Does this site look plain?

This site uses advanced css techniques

NOTE: This is obsolete; it applied only to Killington and prior releases

Evolution Logo

When activating a new version of an Evolution™ application version ZIP, sometimes the deployment service creates a new directory to hold the various services, and this includes one holding the Registration Daemon service.

These directories could be named:

C:\Program Files\Evolution\DeploymentService\RegistrationDaemonService00000001\
C:\Program Files\Evolution\DeploymentService\RegistrationDaemonService00000002\
C:\Program Files\Evolution\DeploymentService\RegistrationDaemonService00000003\
...

and only one is current (the non-current ones are nearly empty).

Though the Evolution servers will always be able to find the proper directory, the RD machine typically has a few desktop shortcuts to tools found in that directory, and these links break when the subdirectory moves. It's possible to use the Windows Explorer tools to repair them, but this has proven to be tedious.

So we've created a small VBScript program that searches for the active RD directory, then recreates the shortcuts on the desktop.

Desktop showing the shortcuts created

Installation

Select directory to hold the script
We always put this in the C:\BIN\ directory, as our other tools (such as Clickrestore) live there too, and though it doesn't really matter where the script is put, this is as good a place as any.
Create the directory with Windows Explorer if necessary.
Download the script
The program is written in VBScript and is all ASCII text: one should right-click + "Save Target As" to save the script to the above location: DO NOT "Run" the script from the web - it will likely work correctly, but won't be installed on the system.
The script can be found here:
Set directory for Deployment Service
The script looks by default in C:\Program Files\Evolution\DeploymentService for the various services, but some customers have chosen to install Evolution to some other location. If you have an alternate location, edit the script with Notepad to change the path:
evo-fixlinks.vbs
' directory where the DeploymentService is installed
DSdir = "C:\Program Files\Evolution\DeploymentService"   « edit to taste
Most users won't need to edit the script for any reason.
Place shortcut to this script on the desktop
From within Windows Explorer, right-click + "Copy" on the evo-fixlinks.vbs as found in the install directory, then right-click + "Paste Shortcut" onto the desktop. This makes the script easily available during Evo update time.
We also typically rename the shortcut here.
Delete any pre-existing shortcuts to eBackup or SetAdminRights
Our program will be the exclusive manager for these tool shortcuts, so it's wise to delete any existing shortcuts first: it would confuse a user to see multiple shortcuts on the desktop, only one of which worked.
Run the script!
Since we've just deleted all the shortcuts to these RD tools, we must run our script once to create them: simply double-click the Fix Evo Links shortcut. It will create the two shortcuts and pop up a dialog box informing of success (or failure).
Note that some versions of Windows Server 2003 may provoke a security warning about VBScript being possibly dangerous. It's best to uncheck the "Always ask before opening this file" box, then click Open:
Disabling security warning in evo-fixlinks
Subsequent runs of the program will no longer bear the warning.

This can be run anytime, but we'd expect it would only be run after activating a new version of Evolution in the EEC.

Note - we're not a terribly experienced with VBScript development, so the code likely far less than optimal. We'll refine it over time.


First published: 2008/03/23