Does 7.7 sleep Windows machines?

[today]

7.7.325

 

I have a proactive script where I've selected "Options/Execution/Client/Sleep client when done". However, it doesn't seem to actually sleep my Windows machines.

 

Is there something additional I need to do on the client machines to make this work?

 

Does anyone actually have this working?

 

[Mayoff]

What client versions are installed? What windows versions?

[today]

client = 7.7.106

 

windows = XP 32bit and W7 64bit - both don't work

 

[derringer]

To add to this:

 

I cannot get 7.7 to 'shutdown' a windows client after backup either (is there something more than checking the checkbox that one has to do?).. Have tried several XP/32 clients thus far, and I've tried scheduled backups thus far.

[Mayoff]

Windows clients can not automatically shutdown. That is not a feature.

[today]

Curious if you are going to answer my question or not...

[Richy_Boy]

I'm confused by that comment...

 

In the script config under 7.7 there's an option under Execution > Client where you can choose for the client to:

 

- Do nothing

- Shutdown when done

- Sleep when done

 

Are these options just for show or is this another feature introduced into 7.7 which doesn't work?

 

Can you confirm please as I have also tried to use this feature and couldn't get the backed up machine to sleep (although haven't retested since the updated 7.7 was released).

 

I was planning to use this feature to save some power in my office by sleeping some servers and desktop over the weekend, then waking them up 8am Monday...

 

I'm assuming the Wake-on-LAN options needs ticking on the client properties for this too..

 

Richard

Edited April 29, 2010 by Guest

[Mayoff]

The shutdown when done option is a legacy option for Macintosh System 9 client computers only. I believe it is documented that way in the user's guide

[today]

Please answer my original question at the top of this thread, which is also the name of this thread. You've only answered the person who hijacked this thread.

 

BTW, tell your engineers to change the option to "Shutdown Macs when done". It is deceptive to say "Shutdown client when done" because that is completely not true. We shouldn't have to read the manual to find out about this deception.

 

[Richy_Boy]

Excuse me? My question was on the same topic and from my understanding Mayoff answered both of our questions.

 

As per Mayoffs answer, these options appear to be a legacy Mac [only] one which was, for some bizarre reason, reintroduced into RS 7.7, when I'd imagine MAC 9 user levels are pretty low.

 

What makes it even more bizarre is the inclusion of a WOL option in the client preferences - even on Windows clients, which suggests it's just another badly implimented feature which doesn't work as it should (i.e. for all client types).

 

So to clarify:

 

Is there something additional I need to do on the client machines to make this work?

A: You need a Mac it seems. Windows/Linux machines cannot use this feature.

 

Does anyone actually have this working?

A: Only Mac users..

 

Apologies for hijacking your thread

 

Mayoff: When is this likely to be fixed so Windows and Linux clients can be controlled - this is a really useful feature!

 

Rich

Edited April 30, 2010 by Guest

[Lennart_T]

Mayoff: When is this likely to be fixed so Windows and Linux clients can be controlled - this is a really useful feature!

Exactly. And don't forget Mac OS X clients.

 

In these days when conserving energy is high on the agenda, it would be a useful feature to turn off clients after the backup.

[today]

It's not your fault - I wouldn't care a whit about the hijack except that I'm still not getting any answers and you've gotten two replies on point.

 

My original question still isn't answered. Only shutdown is addressed. I mean, if sleep doesn't work in Windows, how come the first reply I get is a query about which versions of Windows I'm running and their client version? If the answer was "Doesn't work on Windows", there's no need to inquire about this.

 

If you read the manual written in 2006 plus the 7.7 addendum, there is absolutely no mention of this seemingly new sleep feature. However, the 2006 manual does mention that shutdown only works on Macs that no one actually uses anymore.

 

[derringer]

The thing is, all of these options are on the same screen, and it appears that none of them work. Whats even more frustrating is that half of them don't even work on MACs.

 

Things I can't get to work:

1. You cannot 'shutdown a Windows machine after backup completes'

2. You cannot 'sleep a Windows machine after backup completes'

3. You cannot 'wake on LAN' a MAC OSx, it never works, regardless of whether you use Proactive or Scheduled.

4. If you 'wake on LAN' a PC, it gives you 30 seconds for the machine to be responsive, and often times it fails the backup from trying before the client reloads on the PC.

