installed SQL Express 2008 and attached the blank databases (not sure why there were there) Installed the Loopback adapter with the address 192.168.0.1 (all tills seem to have this configured ) Added a reg frag I took from a working till - just so I have the correct database/ip details. Installed Truste - and able to run Truste.exe so I can run the admin side from till When I ran the TillXP.exe, it came up with the till suspended screen - when I entered the id number to open the till, not all the till/epos screen appeared - so I am assuming I have missed something. Need to see if I can find some RAM as the tills only have 2GB so not ideal!! - especially as they all seem to run SQL Express! Will be looking at the thing later on this week - annoyingly, emailed Civica for an update from them to see what isn't 64bit compatible and I'm still waiting for a reply! Blank database may be to do with the fact the software can work offline and then sync with the master database again when it reconnects.
mdrabble Posted June 4, 2019 Posted June 4, 2019 Totally forgot about offline mode. Not sure I will be able to get the sync working as I don't have the installer for that - unless I can fudge it and see what ocx/dll files need registering when I run the sync program.
mdrabble Posted June 6, 2019 Posted June 6, 2019 Finally had a reply from NRS! According to them - "Our partner, the manufacturer of the hardware does not support or warranty the use of Windows 10 64bit on the SP800, the hardware in general is simply old technology which is not robust or fast enough to support the extra power required to run a 64 bit application, we have conducted testing ourselves and have concurred with their findings that the till will simply not even boot and run let alone run the till software and peripherals." Interesting..... they say the SP800 wont even boot with Win10 x64........ me thinks they are trying pull the wool over the eyes! Time I crafted a suitable reply! 1
mdrabble Posted June 6, 2019 Posted June 6, 2019 I have sent a simple short reply asking about the make/model and spec of the proposed replacement tills they quoted - 15” EPOS Touch Screen Terminal I think the fact they are using the like "Our partner, the manufacturer of the hardware does not support or warranty the use of Windows 10 64bit on the SP800" is their reasoning for replacing the tills for version 8 of NRS.
sonofsanta Posted June 7, 2019 Posted June 7, 2019 It amuses me that they're pushing this upgrade away from POS2009 etc. on the basis of "Microsoft won't be releasing updates anymore, you'll be insecure!" when they have always configured the tills to have Automatic Updates turned off and don't guarantee support if you re-enable them... 1
MYK-IT Posted June 7, 2019 Posted June 7, 2019 (edited) We've received an email from CIVICA, stating that our (NRS) catering system is in need of an upgrade, with Bronze, Silver and Gold options listed at a cost from £3k, £12k or £44k (over 5-years) respectively. Additionally, I have queried not only the upgrade costs, but the 'Sync2' charges too, as we are already paying over £800 pa for software support on the system. Added: If we were offered the Sync2 upgrade (via email a few months back) does that mean our existing kit is compatible? Upgrade still required? I think an audit of our hardware is in order... It's great that many are challenging this, and some are even attempting their own upgrades to Windows 10 / SSD too (though it's a fine balance 'if' it works, but later goes wrong in the future, CIVICA are bound to say not supported, many £'s to fix/support) Incidentally we have never had any upgrades to our supplied Windows 7 Desktop / Server either, we did an SSD upgrade ourselves a few years back to boost performance etc. Based on CIVICA's other extortionate rates they have quoted us (e.g. for Correro 32000 finance), checking out other providers may be the way to go... Thanks. Edited June 7, 2019 by MYK-IT Added Questions
MYK-IT Posted June 7, 2019 Posted June 7, 2019 (edited) If they try to fob me off with that excuse following the meeting this Thursday (I know full well the sales bod won't have an answer) then I'll chase them too, and let you know if I get an answer! Cheers I'd been interested to know what the outcome of your meeting was @sonofsanta, as i have scheduled a meeting with them too, to discuss the upgrade situation / options further. And whether we start the process of researching solutions from other service providers. Thanks, Edited June 7, 2019 by MYK-IT
MYK-IT Posted June 7, 2019 Posted June 7, 2019 (Apologies for my series of posts...) Just checked out our system, and we have the following: Tills SP-820 / Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro Retail / 120GB SSD Computer (Server) i3-2100 3.1Ghz / 4GB RAM / Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit / 256GB SSD Software Sync v3.7.26 RELEASE Truest-e School Catering Management (Release 7.1.29) SQL 2008 So... perhaps OS / Software upgrades only on the tills, and SQL / OS upgrade (& full hardware replacement or Hyper-V?) for main computer/server?
Anonimouse Posted June 7, 2019 Author Posted June 7, 2019 Based on CIVICA's other extortionate rates they have quoted us (e.g. for Correro 32000 finance), checking out other providers may be the way to go... Thanks. In regards to finance packages, we've moved over to SAGE! Corero is in desperate need of an update!
