Evaluation to production: selective reinstall

While not recommended, you may be able to reinstall Express Software Manager retaining the data you collected and configured during your evaluation. (Before proceeding, please see the item in the Important Notes topic regarding SQL Server sort order to determine if this is possible in your environment.) To do this, you should do the following:

  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.

  1. Using SQL Enterprise Manager or SQL Server Management Studio, back up your Express Database.
    If you do not have  an SQL management tool, follow the instructions in Technical Note 1596 (http://www.expressmetrix.com/techdocs/1596.asp) to back up your Express Database.

  2. Uninstall any Express Software Manager components you plan to redeploy.

  3. Restore your backed-up database to the new database server.
    You can restore the Express Database using SQL Enterprise Manager or SQL Server Management Studio. If you do not have an SQL management tool, follow the instructions in Technical Note 1598 (http://www.expressmetrix.com/techdocs/1598.asp) to restore your Express Database.

  4. Determine which machine you are going to use as your new database server.
    Run ESMSetup.exe and install the database component to that machine. If you want to install other components such as the Express Server to that machine, those components are selected as well. Note that Setup assumes all server components will be installed, so make sure you clear those components you don’t want to install with the database. By installing the database component, you will get all the database utilities required by Express Software Manager.

  5. Install any other Express components such as the Express Server or Express Access Point. When you install the Express Access Point, you will be prompted to specify the database server name, database name, and credentials (Express database account and password) for the new database.

  6. Update the configuration files for the Access Point, Administrative Reports, and Express Reporting.
    For details, see Technical Note 2023 (    http://www.expressmetrix.com/techdocs/tn.asp?number=2023).

  7. You may now run the Express Administrative Console. See step 4 in the full reinstall procedure for information on how to reconnect all Express Software Manager components.

  8. If you were previously evaluating Express Software Manager and have subsequently purchased a full license, now enter the license key. You can do this from within the Express Administrative Console by clicking on the Change link in the License Features section of the Express Today panel.

  9. Your redeployed Express system is now ready to use. You will likely already have discovered machines on your network; you can now use the client installation capabilities in the Administrative Console to deploy more Express clients throughout your organization.