Friday 11 April 2014

Today I have earned my wages tri-fold..

I always look forward to Fridays...don't you?  Why, because usually I can slow down the work pace a little.

No such luck today, needed a brain, a heart, courage and distinct yellow brick road instructions.

I have been trying to update one of our software programs, Sage Payroll 19.02.157 for best part of a week without success, each time I kept getting this at the end:



After which, the Sage program did not update to version 20.01.  If you're not familiar with RTI (Real Time Information) this will mean nothing to you suffice to say that due to collaboration on an unprecedented scale with HMRC, without the update I would be unable to a) post our company wages in the new tax year and b) file RTI submissions to HMRC, the latter whip out penalty letters faster than you can access their online services.



Then when I tried again to re-install the update I got a different message asking me where my installation was as it now couldn't locate it (nuts since I had the thing open!).

Now I'll have you know that .Net 4.0 WAS installed, I checked.  I also checked my Windows Updates....hmmm what's this then?  I'm pretty sure I have seen this message from time to time:






And this one..



Uh oh..haven't seen this one before...


In fact, the windows update service WAS running according to the administrator console.  In the middle of all this I have a guy from Sage emailing me back and forth telling me things I already know how to tweak and at the same time failing to properly read my email responses back to him.  Doh!

I must have restored the computer to a previous moment in time about 5 times as one tedious trial and error fix after another failed to work.  The best one was when I tried to uninstall Windows .Net 4 Framework and then re-install it to which I received the message 'cannot complete install : HRESULT 0x80003f3 error'.   Binary, if I say so myself Watson.

Something just wasn't right...

Then I found this beautiful thread which if you click and scroll down to Kumar12337 you'll see a nice simple set of instructions.


COFFEE BREAK ALERT!!

1 hr later after restoring computer back to 8 April and any other shenanigans, re-booting for the umpteenth time, and taking another restore point (just in case) I followed Kumar12337's instructions to the letter.

It worked...except...I ended up with 64 Critical Windows 7 updates that had quite clearly failed to ever update before, despite said machine saying it had.

In the meantime, the boss (hubby) arrives home; yes I know what you're all thinking and yes...he drives me round the bend too, all day and night.

Sparkleupalot:  "Er...would you mind going for a drive?  Take the ol' racing pigeons for a spin up the road for me?"

Twinklespinalot:  "If I must...."                                                           *rubs hands with glee*

Heheh...now I don't have to watch a spinning blue circle for an hour updating Windows 7.

A quick white van run up to Steeple Bumpstead and back with birds in tow and lo and behold the 64 updates have finished. Another couple of re-boots and I was ready to try installing Sage Payroll V20.01 again.


IT WORKED!  SAGE UPDATE INSTALLED WITHOUT A HITCH! KUDOS TO KUMAR!

And now....I'm going to polish off a glass or two of wine, my day is done.




No comments:

Post a Comment