TM1 client from network share / Maintaining versions

[glaurens]

Hi All,

Is anyone running TM1 914 clients from a shared directory, or what would be the best way of maintaining all client's version in a distributed environment? The versions currently being used range from 816 to 903 on roughly 300 clients with 903 on the server.

Thanks in advance.

G

[Alan Kirk]

Hi All,

Is anyone running TM1 914 clients from a shared directory, or what would be the best way of maintaining all client's version in a distributed environment? The versions currently being used range from 816 to 903 on roughly 300 clients with 903 on the server.

I don't want to come off sounding like a Citrix Fanboi, but it's certainly an option that's worth looking at so that you need to update the software in only one place. The downside is that you'd need Citrix licences if you don't have them.

We face a similar issue for when we finally upgrade. With 8.2.12 our users can simply pick up the .xla from a shared folder on the server (provided that they have power user permissions on Windows XP, otherwise they run into ActiveX control registration problems), but I believe that with some later versions it'll be necessary to do an install of the client software if you want to ensure that ALL functionality works.

What I'm thinking of doing is either converting ALL of my users to Citrix (I know of at least one other Australian operation that does that for any users who aren't in walking distance of the Admin's desk), or to see whether I.T. can arrange for a login script to install the client software as needed when the user logs in. As we're in the middle of budget at the moment I haven't gone very far down either path, but both are worth considering IMHO.

[David Usherwood]

Alan, who's told you that 9.4 can't be run from a share? We run it from a copy of the bin directory along with 5 or 6 other versions. The main requirement is that you are _not_ running a local admin server from a different version - if you do then the client won't start.

I would also suggest you look carefully at whether you want to go 9.4 at all, reading the posts here. I have a client where I was forced to install 90SP3U9 on Vista and O2007. Some machines give nasty messages with O2007, others don't, but I haven't found anything to break yet. Yes, it isn't 'supported'. If we hit an issue we'll migrate.

[Alan Kirk]

Alan, who's told you that 9.4 can't be run from a share? We run it from a copy of the bin directory along with 5 or 6 other versions. The main requirement is that you are _not_ running a local admin server from a different version - if you do then the client won't start.

I would also suggest you look carefully at whether you want to go 9.4 at all, reading the posts here. I have a client where I was forced to install 90SP3U9 on Vista and O2007. Some machines give nasty messages with O2007, others don't, but I haven't found anything to break yet. Yes, it isn't 'supported'. If we hit an issue we'll migrate.

Nobody told me that, but I recall that when we were first testing 9.1 for The Great Web Experiment we ran into some issues with .ocx's not working properly (notably, IIRC (it was a while ago now) the dialogs which handled log files, drill throughs, etc) when we were trying to pick up the add-ins from a network share in the way that we do with 8.2.12. These problems went away when we did the client install on the desktop (as you'd expect).

I trust that the caution about going to 9.4 was directed at the OP and not me... I've only got it in a single test environment for the purpose of, well, testing it. I ain't going near it as a production environment for a long time to come, and if it WAS aimed at the OP then I'd second the caution. But ultimately SOMEONE has to deploy it; indeed some probably already have, particularly new users who just assume that newest = best.