Yes Sophos, I am a big fan. We run two of their systems, Anti-Virus and their excellent Spam prevention system Puremessage. (Prices are extremely competitive, I’d urge a check, if nothing else)
I recently logged onto the VM that takes care of the virus software only to be told the current version of the software will be hitting end of life in March 2011, so I set aside a day (thinking I wouldn’t need a day!) to upgrade the system.
Now we’re halfway through and thus far I have; backed up the registry, backed up the enterprise console database, installed sql express 2008, uninstalled sql express 2008 (the sophos instructions told me to install, tech support told me to uninstall!), upgraded to enterprise console 4.0, faffed about for about an hour with sql service packs….
I think a lunch break is in order – see you in a while….
Ok, back and installing SP4 for MS SQL2000, Evidently I need a strong sa password to upgrade, give me a break!
Removed the old version of SQL, since the enterprise console 4.0 install automatically installed SQL Enterprise 2005 – and despite my attempts I simply could not get SQL 2000 SP4 installed.
My upgrade was fast turning into an upgrade from hell. So I did the only thing I could do at that point – go home!
Did a little extra work remotely as the last attempt to run the Enterprise Manager 4.5 install yielded in my getting past the SQL errors, but then, of course, I only had 1gb of disk space left! Just to make things interesting the server is a virtual machine, so powered down (and snapshots removed) I was able to grow the disk (doubled in size as it happens) to create extra capacity.
Or so I thought, of course being a system partition I had to install a third party app to enable me to extend the volume, with that done the server was running much better than it had for a while (bear in mind there was over a 1gb free, so it should have at least been usable!)
Ok, got all that? Good, on to trying the install. Passed the initial SQL errors, past the lack of disk space errors, thinking now this is going to work, and then what? Yet more SQL errors! It seems that removing the older instances of the SQL software had nerfed the database connections, silly me for thinking that the previously installed version of SQL 2005 Express was an upgrade, seems it installed alongside the existing version of SQL server, this is clearly why I was getting errors about SQL 2000 SP3 (or lower) when trying to install EM4.5
Called it a night at that point!
So where are we today?
Well, ripping random bits of Sophos software out and attempting a fresh install is where we are.
Don’t talk to me about hindsight!
(Update)
Finally got things working – happy days, had to run setup in C:\Program Files\Sophos\Enterprise Console\SUMInstaller and then remove the SUM prior to installing Enterprise Manager 4.5
Next job is to make all of the PCs update, that’s a little easier; although I do have a few who won’t take automatic updates the fix appears to be to enable the following services; Computer Browser, Remote Registry, Server, Task Scheduler, Windows Installer, Workstation and disable Windows Firewall. So have set that up in Group Policy and fingers crossed that ought to do it!!
Now…where did I put that intranet….
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