 

None of these are documented. All of them should work... I can hack together DOS batch scripts that perform these functions in about 15 minutes. Why can't EMC get them working? Its mind boggling... these are not huge programming issues... my 15 year old Computer Science degree is sufficient to do them in a few hours time. I am hereby offering my programming services to fix your WAKE on LAN and Sleep code... Wake on LAN is a UDP port 8 issuance and is unbelievably easy. Shutdown and Sleep are easily accessible via Windows APIs. I could seriously implement them all if I had your source code in less than a few days time.

 

But, so that I don't hijaack the original thread poster anymore, his question is:

 

"Can Retrospect Sleep Windows Machines after backups if the checkbox that says it can is checked or not?"

Edited April 30, 2010 by Guest

[today]

2. You cannot 'sleep a Windows machine after backup completes'

4. If you 'wake on LAN' a PC, it gives you 30 seconds for the machine to be responsive, and often times it fails the backup from trying before the client reloads on the PC.

 

Thanks for this. Disappointed to hear it doesn't work, glad to hear I'm not the only person having this problem. I thought maybe I had to enable Sleep with special settings in the Windows' version of Power Settings Control Panel advanced section or something.

 

[rhwalker]

We shouldn't have to read the manual to find out about this deception.

Oh, give me a break. It's a legacy "feature" (mistake / bug, if you want) in the GUI, explained in the manual. No piece of software is perfect, and that doesn't imply deception.

 

Respectfully, "today", I think that you may misunderstand how these user-to-user support forums work.

 

But, so that I don't hijaack the original thread poster anymore, his question is:

 

"Can Retrospect Sleep Windows Machines after backups if the checkbox that says it can is checked or not?"

Please answer my original question at the top of this thread, which is also the name of this thread. You've only answered the person who hijacked this thread.

These forums are user-to-user support, and are not the way to get official answers from EMC support. From the Retrospect Forum Rules / Terms of Use:

 

This forum is a community based self help tool for users of the Retrospect Backup Software and other EMC Insignia Products. ...

 

While this forum is monitored by members of the EMC Technical Support team, it is not possible to reply to all questions and threads. This forum is not an official method for contacting technical support. EMC employees are under no obligation to reply to individual forum posts. If you need immediate technical support, you can contact technical support directly at http://www.emcinsignia.com/contactsupport

It's really not productive to stomp your little feet and demand an answer, either from us other users or from Robin Mayoff, the head of EMC Retrospect technical support.

 

Now, while it looks to me like he did answer your question (regardless of what you may think, and my opinion certainly doesn't count for anything), if you really want an official answer to your question, or any question, call the EMC Retrospect support line (see above link) under your service contract, and they are pretty good about answering questions. If you don't have a service contract, you will get charged for a support incident.

 

Russ

[today]

Whatever. I wasn't asking EMC initially, note my first question. Then someone from EMC replies and asks what Windows versions I was using and what Windows clients I was using. I reply and assume I'm going to get a straightforward answer about how to set up sleep properly on different versions of Windows, but I get no reply about sleep, and someone else gets a reply about shutdown not working.

 

I don't think it should really require a support contract to get an answer about a feature that is actually broken in the software and is not covered in the manual that was written four years ago nor covered in their recent addendum.

 

[Mayoff]

To the best of my knowledge wake on lan support is supported for Windows clients. If it isn't working, I would suggest contacting technical support directly

[today]

Robin, please don't think me too much of a jerk for continuing to beat this horse to death, I must be describing this wrong because we are going in circles here. I am not asking about "wake on lan" nor am I talking about "shutdown client when done". I am specifically addressing "sleep client when done".

 

Let me describe how to get to these options. Open a Proactive Backup script and select More Choices if need be, and go the the Execution/Client section. At the bottom is "Don't shutdown or sleep client", "Shut down client when done", and "Sleep client when done". It is this last option I'm specifically interested in and is what my question is about.

 

 

 

Here's where it gets interesting. Opening up Retrospect 7.5 which is what I was previously running, I find that the above three options are not found under Execution/Client, but two of the options are found under Macintosh/Client. "Never shut down" and "Shut down when done". It's very clear here that this option applies only to Macs.

 

When I was checking out the new Retrospect 7.7 for the first time, I noticed that these two options plus an additional option which never before existed for making a machine sleep now showed up in the more generic Execution/Client section. Notably, these items do not appear in the Macintosh/Client section and there is no Client section for Windows. I thought, great, this means that both Windows and Macs can now be slept at night, this will help us reduce our electricity usage. This plus hopefully getting some more stability (Retrospect 7.5 usually crashes on us once per week with an out-of-memory error) are why I ordered the upgrade.

