NPL Revision 4.3/5.0
Hints and Tips for NPL Resellers This page contains some helpful Hints and Tips for successfully installing, updating
and upgrading to NPL Revision 4.3/5.0. This new release has been a great success in saving
time and money for many distributors.
How do I upgrade my Release 3.x and 4.x installations to Release
4.3/5.0?All upgrades now employ the use of Niakwa's Universal Upgrade Procedure. The Universal
Upgrade is a simple self-prompting procedure that eliminates the need for tracking and
returning Gold Keys. First, in order to run a Universal Upgrade successfully, you need to
supply us with certain information. The following items are required: 1. Serial Number (from the old Gold Key) - Determined by SHOWNPL 2. The Product Number (from the old Gold Key) - Determined by SHOWNPL 3. Additional Users/License Capabilities to add - Determined by Vendor
For example, lets assume that you want to upgrade a four user 4.10 MS-DOS for Niakwa
Supported Networks Gold Key to an eight user MS-Windows for Niakwa Supported Networks. The
first thing to do is to run SHOWNPL on the system you intend to upgrade. In our example
case, SHOWNPL will return the following information: After obtaining this information, simply provide it to Niakwa (Sales Order Desk) and
tell them that you would like to add MS-Windows to the upgraded Gold Key and increase the
user limit to eight users. Note: SHOWNPL is included on every current RunTime Package and Universal Upgrade.
Once you provide the above information to Niakwa, you will be sent a Universal Upgrade
RunTime Package. This package will include (1) NPL Upgrade Diskette, (3) NPL RunTime
Replacement Diskettes, and a Certificate of License and Authenticity containing an Upgrade
Registration Code. The Upgrade Registration Code is prompted for by the Universal Upgrade
and is used to validate the old Gold Key and new Replacement Gold Key information that you
provided us in items 1, 2 and 3 above. For a complete discussion of the NPL Universal
Upgrade procedure, refer to the NPL Release V Compendium or the NPL RunTime Package
Installation Guide. Back
to Top Do I need to recall security to my old NPL Gold Key before running
the Universal Upgrade?For all MS-DOS / MS-Windows based RunTimes, the Universal Upgrade procedure requires
the old NPL Gold Key security to be recalled from the currently installed
system. For all SCO OpenServer Unix/SCO Xenix based RunTimes, the Universal Upgrade
procedure requires the old NPL Gold Key security to be installed on the
currently installed system. My customer has lost security on their system. Do I need a new Gold
Key to upgrade their system? In most cases, no. Have the customer run the RESET program on the old NPL Gold Key
diskette. Then provide the serial number and reset count displayed by this program to
Niakwa (Sales Order Desk), and they can give you a RESET code that the customer can enter
when running the RESET program. This will re-establish installable security on the old
Gold Key diskette, thus allowing you to run a Universal Upgrade. No. The NPL Universal Upgrade must interact with NPL RunTimes, which use
an older version of security than NPL Revision 4.2x and 4.3/5.0 RunTimes. This is
one of the reasons that versions of NPL prior to 4.2x are not supported under Windows 95
and Windows NT. For this reason, the Universal Upgrade must be run on systems that can
reliably execute the old NPL security. (NOTE: Shutting down Windows 95 to MS-DOS is a
sufficient alternative.) Back to
Top After upgrading, I get a message indicating a NIAKNETW mismatch. What
does this mean?This error can occur if you have updated the NPL Windows files on your system, but have
not updated each workstation to use the current version of NIAKNETW.DLL. Be sure to remove
all older versions of NIAKNETW.DLL from your system, and the message should go away. Under Windows 95, I have defined my print devices to use the Windows
Print Manager. The printer I select is directed to a print queue on the customer's
network. When the customer prints in my application, everything seems like it prints fine,
but the output is lost. What could be happening here?This problem is related to the default settings in the Setup of a printer under Windows
95. To correct this, perform the following steps: - From the Windows menu bar, click on Start, Settings, and Printers.
- Right click on the printer in question and select properties.
- Click the Details tab.
- Choose Spool Settings
- Verify that "Spool data format" is set to "RAW"
By default, Windows 95 will set the "Spool data format" to "EMF",
thus causing the problem with no output. Back to
Top
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