WJEC Surpass

[gmj]

Hello!

 

Anyone else having an issue with the WJEC Surpass secure client? Installed to workstation and on first run it will check for updates. Reports back that it has been updated and the application needs to be restarted.....but when you close and restart the same message is displayed. Restarting the workstation makes no difference either. I'm a bit stuck now. Anyone got any ideas or also experiencing this?

 

Thanks,

 

gmj

[ITGURU]

Are you running a proxy and does the program files folder have everyone with full control permissions?

[mavhc]

Because it's a 40 year old Windows 3.1 program? Why can't exam boards get people to write working software? I secure client where the user can edit the application? Laughable

[3s-gtech]

It’s not WJEC only, they bought it in. Other boards and exams companies also use it. We haven’t had to use it for a few years, I don’t miss it at all.

[free780]

And it uses flash which EOL at the end of 2020. Make sure you've whitelisted the domain it uses and the CRLs. If possible use a transparent proxy as it works better. Whitelist the exes and the folder in AV/Impero etc. Run procmon when running an update to check what's going on. Sometimes SQL CE can be version specific so can collide with other versions installed.

[mavhc]

It’s not WJEC only, they bought it in. Other boards and exams companies also use it. We haven’t had to use it for a few years, I don’t miss it at all.

 

Indeed, they're all bad at their job

[free780]

The origin of the software.

https://www.btl.com/

[mavhc]

Well, that sums it up:

 

[free780]

Mixed content.

[ITGuyNW]

Yeah I'm having the same issue, then randomly some workstations will start it and some others don't. Now doing another full uninstall/reboot/re-install to see if that solves it.

[chazzy2501]

Sorry, I have no helpful input but I had a full week of issues with wjec and phoned their helpdesk 3 times, then as asked sent 3 emails restating everything I discussed. I never got a single reply to my technical support queries.

 

ok, things to note,

 

The install doc says it needs .net4.0 BUT in fact also needs .net 3.5!

You have to allow users to execute 2 programs (unrestricted)in the public shared profile (umm secure!)

You'll have to distribute an xml file with proxy details in (as it doesn't follow proxy.pac / automatic proxy) an figure out yourself how to distribute.

Oh the directories are hardcoded so you can't change them!

You also need SQL compact edition but at least they dropped the requirement of install both the 32 and 64 bit editions!

OH! need to quickly install a copy! (well it fails to install if you elevate from standard to administrator!) full admin or deploy..... yay! (that took 2 days of troubleshooting and wjec failing to help)

 

What a pile of rubbish.

[ITGuyNW]

I get PDQ to do a lot of the heavy lifting. It all worked perfectly fine last Summer however this year its getting stuck on updates. Well it was. I've done the uninstall/reboot/reinstall and it's all fine now.

 

One tip, for the proxy I entered the details in the Secure Client when asked on one machine, then I copied the proxy written to the Secure Client directory to other machines via PDQ, it was then happy. I think it converts the proxy password to hex or similar.

[FragglePete]

I had this yesterday - had us in a bit of panic for it being used for a couple of exams as they changed to room on me in the last moment so had to get it installed elsewhere.

 

It would seem a remote install using the .msi didn't work - gave the problem that you describe in the first post. But, we found installing it manually and letting it then do an update check, etc logged in as an admin it then seemed to work. The problem was we had already had it installed on 25 computers. On these, we just had to manually delete the C:\Users\Public\Surpass folder and then run the .MSI manually.

It was just the quickest way to get it working when we had less than an hour to resolve!

The other rooms where we had the older client already installed, these updated without any issues - but again, we did a mass logon and ran the program with an admin user just to make sure it all updated correctly.

 

HTH

 

Pete