Upgrading NEOSYS

Upgrading NEOSYS fully

NEOSYS can be upgraded in two ways either in the night before the daily backup or during the day.

Procedure to upgrade NEOSYS during the day.

Email the management and staff the standard email on upgrade for agreement of time.
Confirm the date and time and inform the staff about the update.
During upgrade make sure all users are logged off and follow the installation procedures.
Once the upgrade is over mail the management and staff the steps they should perform before using NEOSYS.

NEOSYS can also be upgraded with smaller patches by the programmer and this can be done at any time while the users are working

Sample Emails to be sent PRIOR to Upgrading NEOSYS

Any decision or instructions related to upgrading neosys must be in support@neosys.com i.e. please ensure that all emails are sent to clients while mentioning support@neosys.com in cc.

Informing the client of the intention to upgrade

Sample Email 1:

NEOSYS needs to be updated to its latest version.
 
Please confirm a suitable time to upgrade NEOSYS.The upgrade will take about half an hour to one hour. 
 
Please note that all users should be logged off during the upgrade and there should not be any attempt
to login during that one hour. 

Once the upgrade is done we shall notify you with the same and the users should Clear Cache from Internet Explorer 
before they log into the new version.

You can find instructions on how to clear the Internet Explorer Cache at this link: 
http://userwiki.neosys.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_IE#Solution

Sample Email 2:

NEOSYS needs to be updated to its latest version.

Please confirm a suitable date to upgrade NEOSYS.

This upgrade needs to be done first thing in the morning i.e. soon after the automated nightly backup, since we need to
perform a full system backup again before the system upgrade and this operation is quite large and time consuming to repeat during the day.

Hence, we will schedule the upgrade between 9 am - 10 am on the scheduled day. The system will not be available during this period. 
Please note that all users should be logged off during the upgrade and there should not be any attempt to login during that one hour.

Once the upgrade is done we shall notify you with the same and the users should Clear Cache from Internet Explorer 
before they log into the new version.

You can find instructions on how to clear the Internet Explorer Cache at this link: 
http://userwiki.neosys.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_IE#Solution

Confirming Date and Time

Sample 1:

I will be upgrading NEOSYS to its latest version tomorrow i.e. 15th November. NEOSYS will be down without warning from 13:00 to 14:00.

If you attempt to do data entry during this period of time you will probably lose data but there will be no harm caused to the system.
You may continue using the system in read-only mode to get reports etc until it actually goes down whereupon NEOSYS will hang and 
you should close its windows.

After the upgrade you need to clear your temporary internet files to ensure that you obtain the new version of the programs otherwise all 
kinds of strange errors may occur due to caching creating an unpredictable mixture of old and new web pages/software. 

You can find instructions on how to clear the Internet Explorer Cache at this link: 
http://userwiki.neosys.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_IE#Solution

Sample 2:

I will be upgrading NEOSYS to its latest version tomorrow i.e. 15th November. NEOSYS will be down without warning from 9:00 am to 10:00 am.

If you attempt to do data entry during this period of time you will probably lose data but there will be no harm caused to the system.
You may continue using the system in read-only mode to get reports etc until it actually goes down whereupon NEOSYS will hang and 
you should close its windows.

After the upgrade you need to clear your temporary internet files to ensure that you obtain the new version of the programs otherwise all 
kinds of strange errors may occur due to caching creating an unpredictable mixture of old and new web pages/software. 

You can find instructions on how to clear the Internet Explorer Cache at this link: 
http://userwiki.neosys.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_IE#Solution

Downloading

Get the latest version of NEOSYS

Download http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys2.exe in NEOSYS\downloads folder and rename it to neosys2-(DATE).exe (eg neosys2-10th November 2009.exe) - this is to keep track of the various downloads we do for the client and also allows to install a previous version if needed.

*** IMPORTANT: DO NOT RUN/EXECUTE THE NEOSYS EXE FILE NOW ***

Downloading previous versions of NEOSYS

The 9 previous versions of neosys are stored at:

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys21.exe

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys22.exe

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys23.exe

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys24.exe

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys25.exe

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys26.exe

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys27.exe

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys28.exe

http://www.neosys.com/support/neosys29.exe

Backing up prior to upgrading

THIS WHOLE BACKUP PROCEDURE IS MANDATORY

Make sure that all NEOSYS users are logged off and the processes are closed before you do any folder copying.

Small Installations

Take a normal proper backup using the NEOSYS Support Menu - for all live databases if there is more than one.
If a USB change was made by the client's IT person prior to doing this manual backup, ensure that after the upgrade is done, the backup file for that manual backup is moved to another location (preferably in a new folder on the D drive)so that the clients backup cycle is not affected by the existence of a days backup in the USB before the cycle actually begins the following morning.
Take a copy of the whole of the D:\NEOSYS folder (or where-ever NEOSYS is installed) into another folder. You can omit the D:\NEOSYS\IMAGES and D:\NEOSYS\LOGS folders from the copy to save time. Preferably place the copy on another disk or partition so that it is not included in any whole disk backup that might be running in parallel to NEOSYS backup.

Large Installations

Copying the whole of the D:\NEOSYS folder can take so much time as to be virtually impossible. In this case do the upgrade EARLY IN THE MORNING since all the data will have been backed up the previous night. The NEOSYS nightly backup only backs up data, so you MUST manually take copies of the following folders which contain the current version of the programs that are going to be upgraded.

D:\NEOSYS\NEOSYS
D:\NEOSYS\NEOSYS.NET
D:\NEOSYS\NEOSYS.MAC or D:\NEOSYS\NEOSYS.W3C

Installing

Run / Execute the .EXE file that you downloaded into the NEOSYS\downloads folder and Install to the D:\NEOSYS\ folder.

Closing NEOSYS processes should happen automatically during upgrade but you can also do it manually as follows:

Closing NEOSYS services

The installation procedure first creates a GLOBAL.END file in the NEOSYS programs folder causing all serving processes to terminate. Maintenance processes must be terminated manually.

Next, the installation procedure attempts to update the WAITING.EXE file and, if the processes haven’t terminated quickly enough, this will fail asking for retry or abort. Retry immediately or once all the processes have terminated.

The last step of the installation procedure is to delete the GLOBAL.END file to allow processes to start normally.

Post installation steps

New versions of the software sometimes perform quick or long database conversions.

Starting NEOSYS in maintenance mode immediately after upgrading leaves you more in control if anything goes wrong.

It not necessary to use the maintenance mode to start-up once after upgrading and before starting an automatic neosys process.

Sample Email to be sent to the Clients AFTER an upgrade or patch

We have upgraded your version of NEOSYS.

Please inform all staff to follow the instructions at http://userwiki.neosys.com/index.php/Cache  to clear your temporary internet files  before you proceed to use NEOSYS.

This is required because your Internet Explorer may have saved old versions of the software and it is necessary to clear this to avoid any  
possible errors.

Troubleshooting

If you choose to abort the installation for any reason then the GLOBAL.END file will have to be deleted manually since its presence prevents any processes from starting up.