Dear Lotus,
 

I need you to help us help you! More specifically, I need you to make sure that SPR JSTN84CSC7 is given enough priority so that the SURunAsWizard is “fixed/updated” for Lotus Notes R8.5.2.
 

Let’s face it: we all got the memo that said “deploy Notes 8.5 to as many machines as possible” and we’re all working really hard toward rolling it out. But you have to help us at some point. You really do.
 

Seriously, “why” is the SURunAsWizard utility still not working on Windows Vista machines? And why isn’t it working on Windows 7 machines either? I can understand that you haven’t gotten around to fixing it on Windows 7 … after all, that OS is new on the block. But for Windows Vista? It’s been out for 3 years already (4 if you count the RTM release) so one of your genius coders that’s chained to his (or her) desk somewhere deep in the bowels of your HQ should have had the time to update the SURunAsWizard utility for that OS by now … Right?
 

In all seriousness, I can understand why you haven’t fixed it for Windows Vista’s machines! After all, none of the soul crushing enterprises out there would dare to punish their employees by forcing Windows Vista on them (or would they?). But as buggy/weird/stange/messed-up Windows Vista was (especially with the evil User Access Control feature)… the new kid on the block, i.e. Windows 7, appears promising and some organizations are moving away from XP to Windows 7.
 

Which company is moving toward Windows 7? Well, the one that I work for is going that way.
 

Yes, we started handing out laptops with Windows 7. The local LAN Admins have installed the good ol’ Lotus Notes 7 client on them (to be able to quickly move the user from their old clunky machine to their new one) and when I try to Smart Upgrade those employees on their shiny new laptops to Lotus Notes R8.5.1 FP1 (later to FP3 or FP4) it doesn’t work because of Windows 7.
 

I’ve been a good little admin: I tried some things, I did some Google searches, checked the forums and finally, I opened a PMR.
 

Sadly, I was told right away “sorry, we can’t help you, that’s a known bug and there’s an SPR for that.”. I was surprised … shocked actually.
 

I was told that this is documented in Technote #1381191 (click here to view it).
 

That Technote even has the exact error that I see when I look at the LotusInstall.log file of my Windows 7 users:
 

Failed to launch process as specified user: 5
 

So, please Lotus, if you want to give me an early Christmas present, please please please increase the priority of SPR JSTN84CSC7 so that it gets fixed in Lotus Notes R8.5.2 … THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
 

Dear Members of the Yellowverse Community,
 

If you are bored to death and are looking for a good excuse to open a PMR today (or tomorrow, or whenever you have the time), would you mind opening a PMR with Lotus Support and ask them to add your name to the SPR JSTN84CSC7 so that it gets a higher priority?
 

The more people who add their name to the list of customers who needs this, the faster it will be fixed.
 

Thanks for reading!
 

Marc
 

PS: This is not a “rant”, this is a request for help …

Another Cryptic Error Message?
 

Well, in my own opinion, I’d qualify this one as “semi cryptic”. And if you ask me, the message should read as something like this:
 

“Smart Upgrade has detected in your notes.ini that you are using a version of Lotus Notes that includes the Designer and/or Administrator client. You cannot downgrade to a Lotus Notes-only installation via Smart Upgrade. Please verify your current installation and the InstallType= line in your Notes.ini before re-trying.” 
 

I can wish right? Well, sometimes I wish so hard that I open SPRs for suggestions … so the SPR for this is #RSSA87UQVT.
 

So, let’s look at why this happens or why this might happen a tiny bit closer before the solution.
 

Why does this happen?
 

Well, there are a few possibilities that I’ve seen so far … maybe there are more ways to get this error but this is what I encountered in my own environment.
 

Reason #1: Lotus Notes with the Designer and/or the Administrator client is installed on the machine. This causes the InstallType= line in the notes.ini to be set to “2″ instead of “6″. So when you try to ”upgrade” someone with the setup files for the “Lotus Notes” client only, it fails.
 

Reason #2: You had, a long time ago, installed Lotus Notes with the Designer and/or the Administrator client on your old machine. Flash forward a few years, and you’ve changed machines a few times and, due to the amazing backwards compatibility of Lotus Notes, you’ve always moved your notes.ini and your databases when you changed machine. So your notes.ini still has the InstallType= line set to “2″ instead of “6″. So, even if you try to upgrade with the “Lotus Notes” client only files, it looks at the notes.ini and still sees that the InstallType= is set to “2″ and stops right there.
 

The Solution – Official Response from Lotus
 

If you search for Technotes, you’ll find stumble on Technote #1271989 ​(here is a link). That Technote basically says “un-install your Notes and re-install it”.
 

