From: dbk@pslu1.psl.wisc.edu (Don Katz)
Newsgroups: vmsnet.networks.desktop.pathworks
Subject: Re: Wanted eXcursion and Backup Info
Date: 26 Aug 92 19:25:03 GMT
Organization: Physical Sciences Lab, University of Wisconsin

In article <1992Aug26.113100.1568@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu> crle@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu writes:
>Howdy!
>
>	I've received an eXcursion promo disk from Digital.  eXcursion for 
>Windows allows users to run remote X-Windows applications under Microsoft 
>Windows 3.x.  The promo disk didn't really do anything for me. 
>
>	I would like for someone who is using eXcursion for Windows to 
>share with me (US) how well it works, intergration/interoperablity problems,
>etc...

Just got it in here a few days ago. First impressions are positive.
The manual only covers installation and error conditions. Installation
is straightforward. My users are impressed - they like being able to
bring up a DecTerm with scroll bars (much better than VT320 which
doesn't support scroll back). The can also bring up Bookreader,
DecWindows Mail, etc., and have everything be part of the MS Windows
desktop. My users have been limping along with DWDOS286 under Windows,
which they have found sufficiently awkward that they don't use it.

I have crashed it once so far (in 2 hours use). My users are busy
exercising it as I write, and so far no other crashes reported. No
interoperability problems so far.

>
>	Also, Is anyone using Desktop Backup v1.0 Yet??? 
>
>					Thanks...    

Received the client for that about 10 days ago, and have one client
and the server up and running. 

The documentation is horrendous - both
administrator and client have essentially the same info, superficial
coverage, no depth, no error messages, no information about what to do
when problems arise. 

I installed the server 4 times before I got it
right (my problems: 1) you need to load the client license(s) as well
as the server license on the VAX, and 2) the program has its own
username/password setup which is totally separate from VMS, and it
doesn't support dollar signs ($) in usernames *or* passwords. The
install gleefully accepted an administrator username and password that
contained dollar signs, and then wouldn't let me log into the program
as an administrator.) The package installed the executables into
sys$specific, making it difficult to move the license from node to
node in a cluster (which I have already done once).

It comes with both DOS character cell and MS Windows executables.
One of the Windows exe's (the client, which must be running to do
unattended backups when Windows is running) wouldn't work. Turned out
you had to set the default directory for the program item in PROGMAN
to the directory containing the .exe. (Doesn't say that in the docs,
nor does it say that the client must be running under Windows to do
backups).

With that all said, it seems to work fine once you get it up and
running, at least for a single PC (I have 2 more licenses on order). 
The VMS command line interface is not conducive to inclusion
in command procedures because of its internal password protection
scheme. You can only write the "save sets" to tape, not to disk, so
you have to have a dedicated tape drive for the program. Errors which
cause backups to fail are not reported anywhere (not even to OPCOM in
most cases), so you just have to check the programs log file. There is
no way to give backup tapes a unique label for each backup, so that
the program could do label checking for restores and request the right
tape. It does do compression (unlike VMS BACKUP).

A lot of effort was clearly put into the user interface, and it is
very nice.

Despite its faults, its better than the kludgy system of task-to-task
links and batch files that we were using. It provides history, so that
a user can figure out what backup has the file she seeks to restore.
It provides a fairly simple way of scheduling repetitive backups for
multiple PC nodes, and tracking them. It doesn't require users to
remember to run Spawner before they go home (as our old system did).
And I would guess that DEC will deal with some of the faults as time
goes on. 

Don
dbk@psl.wisc.edu
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don Katz                                .         Physical
                                       .- / \ -.      Sciences
University of Wisconsin - Madison   ./'  /+-+\  `\.       Laboratory   E-MAIL