Installing Updates

Updates to Reality are made available on the NEC Reality Latest Updates webpage. These are normally supplied as a service pack containing the latest updates that are required to be loaded for any support requests to be progressed.

Please read the documents Description of Recommended Updates and Installation Info File on the webpage for details of the contents of the updates and any additional configuration that might be necessary.

To download the latest service pack, on the Reality V15.4 tab, click the required Windows 64bit Update or Windows 32bit Update file and save the file with a right-click.

Note

To install a service pack, you must have at least 200 Mb available on the drive containing the realman folder.

Other support information is available on the NEC Reality Support webpage.

Caution

Before you install an update, ensure that you have an up-to-date backup of your existing data.

Installation procedure

  1. For each Reality database to be updated:

    • Save to elsewhere in the database any system file items that you have customised. Files that might have been customised include SYSPROG-PL, PROCLIB, BP, SYSBP, SYSBP.MSGS, SYSPL, SYS.BASLIB and BASIC-COMPILERS.

    • Ensure that all users are logged off.

    • Carry out FILE-SAVE and VERIFY-SAVE.

  2. Log on to Windows; you must have full Windows administrator privileges.

  3. Ensure that no users are logged into Reality. If necessary use the LOGOFF or LOGOFF-ALL command.

  4. From the Reality website, download the required service pack.

    The service pack's file name includes the Reality version number, the service pack number, and an indication of whether it is 32 bit or 64 bit. It will also have a .rltyfx file extension.

  5. Use Windows Explorer to find the downloaded service pack, then right-click the file and select Run as administrator to begin the installation.

    The .rltyfx file extension ensures that service packs are automatically opened with the install_fix utility.

    Alternatively, running install_fix from the command prompt, again as administrator, allows additional control over the installation — but this should only be done under the direction of Reality Support personnel to resolve local issues.

  6. Follow the on-screen prompts.

    install_fix asks you for your name or initials and then displays a description of each update to be installed and ask you to confirm installation.

    Note

    If the process detects that the current version of the update is already loaded, a message is displayed and the update is not installed.

  7. The Reality services must be shut down before the reality executables can be rebuilt. You are therefore asked if you want to shut down the Reality services so that the rebuild can proceed:

    • If you answer yes, the services are shut down and the executables are rebuilt. You are then asked if you want to restart the services; Reality cannot be used until this is done.

    • If you answer no, you must complete the update at a later time by running install_fix with the -b option.

    The installation process then rebuilds Reality if necessary and/or informs you that you should logon to each database to complete the installation.

  8. On each database to be updated:

    • Log on as the database owner. From the SYSMAN account run:

      DBUPDATE {updateNumber}

      where updateNumber is the number of the update you have installed (for example, 15.1.0.0001); omit the update number to process all updates. Follow the on-screen prompts.

    • Integrate any customised changes made in SYSPROG-PL, PROCLIB, BP, SYSBP, SYSBP.MSGS, etc. (saved in step 1 above).

    • Carry out FILE-SAVE and VERIFY-SAVE.