tdk

How have you installed it on the clients? Network Client, standalone? Are you just running it from a shared drive?

I know the thing uses .net in order for the client to talk to the server, but as for the actual database bit itself, it's all xml files and directories. I guess it means that there's less of a footprint on the server.

I know this is going a few years back now, and that's probably why, but this is completely different from my experience of their tech support. Lost a disc and a manual and they replaced the entire product on gratis, meaning I got a nice new shiny box. Might have been that they read your post and changed their policy but go back and chase them up on their number... 01865 353 374

Anyone else think they should give instructions on how to install it via the msi? I think they don't want to give your average (technologically illiterate) user more than they need to worry about but for the rest of us a quick "this is the msi, edit this file so that it points to the right place" would be good enough.

Have you tried changing one or two files directly to see if that allows it? If you export a file from the oxbox you can see its "index name" (as in the name used by the software to reference the resources). So find one within the oxbox itself, export it, then hunt down that .exe and change its permissions, then back in the oxbox check to see if it can be run.

I've had quite a lot of experience with OUP in the past, having had to install their software in a technical capacity in a variety of interesting ways. Good times. Not to make any excuses for them, but the way the VLE disc has been described to me is "as an extra"; the oxbox is what they make, and you can export a large majority of the files from it. Because so many schools want to VLE the oxboxes content they provide a (frankly pretty sloppy) scorm. As scorm is a fairly fixed format they make a relatively general "whole pack" which can conk out on a large majority of VLE's, at least without a bit of twiddling your end. Seriously, there's documents and documents for increasing scorm size on things like moodle... So it's a bit of a "f***ed if you do, f***ed if you don't scenario" for both them and us. You can use the SCORM but that'll probably look sloppy, and have all the drawbacks of scorm, or you can try to upload everything from the oxbox, but that'll take ages. Either way you'll miss out on the "non-vle" content anyway. Anyway, I believe they're operating on an "if they ask for it give it to them" kinda mindset to cut down on their workload with the scorm. So give them a call and they'll get you a split pack, they were actually pretty fast last time I needed a split, and the FTP (bandwidth dependant) is a faster way of getting it than a 2 week cd delivery. All this is a little bit of supposition and guess work from what their techy said to me and my own interactions with them, but it makes sense. You can always give them a call if you're in a rut.