The Solution(s) If You Really Only Have the Lotus Notes Client Installed (no Designer or Administrator clients)
 

So, let’s imagine that you’ve checked the employee’s machine and you confirm that *only* the Lotus Notes client is installed. What can you do? Well you can try the following…
 

Solution #1 – Change the Notes.ini Manually …
 

01. [Click] on File → Exit to close Lotus Notes.

02. [Click] on Start → Program Files → Accessories → Windows Explorer.

03. In the Windows Explorer left pane, navigate to the Lotus Notes Program Directory (for example, C:\Notes or C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\)

04. Find the notes.ini file and [Double Click] on it to open it with Notepad.

05. Search the notes.ini file to find if there is a line that starts with “InstallType=” (it’s usually near the top anyway).

06. Change the value of that variable from “2″ to “6″.

07. [Click] on File → Save to save your changes to the notes.ini

08. [Click] on File → Close to close the notes.ini file.

09. Re-Open Lotus Notes R8.5.1
 

Solution #2 – Send Them A Button …
 

Don’t feel like explaining to an employee what to change and how to change it? Well, simply download the LotusScript code below and create a button with that code and mail it to the user. It will do the modification in the notes.ini for you and let the employee know that it’s done.
 

Conclusion
 

Well, like I said, maybe the message will be changed in the future … in the meantime, keep the 3 solutions above in mind if you run into this.
 

Thanks for reading!
 

Marc

Dear Readers …
  

Welcome to the 3rd edition of The New Domino Admin presentation on how to get Smart Upgrade working for you. You may (or may not), have read the 1st version, the 2nd version or even the “how-to-smart-upgrade” guide for the Fix Pack 1 and, if you did read them, thank you for stopping by and reading those long, lengthy, tedious posts.
  

If there’s one thing has never ceased to amaze me about those blog posts, its the number of comments and questions that are added to each post. I humbly thank you again for your nice comments, your questions and I ask you to forgive me if I don’t respond back fast enough. After all, I still need to do my day job. Keep in mind that there are a bunch of people at Lotus Support that are [hopefully very well] paid to answer questions day-in, day-out and that they’d love to hear from you if you have any questions related to Smart Upgrade.
  

So, let’s get this show on the road? What’s new in Version 3 of this presentation you may ask? Simply put: in the now 207 pages long presentation, you will find instructions on how to bundle the R8.5.1 client AND the Fix Pack 3 so that both installations are done one-after-the-other during the upgrade process in one shot instead of upgrading to R851, starting Notes once and then Smart Upgrading to Fix Pack 3.
  

How it’s Done
  

You might have read about how do “daisy-chain” Fix Packs on the blog post mentioned above or even on this nice post by Mr. Serdar Basegmez (thank you for the nice comment btw Mr. Basegmez).
  

However, some people asked me “Is there a way to bundle the R8.5.1 AND the Fix Pack 1 (or 2 or 3) into 1 incredibly large package?”. At first I tried many many things and I couldn’t get it done. However, thanks for a small comment by Mr. John Pagliani of Lotus on my blog where he said he could help me out, I figured that what I was trying wasn’t impossible. And because of his comment (thank you!), I figured the solution to my problem shortly after.
  

The trick is … to use a batch file. But real trick is to have the batch file create an environment variable of the path where the SURunAs files are extracted and simply refer to that variable later when calling the setup.exe for the R8.5.1 installer and then right after when calling the setup for the Fix Pack installer.
  

So, the presentation has been updated to include new sections in which we download and prepare the Fix Pack 3 for packaging and also a new section in which we create the batch file that will do the work for us.
  

So, What Does This Presentation Cover?
  

Basically, this 207 pages presentation improves on the previous versions and covers the following:
  

• Part 1 – Creating the Smart Upgrade Kits and Smart Upgrade Tracking database.
   
• Part 2 – Setting up your computer to create and tune the kit.
   
• Part 3 – Creating the “Kit” and Tuning it with the Install Shield Tuner.
   
• Part 4 – Adding the Fix Pack to the kit.
   
• Part 5 – Creating the Batch File that will do the setup.
   
• Part 6 – Using SURunAsWizard to create a single-file executable.
   
• Part 7 – Uploading the package and updating the policies.
   
• Part 8 – A deployment example.
   
• Part 9 – Fixing the Mail Template to prevent the error during Seamless Mail Upgrade.
   

One Last Thing … Once again: a few “Thank You”!
  

Always thank those that help you …
  

And if you’ve checked the previous versions of the presentation, you’ll see that I say “thanks” to Andy Donaldson, Michael Willard, Andrew Lapidas, Andy Liew, Jean-Paul Mehanna, John St. Germain, Tony Trout and John Pagliani for their help. Their combined blog posts,  answers to my support tickets, and suggestions are the reason why this presentation exist.
  

So, thanks again to all those who helped me make this happen!
  