Anonimouse Posted June 7, 2019 Author Posted June 7, 2019 (Apologies for my series of posts...) Just checked out our system, and we have the following: Tills SP-820 / Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro Retail / 120GB SSD Computer (Server) i3-2100 3.1Ghz / 4GB RAM / Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit / 256GB SSD Software Sync v3.7.26 RELEASE Truest-e School Catering Management (Release 7.1.29) SQL 2008 So... perhaps OS / Software upgrades only on the tills, and SQL / OS upgrade (& full hardware replacement or Hyper-V?) for main computer/server? From my conversations with Civica, you're pretty much spot on! The upgrading of the tills (at one site ours are SP850 units) is relatively cheap. The expensive bit is the project management costs, which includes moving the back-end from a desktop computer to a virtual server. Also, we need to upgrade to Version 8 of the software (from Version 6). Another big expenditure. In regards to the other school I manage, whereby the tills are a decade old, we're replacing the lot! I've secured a decent discount based on the two jobs being completed as one job ... 1
mdrabble Posted June 7, 2019 Posted June 7, 2019 As much as I would like to fight NRS/Civica on this I think we will need to bite the bullet and upgrade everything - them using the term "not supported" is a subtle way saying they can charge more if things go wrong etc.
sonofsanta Posted June 7, 2019 Posted June 7, 2019 I'd been interested to know what the outcome of your meeting was @sonofsanta, as i have scheduled a meeting with them too, to discuss the upgrade situation / options further. And whether we start the process of researching solutions from other service providers. Thanks, I've gotten a few concessions out of them--hopefully getting the £195 SYNC2 thing refunded, given that we were told about it last August, finally got sent an invoice in March and paid it then, and only actually got an appointment for the work to be done yesterday after I forwarded on a message from WisePay about TLS1.0 being disabled in a fortnight--and hopefully going to get an update on our server software which has been static for 6 years despite us asking for certain functionality and being promised it in an update. Fundamentally, though, our tills (SP-800) do support the update to Win10, so we can take a cheaper option now (i.e. <£1k, not £10k). If I can keep them going for another four years, they'll have done a decade and we can upgrade fully at that point. I might still push back on the price, though. £159 for each SSD is steep, and when I pushed on it given that I can buy them for £15 from Amazon, I was countered that these are preconfigured SSDs so have had work done on them. Only after the meeting did I realise that "work done on them" ought to just be "imaged the thing for twenty minutes"... but not exactly got much leverage to complain, I suppose. 2
mdrabble Posted June 7, 2019 Posted June 7, 2019 I've gotten a few concessions out of them--hopefully getting the £195 SYNC2 thing refunded, given that we were told about it last August, finally got sent an invoice in March and paid it then, and only actually got an appointment for the work to be done yesterday after I forwarded on a message from WisePay about TLS1.0 being disabled in a fortnight--and hopefully going to get an update on our server software which has been static for 6 years despite us asking for certain functionality and being promised it in an update. Fundamentally, though, our tills (SP-800) do support the update to Win10, so we can take a cheaper option now (i.e. <£1k, not £10k). If I can keep them going for another four years, they'll have done a decade and we can upgrade fully at that point. I might still push back on the price, though. £159 for each SSD is steep, and when I pushed on it given that I can buy them for £15 from Amazon, I was countered that these are preconfigured SSDs so have had work done on them. Only after the meeting did I realise that "work done on them" ought to just be "imaged the thing for twenty minutes"... but not exactly got much leverage to complain, I suppose. Exactly the same boat. Will need to have a chat with Finance Manager to see which way she wants to go.
MYK-IT Posted June 7, 2019 Posted June 7, 2019 (edited) Thanks @Anonimouse for confirming my logic! And i thought the same about changing finance system... didn't go down well with the Finance Department. @sonofsanta just checked, our cheapest quote (Bronze) that includes: Installation and verification of Windows 10 32-bit Operating System Installation and verification of Sync 2 VM server data migration is £2,495 + VAT I did note that the Silver Option, with new EPOS Terminals would have Windows 10 64-BIT OS Just thinking about it, VM migration... for us that would could create more work in one respect, as the Catering Company currently use that as their main computer (to access all details etc), and the tills are totally (physically) separated on their own network (cabling) connected via 2nd NIC. So if all the system is going to be migrated to our VM Host, I'll have to jig around the network with VLAN'ing, rules etc... Unless this, or a more powerful computer runs Hyper-V and the virtualised server within it... Sorry, don't mean to rant... just too much going on, without this being added to the mix! Edited June 7, 2019 by MYK-IT
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