 

Now from others, I have found out that they also cannot get this sleep feature to work. This surprises me, because "sleep client when done" never before existed for any client MacOS9 or MacOSX or Windows or otherwise. So why has it now popped up for the first time under Execution/Client?

 

This is why I'm so dogged in trying to get an answer about this. At first, I just wanted to know if others got it to work, but now that you are involved, I'd like to get an official answer from the developers about this item and whether it is intended to work or whether it will ever work in a future update.

 

 

Edited May 1, 2010 by Guest

[Mayoff]

I am specifically addressing "sleep client when done".

 

This is not a client feature. It is a feature of the backup server only

[today]

I have a [color:red]proactive script[/color] where I've selected "Options/Execution/[color:red]Client[/color]/Sleep [color:red]client[/color] when done". However, it doesn't seem to actually sleep my Windows machines.

 

I am specifically addressing "sleep [color:red]client[/color] when done".

 

This is not a [color:red]client[/color] feature. It is a feature of the backup server only

 

Wow. Just... wow...

 

[jwright]

Ugh. Thanks Retrospect for wasting my time -- again! I have been playing with these features trying to get them to work. It really is absurd that a set of options that appears to control all clients only work for very specific and different clients.

 

It is even more absurd that we are expected to comb through the user guide to learn this! My god, just put a note in the dialog box!

 

Really, the engineers need to drop what they are doing and fix the dialog box on this one now. The quick fix is simply to specify which client each option applies to. There is plenty of room under each option.

[Richy_Boy]

Well, I did ask this very same question a while back: http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/33284/

 

.. I also requested it as a feature, even thought someone had been listening: http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/32352/

 

.. even had screen grabs..

 

 

.. Mayoff didn't even respond, so count yourself lucky Today

 

What I assume happened is that this new functionality was planned for 7.7, so the menu items were moved/put in place, then someone 'forgot' to write/unblock the code to allow this to work under the hood (in true Retrospect fashion).

 

It's an odd place to put those features though as when a backup finishes you want this to be a client or group setting, not across the board. i.e. I may not want certain servers shutdown or even desktops that are used for RDP sessions.

 

Mayoff, if you are the Support Manager, may I politely suggest you find either the Test Manager and/or the Product Manager and kick him clean in the balls? It's a concern that new functionality has been added yet there has clearly been ZERO testing on it...

 

Thank you

 

Rich

Edited May 4, 2010 by Guest

[Mayoff]

Well once again the users in the forum are making me took pretty dumb, which isn't very hard. I didn't even know we added those script options. I am checking right now to find out the exact requirements for making the options work

 

.. Mayoff didn't even respond, so count yourself lucky Today

 

Don't forget that this forum is a "user to user forum" and I just do not have the time to reply to every post or to even read every post in full detail. If you want direct technical support, you need to call technical support

[Richy_Boy]

Thanks Mayoff, wasn't having a dig (for a change), just pointing out this has been mentioned before...

 

I'm in no position to make such suggestions, but it would be a GREAT move by EMC/Retrospect to get some official support people on this forum, if not to resolve problems directly, to get a feel on problems we are facing.

 

I've only called support twice thus far, both times the staff have been completely in the dark about obvious bugs many users were seeing on this forum (i.e. slow matching etc).

 

In the UK, a major ISP called talktalk has a secret forum where people can go for assistance (their telephone support is dreadful). The support people manning the forum are superb and help users and get issues logged in the official channels if it can be replicated.

 

It certainly gives the impression that the employees are keen to help, rather than having the options of either:

 

a) Asking fellow users for help, or

Reporting to the official phone channels where it goes into a black hole.

 

Rich

[Mayoff]

Well I did some research into these new options that appear in 7.7.

 

I seems that engineering wanted to get ahead of the game and they added the user interface and the code for Sleeping and Shutting down tiger and Leopard Macintosh clients. These features have not been coded for Windows clients or even Snow Leopard.

 

Non of these features have been documented because they have not been tested by QA at this time. Really, even displaying the options was an oversight and they should have been hidden from users until we were ready to release this as a feature.

 

If the feature works for your Macintosh clients, go ahead and use it. If it is not working, then it is because we just haven't tested this code yet. Sorry for all the confusion.