Without Further Due … Here’s the 3rd Version of the Presentation
  

Well, simply click on the file below to download it to your computer … and enjoy. Hopefully it will help you and your company deploy Lotus Notes R8.5.1 Fix Pack 3 more quickly and more efficiently).
  

  
Click on the icon above to download the presentation.
  

I hope you enjoy it.
  

What’s Coming Next?
  

In the months to come, I hope to have a bit of spare time to create the 4th version of the presentation in which I intend to cover the following:
  

• Setting Up the Widget Catalog and deploying 1 widget via policy after the upgrade. (not really required but nice to get it over with).
    
• Setting up the Update Site and pushing 1 Sidebar Plug-In to R8.5.1 clients via policy after the upgrade.
    

That’s It, That’s All Folks!
   

Once again, thanks for reading … I hope this helps someone, somewhere …
  

Marc

My New Addiction…
   

Right out of the gate, I have to confess to something: ever since I got Smart Upgrade to work correctly, I got addicted to watching the views in the Smart Upgrade Tracking Results database.  There is something oddly satisfying in watching the results appear in the database now that it just plain works. I really can’t explain it. So while I can’t say this thing is a “sport”, I have to admit that I’m watching it often … anyhow, I thought I’d share my new addiction with you.
  

You Mentionned Something About a Fix Pack I Believe?
     

Oh yes and that’s why I’m writing about it! As you all know, the Lotus Notes & Domino 8.5.1 Fix Pack 1 was released about a week ago. The technote with the links to the various versions of the Fix Pack 1 can be found here. A few of you have followed my two previous posts here and here on how to create a Smart Upgrade kit for the R8.5.1 client and are now wondering “How can I package an deploy the R8.5.1 Fix Pack 1 the same way?”. Well, here’s how I did it.
  

The Joys of Smart Upgrading a Fix Pack
 

Truth be told, Smart Upgrading a Fix Pack is a walk in the park. It’s a piece of cake. It’s … well, you get the point. Smart Upgrading a standard client is the equivalent of undergoing root canal without anesthesia in an airplane flying in heavy turbulence in my own personal opinion but Smart Upgrading a Fix Pack is so much easier that it dosen’t even compare. Smart Upgrading a Fix Pack is like getting a chair massage in the Certification Lounge at Lotusphere when your back really really really hurts from walking around with a heavy backpack all day … maybe the guys from the special forces can do that all day long without breaking a sweat but I sure can’t … and oh … wait I just remembered there were no chair massages this year!
  

Right out of the gate, you won’t need to use the Install Shield Tuner! So, with this simple fact, you just saved yourself from a few more gray hairs. And the command line? Simple too! So, how do you Smart Upgrade a Fix Pack? Well, download the presentation to view the steps. It’s fairly quick and easy and it just plain works.
    

How to Smart Upgrade the Lotus Notes R8.5.1 Fix Pack 1
  

Writing down step-by-step instructions in this blog post would take 10 pages so, instead of boring you to death with a super long post, I offer you my usual step-by-step slides to get it done. So simply click on the icon below to download the 82 page step-by-step PowerPoint presentation with the instructions:
  

Parting Words …
  

Please note that another blogger, Mr. Mick Moignard, posted a nice entry on his blog about an error message that said “Error encountered when installing Notes Hotfix Core component” when he tried to install the Fix Pack. If you ever run into this error, make sure to read his blog post on how to get around it.
  

Thanks for reading & have fun Smart Upgrading!
  

Marc
  

I hope this helps you!
 

Marc

Summary
 

Last year, on November 19th 2009 to be more precise, I posted an entry on my blog with a nice 160 page presentation on how to deploy Lotus Notes R8.5.1 using a combination of SmartUpgrade, the Install Shield Tuner, SURunAsWizard and Policies.  The post was quite popular and I thank every one of you who visited my blog and/or who commented.
 

However, one of the problems with the last presentation was that, if you followed the steps religiously, the Lotus Notes R8.5.1 client would not login the employee into Sametime on the 1st startup. In fact, to get it to work automatically, you had to open the sidebar and click on the Login button at least once. Fortunately for me, last month, Tony Trout of Lotus Support sent me 1 more line that should have added into the plugin_customization.ini file to get the notes client.
 

And what line needs to be added? Simply this one: 

com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.login/autologin=true

So, after updating the file, recreating the package and testing it, I can safely say that this line works. So, what did I do next? Well, I updated the presentation for your enjoyment. You will find the download link after the “Thank You’s”.
 

Once again … a few “Thank You”!
 

Just like on my lst blog post, before you get to the download part, I would like to say Thank You (again) to a few people who have made this presentation possible …
 

• Andy Donaldson and his blog posts here and here on how to use the Install Shield Tuner. His blog posts helped me a lot!
   
