Tony_Mc Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 Can I instal this on my desktop as a test? my staff are quite worried about the possible changes. I have never tried to upgrade on a single machine before.
Geoff Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 SQL server uses PAE, so it's not as big a deal as it could be.
matt40k Posted March 30, 2009 Author Posted March 30, 2009 Throw more RAM at it! That's my answer. Look at 64bit as well, otherwise it'll be wasted. (PS: I like tons of ram. 2GB is nothing nowadays) @Tony_MC Yes, contact your sims support and ask them about setting up a test server.
rasssp Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 server currently has 4gb, planning to up to 8gb next month depending on if we ever get any money!
matt40k Posted March 30, 2009 Author Posted March 30, 2009 server currently has 4gb, planning to up to 8gb next month depending on if we ever get any money! And SQL is only using 2GB? Sounds like the 32bit limit! Unless it's running anything else? Please tell it isn't running Exchange!
rasssp Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 nah, exchange has its own 64bit monster! all we have on our sims server is sims and backupexec 2003 32bit
kmount Posted March 30, 2009 Posted March 30, 2009 For those of us with a hosted (at capita) solution they are patching it this weekend so we can roll the upgrade early next week. For info, they failed their upgrade and are going to try it again tonight. Not bad, let us know at 2pm on the Monday when the maintenance window ended at 6am yesterday.
matt40k Posted March 30, 2009 Author Posted March 30, 2009 nah, exchange has its own 64bit monster! all we have on our sims server is sims and backupexec 2003 32bit Phew... Sounds like you've hit the 32bit barrier (did it hurt?)
rasssp Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 Phew... Sounds like you've hit the 32bit barrier (did it hurt?) hahaha, its going to hurt the budget! Looks like new server time, been recommended by capita a newer server. There goes me thinking a PowerEdge 4600 with dual 2.8 xeon and 4gb ram was enough for sims!
matt40k Posted March 31, 2009 Author Posted March 31, 2009 hahaha, its going to hurt the budget! Looks like new server time, been recommended by capita a newer server. There goes me thinking a PowerEdge 4600 with dual 2.8 xeon and 4gb ram was enough for sims! At least you have a games server now!!
rasssp Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 i wish, finally going to have a sims test server. wow dell servers are expensive! looking at arround £7k!
adhutton Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 Before I start, please forgive my ignorance on this one. I am quite new to SIMS. A question - how do you guys actually roll-out the SIMS upgrades across your network? For the last upgrade our Network Manager installed the update on the server (Win Server 2003 R2) then I went round all of the Teacher/Office PCs and logged-in, ran SIMS to allow it to update then re-started the PC. It took me ages as we have 400 PCs on our network with quite a high proportion of Teacher machines which needed upgrading. I need a quicker an easier way of doing it. Any ideas? I am going to apply the March update during the Easter holidays. Your help greatly appreciated. Andrew
powdarrmonkey Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 Before I start, please forgive my ignorance on this one. I am quite new to SIMS. A question - how do you guys actually roll-out the SIMS upgrades across your network? Just as you described, the client software on the workstations usually has to be updated at the same time. If your members of staff are power users, though, you can simply run the upgrade centrally and when they start SIMS, it will update their machine. But the time it takes to do this before they can do something useful may not earn you any favours, might be better to script logging on and launching SIMS to save your fingers. If you use WOL you won't even have to stand up 1
matt40k Posted March 31, 2009 Author Posted March 31, 2009 If you look at the shortcut to SIMS in the start menu, you'll see it calls simsload first, this updates the client. You can script simsload to run. You'll want to make sure all users have the correct permissions either use simsperm or better yet Group Policy. From memory you'll want to give all sims users full access to: C:\windows\sims.ini C:\pdoxusrs.dat - FMS only c:\program files\sims\ c:\documents and settings\all users\startmenu\programs\sims\ C:\sims - sometimes used (anycomms\b2b\fms - ie anything old) SOLUS 3 will have a totally new way to do it. 1
rasssp Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 we do it the simains way, all sims users are in a simians group, simians group is added to power users on sims machines. after an upgrade we simply tell our staff to get in 5 min early and let the sims update run, works well as we use lesson monitor for registers. so all machines get done! 1
adhutton Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 If your members of staff are power users, though, you can simply run the upgrade centrally and when they start SIMS, it will update their machine. But the time it takes to do this before they can do something useful may not earn you any favours, might be better to script logging on and launching SIMS to save your fingers. Thank you both for your advice. It's the updating of the client PCs bit that I want to automate, if possible. We need the Teacher PCs to be 'Ready-to-Go' on the first Monday back after Easter, so your suggestion of a script for logging on and launching SIMS (which I would do during Easter hols.) would be ideal. Do you have one going spare by any chance please? Don't really want to re-invent the wheel if I can help it.... Cheers - Andrew
matt40k Posted March 31, 2009 Author Posted March 31, 2009 Do you have SMS? Would you mind login on the actual workstation?
adhutton Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 (edited) I presume you mean Systems Management Server? (SMS) If so, no we don't. Looking to try and find a scripted solution if possible - unless you know of a better way, of course. Thanks - Andrew Edited March 31, 2009 by adhutton
jcollings Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 Just as you described, the client software on the workstations usually has to be updated at the same time. If your members of staff are power users, though, you can simply run the upgrade centrally and when they start SIMS, it will update their machine. But the time it takes to do this before they can do something useful may not earn you any favours, might be better to script logging on and launching SIMS to save your fingers. If you use WOL you won't even have to stand up We do it just as described and we have little or no trouble when staff run an upgrade. We warn them when it is coming and they just run SIMS 1st thing the day after. It takes no more than 2 or 3 mins from first clicking the icon and most people seem to not mind it as long as they have been warned. Most of our staff run SIMS on their laptops so we wouldn't have access to them anyway.
matt40k Posted March 31, 2009 Author Posted March 31, 2009 I presume you mean Systems Management Sever? (SMS) If so, no we don't. Looking to try and find a scripted solution if possible - unless you know of a better way, of course. Thanks - Andrew Try deploying the attached msi. Just test it first!! Not done much testing, but it seems to work. Few things I assume however. That your setups directory in your sims.ini isn't a mapped drive. It's a UNC path, which the user who deployed it has permissions to. Ie on all your workstations (that you deploy it to) your workstations sims.ini reads: SIMSSetupsDirectory=\\sims\simssetups$ Rather then: SIMSSetupsDirectory=s:\setupssimsload.zip 1
vikpaw Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 (edited) APRIL FOOL Hi just a warning, I have been trying out the March upgrade on my new test server installation, and it worked fine last night, however this morning i'm getting an error message. Something to do with the datestamp. It gives a JIT database error on one of the batches. If i roll the date back on the server to March it's fine. It doesn't seem to like April.... Be warned. Edited April 2, 2009 by vikpaw APRIL FOOL
rasssp Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 Capita have a sense of humour? april fools day! sims fail!
vikpaw Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 It's true. Run the upgrade and i guarantee you'll have problems! ;P
rasssp Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 we did, cover module broke! We are on march update here, apart from the normal moans about its slowness, all seems fine today
matt40k Posted April 1, 2009 Author Posted April 1, 2009 It's true. Run the upgrade and i guarantee you'll have problems! ;P I think I need to ask Capita for more soap.
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