dongle this

spent a couple hours yesterday and some more today trying to debunk some wicked server software.

No one mentioned anything about needing a server to run some management software on until 2 weeks into the time when the vendor was on campus.
The afternoon before the day the technician leaves, they mention something about it.

(This software is used as a helpdesk application for some new electronically equipped classrooms funded by the hefty Walton Donation)

phone conversation wed afternoon:

me: you’re saying i need windows 2000 PRO to run this software?
vendor: yes
me: isn’t that majorly outdated?
vendor: what? Windows 2000???
me: yeah. won’t it run on Win 2000 server?
vendor: ummm… that’s what i meant….
me: pro is the WORKSTATION version dude.

me: so how does this thing work?
vendor: well, the instructor hits a ‘help’ button, and it sends a signal to the server… which pops up a help request message.
me: so it pops it up where? on the monitor?
vendor: yes.
me: so that means that I have to be WATCHING the console all the time to see if something pops up? that’s stupid.
vendor: errrrrr [hands phone to tech guy]

So 15 minutes later they show up with some software and a dongle.

I put the dongle into my server. Not detected. Grumble.
I install their software.

It wants me to reboot after installing some database crap, so I grumble and do it. My system takes approx 10 minutes to fully boot up.
Vendor complains. I mention that it takes a while to sync up a terrabyte of drives spread across several raid arrays, not to mention all the server apps running on it.

Rerun the installation… everything works.

But the system doesn’t detect the USB dongle thingy.

Try enabling it. Reboot.

Dongle doesn’t work.

I force the driver. Reboot.

Doesn’t work.

Techie calls support. “They’ve seen this before. We’ll call ya back.”

Wait. Wait. Support calls back… “Ummmm….. the solution we found was to put it on a different server.”

WHAT THE FUCK? That’s not a solution.

So, I decide to call it a day.

This morning, I start in again on it, but install it on a different server. This time, it works. The dongle works, etc, etc. Bastards.

Now I need to figure out why it wasn’t working in the first place on my primary server. Well, I guess this is yet another reason to reinstall/upgrade the OS.