RSViewSE/Factory Talk Issue

[infineum]

Well, after straightening out all of my Factory Talk password issues, I decided to install the patch roll-ups for RSview SE. The installation went well. After re-booting, the windows installer pop-up will not disappear (but nothing is installing?) and I am unable to use RSView. I lost me FactoryTalk directory. I have tried uninstalling and then reinstall but nothing has worked. Has anybody experienced similar issues or I am I the only idiot that was dumb enough to believe that a patch installation from Rockwell would go smoothly?

 

[widelto]

I did install the patch and it worked fine, Did you do it the way and sequence they recommend? Users first, servers later.

As fas as I know if you uninstall and then install factory talk the user and pasword do not erase, the remain the same. The only way to erase them is to format hard disk. This happened to me.
Try log in to factory talk, this is located inside factory talk utilities, and use the name and password you set up in the past. As soon as you try to log in to FT a new window appear and let you know if you are logged or not.
Also try the wizard and you will see if your name and password are still alive.

william

 

[infineum]

Doa

After spending the better part of two days on this issue including two hours with Rockwell Tech Support, I believe my computer is beyond repair. Luckily, I have a recent ghost of the hard drive that I could install. I cannot believe how screwed up the computer is from my application or mis-application of these patches. Even the tech support guys were shocked on the severity of my problem so maybe this is an isolated incident. My concern is there seems to be no path backward. I tried uninstalling all of the programs (RSView, RSLinx, FT), reinstalling the windows installer, and using the installer clean utility with little success. In addition, my installation of step7 (license manager) and GE Logic developer (change management)became non-functional. Whatever I did wrong really messed up the windows registry beyond repair. My advice would be to perform a ghost backup just prior to installing any FactoryTalk related patches unless you really know what you are doing.

 

[inductiveautomation]

I too have had several incidents where the "solution" provided from Rockwell tech support was to reinstall windows. Once it was with the "Classic" (non FactoryTalk) software. Updates screwed the registry up beyond repair (tech support rep told me that the programs installed >1 meg of text entries to the system registry, so no manually editing keys). The other time an RSSQL installation and update took my machine to a point where it couldn't shut down properly, not to mention many interesting Windows behavior traits that I've never seen before. Luckly it was a new machine, so I didn't lose anything with the format.

 

[infineum]

Rockwell Woes

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I have experienced problems also with installations of iFix and Siemens stuff to be fair. But these issues affected their application only. I have never had an issue that had such a major effect on the Windows operating system. This problem only affected a laptop that I use for development so no equipment or processes are down. My concern would be what an unsuccessful patch installation would do to a distributed system that is running our plant. I guess that you ghost or backup everything, perform as much testing as possible offline, and follow the instructions exactly. It would also help if Rockwell published what registry keys/settings are affected by the patch. You can kind of figure this out from the batch files but when installing a bunch of patches, it becomes difficult.

 

[russrmartin]

I'd agree

I have seen similar issues with the ME version and not having a path backwards. Rockwell is really sloppy with their software removal. A ghost of the harddrive is always a good idea, but sometimes not even this can save you. One can only hope that they get better in this department. I think they are focusing so hard on the future that they forget that there really are times when people need to go backwards. Good luck.

Russ

 

[inductiveautomation]

Agree that this topic should be taken more seriously. I'm not sure how a ghost image could not work unless the software is tied to the disks serial number (true of how even the old activation worked). Do you need to actually run and active the ghost copy separately?

I have seen similar issues with the ME version and not having a path backwards. Rockwell is really sloppy with their software removal. A ghost of the harddrive is always a good idea, but sometimes not even this can save you. One can only hope that they get better in this department. I think they are focusing so hard on the future that they forget that there really are times when people need to go backwards. Good luck.

Russ

 

[infineum]

Ghost

Restoring a ghost image of the hard disk is our standard distaster recovery procedure. It brings along the registry as well as all of the programs. I have never experienced an issue restoring an image to a windows based system (NT, 2000, XP) unless of course there was a hardware related issue such as a hard drive error or failure. Generally all of the activations are transferred with the image. I do not know about Factory Talk activations since we do have any of these type of activations installed presently. The real difficulty is maintaining current ghost images of the system so you do not have to spend hours restoring all of your changes that occurred after the image was created.