1

Topic: Migrate v6.21 to New Server and Upgrade

We need to move Recorder to a new server and upgrade to v6.22 and I wonder if this is straightforward? I'm using the Network Installation Guide v5.1 as a reference plus what I can glean here from previous posts.

For Info - the new server is a virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 R2. A separate instance of SQL 2005 is running on the new server and I was hoping to use SQL Express for Recorder (our DB is 2.1GB).

I would install v6.17 on the new server, upgrade to v6.22 then run dictionary updates before restoring the DB.


Mike

2

Re: Migrate v6.21 to New Server and Upgrade

From my experience I would say that the only way to find out if it will be straightforward would be to try it and see.

My advice to you would be to:
Upgrade your existing database
Make a backup
Install Recorder on the new server (checking first that the version of SQL express will handle a db as big as yous)
Upgrade the new install to the latest version while the db is empty
Completely uninstall the workstation software from one of your workstations
Run a registry cleaner (we use Ccleaner) on that machine
Reinstall the workstation software on that machine (remembering to run the workstationsetup,exe as administrator)
Test to make sure R6 will open on the workstation.
Restore from the backup using that workstation
Test again
Finally repeat the uninstall and reinstall on all the other workstations

Rob Large
Wildlife Sites Officer
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre

3

Re: Migrate v6.21 to New Server and Upgrade

The reason I suggest to do only one workstation at a time is because we have been trying to do this for over a year but have had many problems which seem to relate to the combination of Server 2008 and SQL server 2012. So far we have not managed it.
I am just about to have another go, having discovered that we can create a stable working install if the workstation has never previously had R6 installed on it. We are just about to replace every one of our workstations for only this reason.

Rob Large
Wildlife Sites Officer
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre

4

Re: Migrate v6.21 to New Server and Upgrade

Many thanks for the reply Rob - I'll give that a go perhaps installing on a new workstation to test initially. I don't know how long this will take me to do but I hope to report back once done.

Michael

5

Re: Migrate v6.21 to New Server and Upgrade

We had similar workstation problems to Rob, Mike Weideli is visiting us during November but would be interested in any feedback. I did try to 'clean' the registry with no luck, I presume a key was missed somewhere.

Les

Les Evans-Hill
Senior Data Officer
Butterfly Conservation, Butterflies for the New Millennium and National Moth Recording Scheme

6

Re: Migrate v6.21 to New Server and Upgrade

Les I would be really interested in hearing how Mike gets on. We can't really be replacing workstations every time we need to reinstall.

In case you are reading this Mike. When we do the transfer (next week I think), if we have a spare machine, I am intending to try installing, backing up the registry, uninstalling and backing up the registry again. That way maybe we can identify what the difference is between a clean machine and a 'cleaned' one.

Rob Large
Wildlife Sites Officer
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre

7

Re: Migrate v6.21 to New Server and Upgrade

Not sure if you already use this Rob, but regshot (http://sourceforge.net/projects/regshot/) can compare 'before' and 'after' registries.

Charlie Barnes
Information Officer
Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership

8

Re: Migrate v6.21 to New Server and Upgrade

Thanks Charlie, no I hadn't come across this one yet. I knew there would be a way.

Rob Large
Wildlife Sites Officer
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre