Availability Manager Windows client kit

[Benjamin Levy]

Hello

We had a production VMS incident a year or so ago during which we did not have a good picture of what was wrong and wasted time pursuing incorrect troubleshooting paths. After reviewing the incident, we made it a priority to install the latest version of availabiltiy manager everywhere, including the windows client kits which can now be used from home via VPN.

Problem I am having - IT is now forcing us to update the PC clients to windows-7, and HP has not (yet) published a client kit for Windows-7. In fact HP used to have a client-kit for Windows Vista, but I looked recently and saw that it had been removed from the web site.

I have been working this issue with HP sales, but also wondering if anyone else has the same issue and if so what resolution they were able to obtain?

Thank you

[dan buckley]

I believe you can work around the WindowsVista/System 7 issue by installing the kit from the http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/products/availman/download_availman.html site in Windows XP compatability mode.
I am currently running that image under Vista.

[Benjamin Levy]

Hi Dan - thanks for the response.

I personally am not a windows expert, but two separate colleagues at my company tried it on windows-7 without success. I was told:

"it does work in vista, but the driver will not install under windows 7, it all installs fine, then bombs on the driver"

and when I asked for the specific error:

"if I get a chance I will attempt a reinstall and see if I get a message box"


Given how ubiquitous Windows-7 is becoming, I am surprised this hasn't got more attention.

[Hoff · Accepted solution]

HP have themselves seemingly not broadly adopted Windows versions past Windows XP, and they don't seem to expect their enterprise customers to have done so, either.

What Dan referred to earlier is the XP compatibility box available within some versions of Windows 7. This allows running XP and XP applications within a VM. This is a feature of the Windows 7 Pro and higher versions of the seven? packaging flavors of Windows 7, and is the classic work-around for stuff that hasn't been moved to W7.

The other option here is to run AvailMan on an OpenVMS box within your perimeter, and connect into that. (For those of us that aren't running any Windows clients, this is the available approach. Possibly with remote X displays.)

There are (unsupported) instructions available for running parts of AM on other platforms and other versions, but there are definitely issues with W7 in 64-bit.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1403380

I'd not expect to see an update here, given that the Windows client tools for VMS (AM, OMS, T4, Debugger) seem to be nearly or effectively in maintenance or best-effort status. (I'd appreciate corrections here, as I've not heard of any plans announced and am inferring this based on the relative frequency of or the lack of new releases and of updates of these tools.)

[EdgarZamora_1]

I spent a lot of time trying to get Availability Manager working on Windows 7 64-bit... to no avail (excuse the pun)... a new AMNDIS50 (i don't recall the exact name) driver is needed, IIRC.

[Benjamin Levy]

OK, making progress.

I understand now that the difference isn't XP-Vista-Windows7, but rather 32-bit vs 64-bit and that the present kits are intended for 32-bit only. The 64-bit OS includes a 32-bit emulation mode, but only for non-privileged software, not for drivers.

Thanks for the pointer to the other submission by a former HP engineer on how to possibly, but unuspported, break out the driver (which I don't) need, from the rest of the kit and install just the rest of the kit. Our next step is going to be to try that one.

Will post again when I find out more.

[Hoff]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/windows-xp-mode

[Benjamin Levy]

Done some more work on this issue. Got my HP sales rep to work with product management. They now report that they are considering formally supporting 64-bit Windows-7 in the next version of Availability Manager, but they claim they have had very few customer requests. If any of the non-HP people who have replied to this forum could contact their sales reps to request this support, that might help.

[I obtained permission from my sales rep to enter this info into a public forum.]

Thank you.

[Hoff]

>If any of the non-HP people who have replied to this forum could contact their sales reps to request this support, that might help.

No Microsoft Windows used here. When AM/AMDS is needed, native VMS or remote X is used.