Q) How does the MSSP benefit my company?

A) Those of our customers who are on a MSSP plan are guaranteed to get bug fixes, new features, new releases and phone and web support from our support department.

Q) Why should I have to pay for bug fixes, why don't you post patches for free.

A) In the past this is what we did. We kept new features for upgrades, and released bug fixes in service packs. Trying to maintain software projects so that bugs and new features were separate was very difficult to manage and sometimes led to even more bugs! The extra maintenance involved took a lot of extra effort on our part and part of this extra cost was passed on to you in the overall cost of an upgrade.

Overall, it is much easier and safer to work with one code stream that includes bug fixes and new features and just release it when it is ready. This method allows us to incur less overall operating cost which allows us to pass this savings on to you.

Another thing to consider is that many bug fixes are dependent on other components or "chunks" of code that might have new features in them. In the past, fixes for these types of bugs could not be released, because new features were always saved for upgrades.

From time to time we will release "free" updates for important bug fixes and this will be done by only incrementing the third number in the product version. There is a description of how this works below.

Q) How is my MSSP plan and USB License Key related to one another?

A) When you purchase our software (new license or upgrade), we add a record in our license database. The record contains the serial number of the key, the name of the company who owns the key, what product and how many licenses the key is allowed to run, and also includes the end date for the MSSP plan. Also stored in the same database are the dates of each build we release to the public. For example MicroSurvey CAD 2008 (8.0.0) was released on October 3, 2007, SP1 (8.1.0) was released on December 17, 2008 and SP1.1 (8.1.1) was released on January 19, 2008. These version numbers and dates are stored in our database.

When you run the license manager on your computer, it contacts our license database. The first thing that happens is based on the USB key's serial number, we look up and find the record that matches your serial number. This record will contain the end date for your MSSP plan which we then use to determine what product version you are allowed to run. The last version released before your end date is what you are entitled to run with your key.

Let's assume you bought 1 MicroSurvey CAD 2008 Premium license and your MSSP plan expires on January 15, 2008. Using what you've learned so far if you ran the license manager, let's say on November 1, 2007, your key would be activated to run 8.0.0 because that was the current version at that time. If you later downloaded SP1 and updated your key on January 2, 2008 your key would be updated to run 8.1.0 because that was the current version.

Q) How exactly does MicroSurvey use product version numbers?

A) Product versions are always denoted by three numbers separated by decimals and take on the format of major release.minor release.build; for example 8.0.0 or 8.1.1. The first number will always denote the year the product was released and all service packs will be denoted as the second number. Minor additions to service pack releases will be denoted as the third number.

An important thing to note is that the third number isn't used by our license system, meaning that as far as our licensing system is concerned an 8.1.0, or 8.1.10, or 8.1.99 are all the same service pack version. A key activated for 8.1.0 will run all three versions. For example we released an update (8.1.1) for MSCAD 2008 SP1 in early January 2008 which means that anyone who has a key activated for 8.1.0 can also run 8.1.1 because the major and minor number are the same.

Q) How can I confirm what version I'm running?

A) You can confirm what version you have installed by using one of the following methods:

1. With the program running, the product version will be displayed in the program title bar. For example you will see something like: MicroSurvey CAD 2008 SP 1.1.
2. At the command line you can type MSCAD_ABOUT which will open our about screen. On this screen you will see the build date and build version.

Q) How can I find my MSSP end date?

A) You can type MSCAD_ABOUT at the command line which will open our about screen. Towards the bottom you will see how many days you have left in your maintenance plan.

Q) What happens if I let my MSSP plan expire?

A) You will still be able to run your software forever as long as you have your USB key. You will be able to run the license manager which will update your key with the last version that was current before your end date. You will no longer have access to our support personnel, or use of our Helpdesk ticket system.

Also you will not be able to run any new service packs or new releases until you renew your MSSP plan.

Q)‚  Do I have to renew my MSSP plan immediately?‚  What happens if I wait three months before I renew it?

A)‚  No you are not required to renew your MSSP plan right away.‚  Once you're on the MSSP plan your expiry date never changes, it will expire on the same date every year.‚  If you decide to renew three months after your expiry date, your new end date will not be one year from the date you renew, it will be one year from the date your MSSP expired.‚ 

If you wait 14 months, you will need to purchase 2 years, which will give you all the updates for the previous 14 months, plus all updates and upgrades for the next 10 months.

If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, the Telnet Client is disabled by default.  You can enable it by going to Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features | Turn Windows features on or off, and enable the "Telnet Client" option.  It may take a couple minutes for the change to complete.

Press Windows-R to open the "Run" dialog, then type "cmd" in it and press OK.  This will open a command prompt window.  It will be a black window with some white text that says something like "C:\>".  This is a command prompt, similar to the old DOS operating system.  Please note that the text shown in your prompt may vary, this is not important.