• Michael Willard, Andrew Lapidas and Andy Liew of Lotus Support for working with me and discovering the bug in the SURunAsWizard.
   
• Jean-Paul Mehanna of Lotus support for his help in figuring out how to setup the Sametime Community in the plugin_customization file.
   
• And most importantly #1, John St. Germain of Lotus Support, for all his help and discovering that using “-d” in the SURunAsWizard caused most of the issues I was running into (it’s an undocumented gotcha).
   
• And most importantly #2, Tony Trout of Lotus Support, for not giving up on me and my questions in regards to the Sametime Community config in the plugin_customization file and keeping me constantly updated on his research.
     

As you can see, it was a team effort … so I have good reasons to say “Thank You” to all these folks … but that’s the power of the Notes community … lots of people all working together and sharing information.
 

So … What does the Presentation cover again?
 

Basically, this 161 page presentation still covers the following (only 3 pages were updated):
 

• Part 1 – Creating the Smart Upgrade Kits and Smart Upgrade Tracking database.
   
• Part 2 – Setting up your computer to create and tune the kit.
   
• Part 3 – Creating the “Kit” and Tuning it with the Install Shield Tuner.
   
• Part 4 – Using SURunAsWizard to create a single-file executable.
   
• Part 5 – Uploading the package and updating the policies.
   
• Part 6 – A deployment example.
   

And Now … The Updated Presentation …
 

Well, simply click on the file below to download it to your computer … and enjoy. Hopefully it will help you and your company deploy Lotus Notes R8.5.1 more quickly and more efficiently.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Click on the icon above to download the presentation
 

I hope you enjoy it.
 

Addendum
 

On November 17th 2009, Mr. Ed Brill posted on his blog a post with links to 2 new wikis that had just been published which contains similar information. I felt kinda ackward because I had been working on this presentation for a while now (John St. Germain can attest to it since I had sent him draft copies of the presentation). However, since I had spent so much time on it, I didn’t want to let it all go to waste and I decided to finish it and post it. Maybe it will help someone out there …?
 

PS: I’m leaving for Lotusphere on Saturday so I might not be able to respond to comments for the next week.

Summary

I have been working with Lotus Support for a couple weeks (months actually) on getting Smart Upgrade to work in my company. At first, I was trying with the R8.5 client and we had tons of issues (including the discovery of a regression in the SURunAsWizard.exe in R8.5 which I blogged about here). While working with Lotus Support, R8.5.1 was released so I switched gears and started working toward deploying that new version … and truth be told, it was so much easier to tune R8.5.1 than R8.5.

While working with the folks of Lotus Support, I promised one of them that I’d create a step-by-step presentation of every single step it took me to get it to work. So … here it is for your enjoyment.

But first … a few “Thank You”!

Before you get to the download part, I would like to say Thank you to a few people who have made this presentation possible …

• Andy Donaldson and his blogs posts here and here on how to use the Install Shield Tuner. His blog posts helped me a lot!

• Michael Willard, Andrew Lapidas and Andy Liew of Lotus Support for working with me and discovering the bug in the SURunAsWizard.

• Jean-Paul Mehanna and Tony Trout of Lotus support for their help in figuring out how to setup the Sametime Community in the plugin_customization file.

• And most importantly, John St. Germain of Lotus Support, for all his help and discovering that using “-d” in the SURunAsWizard caused most of the issues I was running into (it’s an undocumented gotcha).

As you can see, it was a team effort … so I have good reasons to say “Thank You” to all these folks … but that’s the power of the Notes community … lots of people all working together and sharing information.

So … What does the Presentation cover?

Basically, this 160 page presentation covers the following:

• Part 1 – Creating the Smart Upgrade Kits and Smart Upgrade Tracking database.

• Part 2 – Setting up your computer to create and tune the kit.

• Part 3 – Creating the “Kit” and Tuning it with the Install Shield Tuner.

• Part 4 – Using SURunAsWizard to create a single-file executable.

• Part 5 – Uploading the package and updating the policies.

• Part 6 – A deployment example.

And Now … The Presentation … 

Well, simply click on the file below to download it to your computer … and enjoy. Hopefully it will help you and your company deploy Lotus Notes R8.5.1 more quickly and more efficiently.

Click here to download the presentation

Addendum

Last Friday, Mr. Ed Brill posted on his blog a post with links to 2 new wikis that had just been published which contains similar information. I felt kinda ackward because I had been working on this presentation for a while now (John St. Germain can attest to it since I had sent him draft copies of the presentation). However, since I had spent so much time on it, I didn’t want to let it all go to waste and I decided to finish it and post it. Maybe it it will help someone out there …?

I hope you enjoy it.

PS: I am leaving for vacations on Friday somewhere where my cell phone won’t work and where there’s no internet so I won’t be able to respond to comments for the next 2 weeks.