I have been running SIMS on Windows 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit) for some time now without problems. This includes SIMS FMS and the System Administrator, both of which seem to have been written using a very old Borland C-compiler which is out of sync with the rest of SIMs.
The procedure was:
1. Install SIMS on the server. I was using Windows SBS 2008 (which is by definition 64-bit). This caused some problems which I may document in a separate thread.
2. Log in to the workstation as an administrator, and map a drive letter (drive I in my case) to the appropriate partition on the server.
3. Download and install the Microsoft SQL Server Native Client on the workstation. For the 32-bit machines I used the 32-bit client. For the 64-bit machines I used the 64-bit client.
4. Install the main "SIMS" program using SIMSINST.exe I did not have any problem with this stage of the installation program. As part of the procedure, I set up the appropriate path to the "connect.ini" file on the server.
5. At this point, if you load SIMS and go into "System Administration", you will experience problems. Likewise if you install SIMS FMS. This is because some required DLLs are missing from Windows 7, or are the wrong version. The correct versions need to be installed in the appropriate Windows folder.
6. The location for the DLLs varies. For the 32-bit version of Windows 7, the relevant folder is C:\WINDOWS\System32. For 64-bit, the folder is "C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64". Despite its name, the latter is the repository for 32-bit DLLs in a 64-bit version of Windows!
7. One of the affected DLLs is called "Netapi32.dll". This needs to be replaced rather than just added. Before you can do this, you need to "take ownership" of the file, and grant administrator access. To do so, carry out the following:
Choose "Run", then "cmd" to go to a DOS prompt (drive C). Then type the following (the first step depends on the OS you are using: 32-bit or 64-bit respectively):
cd C:\Windows\System32
OR
cd C:\Windows\SysWOW64)
takeown /f netapi32.dll
icacls netapi32.dll /grant administrators:f
exit
You should now have granted full control of "netapi32.dll" to administrators, and exited from the DOS window.
8. You now need to obtain the following DLLs from a suitable "donor" computer:
netui2.dll (about 300kb)
netapi32.dll (350 - 600Kb)
netrap.dll (about 15kb)
If you are installing to a 32-bit version of Windows 7, locate these files in a 32-bit Windows XP machine (with SP3 installed). They will be found in C:\Windows\System32
If you are installing to a 64-bit version of Windows 7, locate these files in a 64-bit version of Windows, such as Windows Server SBS 2008. They will be found in C:\Windows\SysWOW64.
Please note: Vista 64-bit does not contain "netui2.dll", and is therefore not appropriate as a 64-bit "donor".
If you are installing to Windows 7 64-bit, but do not have a 64-bit "donor" version of Windows to hand, the 32-bit files in Windows XP DO work. However, it is possible that you will have problems with other applications, although I have not found any so far.
9. Copy the above files to the relevant folder in your Windows 7 machine (C:\Windows\System32 or C:\Windows\SysWOW64). In addition to the three files above, I also copied "netui0.dll" and "netui1.dll" for consistency.
10. You should not have problems with "permissions" if you followed the instructions in Section 7. However, check the file sizes, dates and times to ensure that the copy has been successful. Windows 7 comes with a version of Netapi32.dll which is only 56Kb and does NOT work (it seems to be missing many of the function calls). This must be overwritten with the version you are copying from a donor machine.
11. I did not find it necessary to "register" the new DLLs, but you can do so simply by right-clicking on the file name in Windows Explorer, and choosing "Register this component".
12. You should now find that you can install and run SIMS FMS successfully, as well as being able to access the System Administration section of SIMS.
