so i work somewhere that we have SP4 on the Relational side; and SP3 on

the OLAP side.. my boss is of the belief that we would need to run SP4
on each client desktop in order to upgrade the client-side PTS to SP4
compatable


anyone got any realworld experience with this?


i mean.. we're not going to run around and install SP4 OLAP on each of
5k desktops; so uh.. is there a future office service pack that will
include the updated bits for SQL 2k SP4?


We're on Office XP; but are planning on moving to 2003 within the next
year or so.


Most importantly; we use Office Web Components for EVERYTHING around
here and i can't take any risks that things will get broken


I'm just curious; does anyone know if we have to change Pivot Table
Service software if we upgrade to SP4 on the Analysis Services side??

i mean seriously here??

Aaron,

In my experience, if you are using client software that utilizes PTS
(Excel Pivot Tables, etc) and you upgrade to SP4 on your OLAP server,
you also have to upgrade the client machines. While the client
machines will still work and connect to the cubes, there is a very good
chance that you will have some problems.

The rule of thumb that has always been used is that if the server is on
one SP version, then the clients should be too. I have run into real
world problems when the SP's were different. Wish I had a better
answer for you, but I don't want to sugar coat things when it's this
important.

V

The client-side install is an update to PTS, it is not the full SP4.
If you go to your SP4 AS distribution, look in the folder
\msolap\install\pts\ptslite.exe
That is what you need to run on your client machines. It is unlikely that
you will actually lose data if you run with the old version, but you won't
be incorporating the performance and bug fixes that are in the updated
version of PTS.

--
Dave Wickert [MSFT]
dwickert (AT) online (DOT) microsoft.com
Program Manager
BI Systems Team
SQL BI Product Unit (Analysis Services)
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


"Voorshwa" <voorshwa (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

good stuff; thanks guys!

ps - when is microsoft just going to include all these patches via
Windows Update?

not like my company runs windows update anyways.. i just think that
it's ridiculous for companies to not run windows update

-aaron