NorthernSands

The configuration utility doesn't ask me for a login, it just opens straight up. The only thing that asks for a login (when it's all up and running) is if I launch Discover from outside SIMS. Then it's just the SIMS UN & PW.

The way things are going at the moment, almost everything important is exactly that!

Ah, I wondered if you lurked around on here. Don't forget the interest on those Fish'n'Chips...

I'm pretty sure it's a per instance limitation for the Express version. Each instance, up to 16 per server, can use 1CPU [thread], 1GB RAM and 4GB Storage. Not that MS tell you this.

During the installation it does ask which instance to attach the Discover DB, and considering it uses local Windows user accounts to access SIMS (as a trusted SIMS account), I would hazard a guess that you can install the DB into a different instance. Which will be a real plus for those who use SQL Express. Don't know if DBAttach is used or not. Don't know about access levels yet (haven't looked).

If it'll help I do have a script that will reset the SA password. The SA username and password can then be used with DBAttach to correctly detach the DB (or just back it up). Also, a word of caution: I've had schools backup the SIMS DB by just stopping the services then backing-up the raw files; .mdf and .ldf. At more than one school this failed when a restore was needed and Capita (with a healthy charge) had to fix it. As GREED said; "DBAttach is the way". @stpaulscrompton, you haven't mentioned FMS. Do you use this? If so, it has it's own DB and it's own version of DBAttach. One final thing. @stpaulscrompton I do know someone who works with schools in the Manchester area. I've worked with him in the past and this kind of thing is his bread'n'butter. Drop me a PM and I can send you his details. He would almost certainly be able to sort you out.

@VikPaw. Thanks (and for the invites). I will have a look. When I have time. Inshallah! It might have to wait until the next exams season.

This looks interesting. We have multiple centre numbers (one for each board, it seems). We're not a split site, though, I think it's just the way it was originally set up and the exam boards don't want to merge the numbers! Does this program support more than two centre numbers? If so I might have a word with our Exams Officer. It'd save him the job of changing the centre number in Exams Organiser to produce the entries. We'll try tackling the exam boards again, but this may be an alternative if that fails. Thanks for this!

I've had a similar sounding problem before, when trying to get SIMS running across different domains, through a router; admin domain with SIMS to the curriculum domain. This happened at several schools. The workstation would appear to try and install SIMSCentralServerSetup.exe (oddly enough). But this took over ten minutes! The reason appeared to be because the DNS suffix search order list did not include the suffix for the admin domain and Windows would just sit there trying to reverse lookup the SIMS box on the admin network, even though all the ini files pointed to IP addresses. It would eventually time-out and run SIMS. As soon as I added the admin domain suffix to the DNS suffix search list, it sailed through in no time. Any good to you?