Multiple Accpac WS installs

[ramam1]

Hey folks,
All dev and ops testing is done for our move from 5.6 to 6.1. I want to enable our users to login to VMs to test 6.1 when they're not using 5.6 on their workstations. The problem is that some key accpac config info is stored in the user profile (windows user registry hive) so a user who has used 6.1 cannot log in to a 5.6 DB anymore (even using 5.6 software). I didn't necessarily expect this to work but I did see

"Multiple versions of the product can be
installed on the same machine. Installation on
a machine does not activate the version for all
companies at once. Users or consultants can
activate a version one company at a time."

here: na.sage.com/~/media/.../Accpac_Technology_Brochure.pdf

and commented on here:

http://community.sageaccpac.com/blogs/r_and_d/archive/2010/07/30/accpac-multi-version-support.aspx

Which made me thing it should work but... no esta bueno.
We used to use mapped drives for the proggy and data shares. Now we use UNC paths to (new) proggy and data shares.

Any tips welcome
thanks

 

[Jay Converse]

Create real VMs.

 

[ramam1]

Hey Tuba, I don't follow. The VMs are as, uhh, real as VMs get. The issue, as I understand it, is that the user registry follows the user.

 

[Jay Converse]

You cannot run multiple versions in one VM. Make a 5.6 VM, or a 6.1 VM.

 

[ramam1]

I have 5.6 on one workstations and 6.1 on another. If I use a separate windows user account (DOMAIN\User) then all is well; if I have the same user log in on the 5.6 workstation to work and then the 6.1 workstation to test our custom macros/reports etc then the next time he logs into 5.6 accpac launches but shortly gives an error about incompatible admin content.

I've confirmed that the USER portion of the registry contains the 5.6 file paths so that might be part of the problem.
Further the user PATH setting is updated by WS Setup so that both paths are part of the user environment as well.

Both of these are bound to a user account (not a host) so the solution maybe a smart logon script to switch the PATH based on the host but that may not suffice if the registry has to be tweaked for paths as well [subst would work if we were mapping drive letters in both installs rather than using UNC in either or both].

I ran a test and set the path explicitly and logged into a 5.6 WS - it failed. So the issue it seems is that Accpac WS Setup puts critical data into the USER registry which follows them from WS to WS. This doesn't bode well for user acceptance testing. I suppose that was the nice thing about unilauncher, it would swap out the right registry settings.

I'll run some more experiments and report back... hopefully another clue stick falls from the sky in the mean time.

 

[Jay Converse]

Disable roaming profiles on your domain, isolate the 6.1 VM from the domain, or virtualize the domain.

 

[ramam1]

Thanks for the good suggestions.

I have made a disposable windows account available so that folks can have 5.6 live open locally and a remote connection to a test workstations running 2012 in another for testing.