Retrospect Launcher won't start scheduled jobs under windows vista 64-Bit

[dkoppka]

OK here goes. I have been looking for an answer to this one for a couple of days but did not manage to track one down.

 

I recently had to replace my old computer and the new one came with vista 64-Bit Home Premium. I installed retrospect (Version 7.6.111) and scheduled some daily jobs. None of them will automatically start. I have to start Retrospect manually which will then start the jobs immediately if they are overdue or at the scheduled time.

 

Here is what I did to try to resolve the issue:

- de- and re-installed

- installed with (run as administrator" command

- set retrospect to run as both, current and specific user (which is set as administrator)

- change user of launcher service to a specific administrator user

 

All to no avail

 

Is there a definitive solution to this?

 

In addition I noticed that vista logs: "The Retrospect Launcher service is marked as an interactive service. However, the system is configured to not allow interactive services. This service may not function properly." a 7030 Windows error message.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

Kobe :rollie:

 

PS: sorry if this has been discussed before. Then I must have missed it :confused2:

Edited October 30, 2008 by Guest

[Mayoff]

We tried to reproduce the problem without success. Everything worked as expected. No errors or failures.

 

[dkoppka]

I lived with this for another half year - don't know how.

 

Anyway I wanted to bring this up again. I can't get Retrospect to launch automatically for my scheduled tasks. Apparently this works for most other users so I ask myself what could possibly interfere with the Retrospect Launcher that it would not start.

 

I am willing to try a clean re-install .. is there anything I need to especially focus on when re-installing? Or is it just good enough to de-install, reboot, install (as admin).

 

Thanks

Dirk

[dkoppka]

Can somebody please confirm the settings of the retrospect and retrospect launcher service under vista home premium. I.e. the user the launcher service must log on: System, Administrator, User in Administrator group. Is the "allow interact with user desktop" flag important?

 

In addition, does the type of user retrospect logs on play a role when autostarting tasks (other than for remote backups)?

 

Thanks

[Mayoff]

You should never change the Retrospect launcher service from the default settings under WIndows Vista. You should be using 7.6 of Retrospect with default launcher service settings.

[cfieldgate]

I have just built a new PC and have the same scheduling issue on Vista 64 Home Premium.

 

I have been using Retrospect (currently v7.6) for many years. Although an IT professional I am new to Vista (64 bit, UAC and all that) but this has me completely stumped. :confused2:

 

What should I check? The scheduled task only runs if I start Retrospect. Also, Retrospect won't login as the (backup) user that I have defined (to access my NAS). It is always the logged account user - strange.

[dkoppka]

Thanks all for repsonding

 

Just a quick update on my side: I fiddled around wiht the Vista UAC and deactivated it. A reboot immediatly fired off the overdue retrospect tasks. A further test with a freshly created job workes fine. So the UAC must stop the retrolauncher to start properly.

 

Well, I know that Vista UAC is not the best of its kind but I sure do not like it to just shut it down to get my retrospect tasks scheduled. Does that stir up further suggestions?

 

I just wonder that not more people have these problems :speechless: .

[cfieldgate]

Kobe,

 

Many thanks for this vital clue - I will try it later when I get back :teeth:

 

BTW - I have also just installed VISTA 64 & Retrospect Professional on another PC which has different hardware (Core 2 rather than i7) - it exhibits the same problem!!

[cfieldgate]

Kobe,

 

I also found this article which I will try out:

 

ACT

[dkoppka]

Thanks Colin. I tried this but to no avail. Have ou been able to tweak this to work? I get strange side effects when setting Retrospect or Launcher to bypass UAC. One is that even though Retrospect start without prompt it complains about not having enough rights to perform all backup tasks.

 

I guess unless EMC²/Dantz confirms this problem we are left alone.

Edited May 6, 2009 by Guest

[cfieldgate]

Kobe,

 

Actually I tried this yesterday and got in a real mess. I had to use an earlier Restore Point to get Retrospect to run a backup again. :omg:

 

I could set up the Application Compatibility database so that when doing a test run from the tool Retrospect would start without a UAC. BTW I had to use ForceAdmin as well as RunAsAdmin for this to work.

 

However, for some strange reason when I "installed" the database, after saving it, Restrospect would not start withiut a UAC and the tool when restarted showed no installed databases!!

