Evaluation to production: full reinstall

In most cases, fully reinstalling Express Software Manager is the cleanest option. It means uninstalling most or all of the Express Software Manager components and installing them in the configuration you plan to use in production. To do this, you should:

1. Uninstall the Express client from any machine you used during your evaluation.
   You can do this from the Machines panel in the Administrative Console. Simply right-click on the Installed category folder in the tree view and select Uninstall Express Client. Enter proper credentials and all clients will be uninstalled. If you need to use different credentials for different clients, you can select them individually or in groups in the list view, and then uninstall.

Note: Uninstalling existing clients is a very important step. To improve network performance, the Express Client caches certain information locally. If you install a new, clean Express Database and have existing clients start reporting data to it, data may get attributed to the wrong machine.

2. Uninstall any non-client components from your workstation.
   You’ll typically want to uninstall the Express Database, Express Server, and Express Access Point components and install them on other machines. You can leave the Administrative and Express Reports installed if you plan on using those management interfaces from your machine.

3. Install required components on other machines.
   You can run ESMSetup.exe, which will check for any required software on those machines, then continue to install the components you want. By default, Setup installs all components, so you will want to clear those components you don’t want to install. You should always install the Express Database component first and then install other components. When you install the Express Database, you will be prompted for a license key. If you have purchased Express Software Manager you can enter that key now, or enter it in via the Express Administrative Console later. If you choose to leave the Express Access Point on your evaluation machine, see step 10 in the selective reinstall procedure for information on how to redirect the Access Point to report to your new database.

4. Run the Express Administrative Console.
   Since you moved components to other machines, you will need to specify where the new Express Server is located and "reconnect" the Express Server with the Express Database. When the Administrative Console starts, it will attempt to connect to the uninstalled Express Server and fail, presenting you with a dialog box that allows you to enter the new Express Server location. Once you have done this, you need to restart the Administrative Console. On restart, the Administrative Console will connect to the new Express Server. Since the new Express Server is not connected to a database, you will be prompted for the location and name of the Express Database as well as credentials. You should specify the username and password of the Express account you created when you installed the new Express Database.

5. If you have purchased an Express Software Manager license but did not specify it during installation of the Express Database, you can do so now by clicking on the Upgrade link in the License Features section of the Express Today panel in the Administrative Console.

6. At this point, you are up and running with the redeployed system. You can now discover machines on your network and start installing clients.