Just a heads up for anyone that may be moving clients to update/more
recent versions of D3/NT.

We recently moved a client from (classic) 7.2.1 to 7.4.7 only to the
discover that the "v" correlative, and therefore the "WITHIN" required
for BOM style sorting no longer works with the FSI !?!

Only solution is to keep this file in the VME, and access as a
q-pointer. If you wanted/needed to access file with ODBC, I guess this
means you would then also need to keep duplicate files

(problem exists @ 7.5.1 - and I don't really know when this "changed".
As it is now "documented" in the manual as a "feature", I'm guessing a
fix is unlikely)

Anyway, may save someone else some head scratching

Ross, I have no doubt about the sequence of events that you've
described but I think your conclusion is off.
- 7.2.1 VME and FSI worked
- 7.4.7 VME still works like it did, FSI is different
That's a regression right there which RD should have cought.

- Doc gets updated to make FSI look like it's right.
I'm guessing the last guy writing the doc didn't know about the above,
tried some operation, and documented the FSI behaviour.

Now two errors seem to have been made. If you give RD the opportunity
they will probably resolve both issues unless they confirm that they
were fixing some old bug. If that's the case, tell them they broke an
existing app, you might need to prove the case and that you were
working with really documented functionality back in 7.2. I'd guess
they'd find a way to fix the problem. There are no guarantees, but
that's the process that's in place.

Now, about this VAR who upgraded a client without testing first...
(Smiling as I write this, haven't given you grief in a while.)
I'll just summarize that end-users have a low tolerance for pain, and
it sounds like this was unnecessarily inflicted. (Snip rant about how
this shrinks the market and makes planets spin backwards...)

Seriously, what happened? Maybe we can learn something. I trust that
you would have done testing (or wanted/tried to) but somehow you got
caught anyway.

Regards, and better luck next time.
T


"Ross Ferris" wrote:

Tony Gravagno wrote:
Trying to get RD to recognise problem. Current stance is that behaviour
is "documented", so ....

Yeah. Yeah! Have I ever shared with you the depths of my "love" of
D3/NT?

Anyway, readers digest version is that we were called in to a client
with a hardware problem, and in the process discovered that last
"good" backup was 3 weeks ago (things like that tend to happen when
a company changes hands !??).

New owners provided one of their "standard build" machines - dual
3.2Ghz Xeon, 2Gb RAM, RAID-5 x 73Gb SCSI 320 with Win2K3 server ....
Old machine was an NT4 box we had been trying to get client to replace
for 5 years (such is my love of D3/NT!!), and old 7.2 database simply
would not run on Win2K3.

So, loaded 7.4.7 (7.5.1 issues documented here by others) and after 8
attempts managed to get database across (old machine not stable enough
for a "traditional" backup), updated MD, did backup/restore cycle
to "clean"/fix database (corrected a few problems in the process
with database, but on the whole, cool)

And yes, you are right, I didn't check the one program we have that
does a BOM parts explosion .... Then again, I didn't check any of the
other 12,500 programs in the system either - nor have I been able to
find any notification from RD indicating that this functionality was
being removed from the FSI

As I said in the OP - this was a heads up, but I'm guessing we must
be one of the few people using this facility (in a D3/NT environment at
least).

Hi Ross
<big snip>

envelope pushing after the disaster of AP. I note TG's fond hopes that RD
will do something about it - what a wonderful world he lives in. I have
more faith in Mark's assessment, they have so many notes of stuffups that
they just let them fall off the end meanwhile we find a way around it. As
you say they may not even admit that it is an error they may just change the
docs.
I still like D3, and I reckon NT is the only way to go, so FSI because it is
a better use of the file system and keep it simple is my advice to all.
Peter McMurray