FRx SP11 Highlights
SP11 has recently been released. Today’s post is courtesy of Kim Leonard at Microsoft. Thank you Kim! Kim is on the support team for FRx and just updated the SP10 “Good Bad Ugly” post with this new information on SP11. I thought it was so important that it should have its own post. Here’s Kim:
Regarding the Good/Bad/Ugly, I can give you highlights for Service Pack R11670 as follows:
•Windows 2008 and Windows 7 will be supported with FRx 6.7 SP11.
•The FRx WebPort will be supported with Windows 2008 and Windows 7. A separate download is necessary to install FRxWebport SP11 to be supported on Windows 2008 and Windows 7. This will be available on MS Downloads (the same place where all the FRx Service packs are stored) eventually but not currently uploaded yet. Windows Vista will continue to be not supported with FRx WebPort.
The new WebPort installation will work on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. In addition, the Web Printing functionality has been updated to work with BCL easyPDF 6.0 (our previous version was 3.11). If customers install SP11 on an existing 2003 server with BCL easyPDF 3.11, it will continue to work fine. If you set up a new server (2003 or 2008), you will be able to install WebPort from the new installation and install easyPDF 6.0 and it will work with both 3.11 and 6.0.
The new WebPort installation is an MSI and as stated it will be available on the Microsoft Download Center. The installation works the same with updated permissions such as correctly adding the IUSR_<computername> for IIS6 or IIS_IUSRS and IUSR for IIS7. One additional highlight is that you can now select either Windows Authentication or Anonymous Authentication during the installation and it will create the WebPort virtual directory according to what you selected.
•Office 2010 will not be certified in this cycle. However, there was some limited testing and it does work.
•64-bit version of Windows will not be supported. Customers will have to use Virtual Machines. A new feature in Windows 7 allows users to download Windows XP Mode. This is a new feature in Windows 7, available in Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise, provides a licensed copy of Windows XP with Service Pack 3 in Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) format. When installed with the proper integration components, it allows you to run Windows XP in its own virtual machine, separate from the host Windows 7 installation. The location for the download and additional information about XP Mode is available at this URL: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx.
•The previous issues with percentage and dollar formatting using CS are resolved in this service pack, along with other fixes in the service pack listed in the Release notes.
Thank you,
Kim [MSFT]
**This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights
Thanks again, Kim! Jan
Just to clarify, WebPort is NOT supported on Windows 7. Report Server and WebPort are only officially supported on a server edition of Windows.
If you’re installing WebPort on a new server (even if it’s a 2003 server), I recommend using the newer version of BCL easyPDF. The old version is not supported on Windows Server 2008. Also, the fallback behavior in FRxPDFSvr will look for 6.0 first. The fallback behavior was added only to prevent the need to upgrade BCL easyPDF on existing implementations of WebPort.
PS. Kim says the FRx WebPort Service Pack 11 Installation for Windows 2008 and Windows 7 is now available on Microsoft Downloads site.
Is SQL Server 2008 supported with SP 11? Partnersource and Kim were silent on this item.
Mark
Yes, SQL Server 2008 is supported with SP11.
Just to clarify… Is 64bit SQL Server 2008 OK too? (Seems like it should be, but I got some mixed messages elsewhere). Thanks…
Yes, SQL Server 2008 64-bit is ok as well. Since FRx is just connecting to the database server and not actually running on a 64-bit OS, it will work just fine.
[...] the full post at FRxBuzz Related posts you might want to review:FRX Support Plans – [...]
Do you have to be on a specific GP service pack to apply the FRx SP11?
Denni,
If you’re using Analytical Accounting for GP, you must be on GP10 SP3 or later to use FRx 6.7 SP11. If you’re not using AA, you should be ok as-is.
Jeff
Jeff … thanks for the quick response! Not using AA, luckily!
Above it states that a 64-bit version of Windows is not supported for FRx. If you have FRx installed on a GP client that is 32-bit OS, but the SQL server is on a 64-bit OS server, is that supported? Is it the client or the database server that has to be 32-bit OS? We’d like to go 64-bit OS with SQL 2008, if possible.
Also … if you use VMWare, GP is not supported in that virtual environment, last I checked. For some reason AX is, but not GP.
Regards,
Denni
Never mind the last post … saw the answer above!
I have just been to the download links of FRx 6.7 Service Pack 11 (R11670) but how come it doesn’t specify Windows 7 as one of its supported Operating Systems?
(it still said Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista)
I have a new machine with windows 2008 server 64 bit. This is a new server and I copied the sysdata folder from the old server (32bit) to the new one. I have Windows 7 and XP clients accessing the sysdata on the new server and the Windows 7 machines are extremely slow when opening FRX. I’m talking like 8-10 minutes to open frx. On the windows XP machines there is no problem. Has anyone else had this experience?
Neil, the SP 11 documentation does not show Windows XP as a cerified version, but shows Vista and 7. You had no problems on Windows XP but you did have problems on 7? Is that right?
Leslie, that is correct. No problems on XP and extremely slow getting to login screen and running reports on Windows 7.