[sims] Sims Update

[chrisgreenwood]

Hi,

 

It's my first time i'll be pushing out a sims update (End of the day tomorrow), our network is slightly different where solus updates the server and some other servers then a batch file on the sims server copies it in an update folder then all the pcs copy it from that folder to the local sims folder when they log in.

 

Has anyone got any tips? I know how to download/deploy.

 

Just wondering if anyone has any tips or things to look out for (such as how long they generally take etc)

 

Also will be doing a patch straight after

 

hopefully it goes well but if not, i have a strike day to do it manually

[willtech]

So you are not using SOLUS3 for clients updates, only thing will be Consolidated Workstation patches. If you have any Consolidated Workstation patches you will manually patch workstations mostly I do this on ones that have issues addressed in the patch.

 

Normal patch's are mostly database patches so won't have an issue with clients.

[Koldov]

Can't help with OP issue sorry, but am interested in why you aren't using SOLUS to deploy to clients?

 

I have a few off-site clients that can never access SOLUS (and so never update) but can VPN in to the network, I wonder if your solution can help me get around this limitation.

[chrisgreenwood]

Can't help with OP issue sorry, but am interested in why you aren't using SOLUS to deploy to clients?

 

I have a few off-site clients that can never access SOLUS (and so never update) but can VPN in to the network, I wonder if your solution can help me get around this limitation.

 

It's because we're on an intune network so we don't have any pcs on AD (its all cloud rubbish) so thats why we have to pull the update from the server once the server has updated. It's a pain because the clients wont update until you log in

 

So you are not using SOLUS3 for clients updates, only thing will be Consolidated Workstation patches. If you have any Consolidated Workstation patches you will manually patch workstations mostly I do this on ones that have issues addressed in the patch.

Normal patch's are mostly database patches so won't have an issue with clients.

 

We use the solus to upgrade the servers then the clients pull the update from the sims server and patches we do from solous anyway

 

 

Anyway update went fairly well, had to do it twice

Edited July 6, 2023 by chrisgreenwood

[David44]

It's because we're on an intune network so we don't have any pcs on AD (its all cloud rubbish) so thats why we have to pull the update from the server once the server has updated. It's a pain because the clients wont update until you log in

 

We do the same even though we have AD. The client upgrade happens as part of the login script. At least you know when it's going to install and if it doesn't for some reason you can easily attempt it again. My understanding is that with Solus, it installs when it feels like it and if it fails, tough.

[Koldov]

Hi @chrisgreenwood or @David44 (or anyone else that does this method of SIMS update).

 

If you get the time, I would be grateful if you could share the method/scripts to accomplish this.

 

I've only ever used SOLUS and never done a manual update for a client, so wouldn't even know where to start!

 

I can only presume that somehow the update has to be extracted to a share and then the client instructed to install it, but how you'd script that is beyond me...

[Damon]

I think you can just launch SIMSLoad.exe from the SIMS client directory and it performs a check to see if SIMS is in line with the expected version in the Setups directory in the SIMS.ini. If it's inline, it closes, if not, it runs the upgrade for the client. This is what the SIMS shortcut does normally if there's no Solus client installed.

[mikes]

SIMSLOAD sometimes works but for us mostly it does not work. Our SIMS server is upgraded by our LEA and they don't use SOLUS or either that or we have to pay a huge fee to use it, I ended up writing a batch file that called Simsapplicationsetup, AMpark and manual setups with the silent switch, then I have to run that via Impero to upgrade stations. It's a massive pain in the backside but before that the way our school upgraded SIMS was to walk to each machine and manually run SIMSinst every upgrade!!

Our new head is inquiring about automatic updates, does everyone have to pay for SOLUS separately to SIMS ?? how much does it cost?

[Koldov]

Just to elaborate, we have a few users who WFH and for some reason their machines will not connect to SOLUS over the VPN (possibly I.P. related or something), one of them is from the Finance Dept. (so uses FMS) and once an update is applied here, they are effectively locked out (database mismatch) until they can bring their laptop on to site. They are standard users, so can't expect anything to be run manually by them really, but I could get a start-up script to run and they can access the server file shares.

[chrisgreenwood]

Hi @chrisgreenwood or @David44 (or anyone else that does this method of SIMS update).

 

If you get the time, I would be grateful if you could share the method/scripts to accomplish this.

 

I've only ever used SOLUS and never done a manual update for a client, so wouldn't even know where to start!

 

I can only presume that somehow the update has to be extracted to a share and then the client instructed to install it, but how you'd script that is beyond me...

I can dm you the computer one

 

i forgot to grab one on the server before i went