At the prompt, type "telnet address port" where "address" is the IP address, computer name, or domain name you want to connect to (as appropriate), and "port" is the TCP/IP communications port you want to connect on, then press enter.

For example...

When troubleshooting the USB License Manager application to activate your MicroSurvey USB License Key:

C:\> telnet MicroSurveyLicenseServer.com 1433

When troubleshooting a connection to your USB Network License Server to run a MicroSurvey product:

C:\> telnet YourNetworkLicenseServer 8765

When troubleshooting OfficeSync (Office Manager or Job Monitor) communication errors:

C:\> telnet OfficeSyncServer.com 1433

After executing the telnet program, you will see one of two results:

1) The command prompt screen will go blank.

This means that nothing is blocking communications between your workstation and the specified server or address, on the specified port. You will not see any sort of "success" message etc, because we are not really connecting to a telnet server so there is no return message that will be displayed.  We are using telnet simply as a tool to test basic connectivity problems.

Press Ctrl-] to open the telnet prompt

At the telnet prompt, type quit. 

Microsoft Telnet> quit

Then at the command prompt, type exit.

C:\> exit

You can stop troubleshooting a connection problem. If you are still having some sort of connection errors in your application it is due to some other problem, and you should contact MicroSurvey Technical Support with further details.

or 2) You will see a connection error, something like "Could not open connection to the host on port x: Connect failed".

This confirms that something is blocking communications between your workstation and the specified computer or server, on the specified port.  Unfortunately this will not provide any further clues as to the source of the blockage; however, typical sources include personal firewall software running on your workstation (like Norton Personal Security, for example), enterprise firewall software running on your local network (like Microsoft ISA Server, for example), a hardware firewall, a router with integrated firewall features, a cable or ISDN modem with integrated firewall features, or even your Internet Service Provider (or their secondary providers) may be blocking specific communication ports.

Please contact your local IT or Network Support staff for further assistance as to any firewall software/firewall that may be present.  MicroSurvey Technical Support cannot help you determine this.

This can be set from an icon near the top of the program,

- or from the View menu

We would suggest picking on DETAILS, to be able to see everything about the file.At this point you will see the following information in My Computer.

The following information is displayed with the detail option set:

Name: The name of the file and best guess at the icon related to the program that can open it (based upon the last installed program using the 3 letter file extension).

Size: How big the file is. Helps determine if a file will fit on a floppy disk or can be emailed.

Type: What program Windows thinks is to be used when working with that file.

Date Modified: The last time this file was modified.If you notice in the above picture not all of the file names show the 3 letter extension. This is due to another setting in My Computer that needs to be changed to be able to see them.Go to the Tools menu and pick on Folder Options (Some older versions of Windows may have this command under a different menu)

Pick on the View Tab when the dialog comes up on screen to be able to see the options that can be changed. * NOTE* Be careful in here, do not start changing everything without fully understanding what it is you are changing.

The one item you can change to help you is the item marked ‚¬Å“Hide extensions for known file types. If you have a check mark there, pick on it to remove the check mark

.

Now pick on APPLY and OK to return to the main My Computer dialog. Now the 3 letter extensions will be displayed on all of the files.You only need to set this once and it will remain this way forever, on this computer.

So how does this help you? If you need to confirm the program that can open a file, you need to know what the file type is. The problem is that Windows, when displaying the TYPE field (and the icon beside the file NAME), only knows the last program installed that relates to the 3 letter file extension. So it may tell you that the DWG file is for AutoCAD when you in fact created the file from MSCAD. Or it may say it is for MSCAD when in fact it was created by AutoCAD. It depends upon which program (MSCAD or AutoCAD) was installed last on that computer and not necessarily the program that created the file.

Many programs can use the same file extensions but Windows is only smart enough to show the last installed program, that uses that extension, in the TYPE field (it uses this same information to show the icon in the NAME field). This can be misleading at best. So when you can see the 3 letter extension, you can manually confirm that your program can work with that file type (no matter what Windows thinks is the program to use).

Seeing the 3 letter file extension is also very important if you need to rename a file. Example: you may need to rename the BAK file (backup drawing file) to DWG (working drawing file) to be able to open it in MSCAD2005. If you can‚¬„¢t see the 3 letter file extension, then you can‚¬„¢t change it.

So renaming the file would not work as expected.So what it boils down to is the Icon and the file TYPE are helpful in some cases, but you can not rely on them to be sure that the correct program will be shown that can work with the files. The 3 letter file extension is the most important piece of information to confirm if the file can be worked with by any program.

Glen W. Cameron, C.E.T.
Technical Support Manager