Scanner client setup tools don't work in version 7

[mattbert]

Hello,

Now that we are migrating to version 7.0, we went out to our customer's to do the installation.

We ran the setup program on the machine that will run the scanner software (this is the RF SDK 7.0 server w/5 licenses).

What we appeared to get was a "partial" installation of the software.  

The client update program that was in 6.0 (and worked fine) RFTerminalSetup.exe was not added to the programs group.  Upon running this program, and running the "LD" command on our Percon Falcon 315 scanners, the scanner timed out- apparently not receiving anything from the PC, after clicking on the "send" button in the load application.

Version 6.0 works fine, and the machines that I have tested this on both behave the same way, even though the COM ports are working correctly.

Version 6.0 of the program uses a utility as part of the program called XFER32 or something similar.  This is apparently not the same utility that is used in version 7.0.

I have spoken to technical support twice, and have received some cryptic answers about using the Falcon Configuration Utility that comes from the scanners to transfer files, as well as manually editing the autoexec, etc., files that need to be loaded on the scanner.

So, the question is, why include RFTerminalSetup.exe in the setup if you're not going to use it any more, and/or, if this program is supposed to be included in version 7.0, then why do I need to transfer all my files using the Falcon Configuration Utility, when this program has a "Send" button, and the version 6.0 program worked fine?

I'm really, really trying to like your products and use them in other situations, but I can't believe the amount of trouble we're having with these things, the lack of instructions and technical support at your organization that know the product, and in this situation, being forced to upgrade to 7.0 because we weren't allowed to purchase an additional 5 users for version 6.0.!

We would greatly appreciate some clarification on these things!

Thank you,

Matt



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[mattbert]

Hello??

[tmhinchey]

Here is a dollar?s worth of my two cents...  The old configuration for RF devices in the RFSDK (going back to v5.x) attempted to manage all of the hardware radio drivers, RF backbone settings, client settings and RFSDK server settings in one interface.  As radio manufacturers increased and radio protocols expanded (from 1meg, to 2 to 11 and now 54) thus increasing the variety of radio cards that could reside within any given portable device; and as RF network authentication protocols expanded to include a myriad of optional network parameters that continue to undergo revisions; The attempt to continue managing all of this configuration within the RFSDK interface so that there was a one touch program everything at once solution became nearly futile.  Also in this period, the portable manufacturers had to accommodate this same expansion of RF network settings, radio drivers for the various wireless cards (and protocols for each) etc.  This drove the creation of configuration tools that reside on the Portables to handle all the Radio and network association configuration for those individuals running non RFSDK applications.  Since the mfs know their stuff the best, RFSDK isn?t be the best tool to manage all of this and it would be a duplicated effort. Even more importantly the RFSDK component is a single file: sclient.exe that resides on the PDT, combined with a call in the startup of the terminal to call sclient.exe.  Everything else is hardware/radio configuration and the best resource to manage that in my opinion is the mfr utilities. In the case of PSC DOS devices the Rfconfiguration is a list of files that get transferred to the PDT(just like the old RFSDK terminal setup just a different interface that sends radio drivers, settings files and the radio config tool etc) You simply need to add one additional file to the list: Sclient.exe.  Then to enable sclient to start up whenever the PDT is booted> add a command to your Autoexec.bat file (in the same Falcon config utility options).  When you send this everything gets sent in one transfer.  Also, you now have the ability to redirect the same portable device to a different RFSDK server without having to reload the whole configuration again.  I found it to be a nice improvement

[mattbert]

Hi,

Thanks for the response.  I guess the bigger question is, why would Intellitrack have an installer for the version 7.0 client load utility if people aren't supposed to use it?

One of the nice points of the earlier versions were the client load utility.  Now, it appears a broken one is shipped, so if someone doesn't have a copy of version 6, they're out of luck unless they load everything manually.

Just wondering...

Thank you,

Matt