 

I have also tried to use the Vista Scheduler to launch Retrospect at start up. However, this also fails fo no reason I can fathom. :angry2:

[cfieldgate]

Kobe,

 

I may have had some success after a complete Vista x64 plus SP2 update re-install without an anti-virus product loaded (I can't get ZoneAlarm or ESET to install on SP2). I am now runing AVG-Free and Retrospect seems to respond to the schedule. I say seems as it failed to run as I did not set the login user to an admin account. I will check this out tonight and report back.

[cfieldgate]

All,

 

OK, I think I am on to something. If I set Retrospect to run as the logged in user (the default in Security preferences) then the scheduler starts Retrospect as configured by the script but the backup fails as this account can't acess my NAS. However, if I set Retrospect to login as an account that can access the NAS then the scheduler fails to start Retrospect!!

 

So I think there is an issue here that only affects those users backing up non-windows network shares - my NAS runs Linux and uses Samba for shares.

 

Can anyone shed any light on this?

[tim.weaver]

I have been evaluating Retrospect Single Server 7.6 (latest version) on Vista 32 bit (old PC) using an Iomega StorCenter ix2 and I have experienced all of the above problems. It worked perfectly under Windows Xp and Server 2003, but fell apart under Vista. I have played around alot with accounts and the UAC in Vista.

 

I can only get the launcher to work if UAC is disabled. However, I almost got it working with another tweak as follows, suggesting that further tweaks might be possible, but I think we need some help from EMC on exactly what settings are needed:

 

• Firstly the account used by the launcher and Retrospect must be an admin account with at the very least, read access to all of the folders on the NAS to be backed up
• Then logged in as an admin on Vista goto to Administrative Tools, Local Security Policy and select Local Policies, Security Options. Scroll to the bottom and change the setting for user Account Control: Behaviour of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval mode to Elevate without Prompting

 

So far UAC enabled this prevents the annoying prompt when starting Retrospect, but the launcher still did not start. Any more ideas?

 

Tim

[cfieldgate]

WiseCo,

 

Switched off UAC, rebooted and Retrospect started under my defined Admin acount. Thanks. But it would be nice to have it work with UAC enabled!

 

BTW - under Vista 64 Home Premium I cannot find the Local Security Policy settings you describe.

[tim.weaver]

BTW - under Vista 64 Home Premium I cannot find the Local Security Policy settings you describe.

 

It will depend on whether you are part of a Windows domain or just a Workgroup or standalone.. Assuming you are not a domain user and are logged in as an administrator, then you might be able to access this feature in two ways:

 

• Right click the Start button and Customise the Start Menu to display the System admin tools, or
• Open the Control Panel in Classic Mode and the Admin tools should be listed.

 

 

[cfieldgate]

WiseCo,

 

Unfortunately, Windows Vista x64 Home Premium does not offer Local Security Policy settings under Administrative Tools. It would appear that this is only available on "higher" versions e.g. Ultimate.

 

So, is there an incompatibility between Retrospect 7.6 and Vista Home Premium since I can't set this? Perhaps Mayoff could comment on what versions of Vista Retrospect supports / is tested on?

[JamesOakley]

I know (before anyone points it out) that Retrospect does not yet officially support Windows 7.

 

But, I wanted to see if I would be able to run all the software and drivers I currently use under Windows 7, so I've installed the RC. The bad news is: This problem people have reported with Vista also seems to occur (for me at least) in Win7. That's to say: Scheduled jobs don't start unless you manually start up Retrospect.exe. The launcher is installed, running under the system account, and allowed to interact with the desktop. But nothing.

 

The good news is: It seems relatively easy to work-around. Use the new Task Scheduler to create a task that launches Retrospect.exe; set its login credentials to be that of an administrative user, and tick the box "Run with highest privileges". Set the task to trigger (say) every half an hour, and bingo - the scheduled scripts run.

 

One thing I've noticed is that Retrospect.exe does not close down after all scheduled scripts have completed. This is expected behaviour: If you start Retrospect manually from within Windows, it is set to "Stay in Retrospect" not to "Exit" on completion, so that is all that is happening. That's a shame, but not a disaster. Theoretically this means that one could set the task to trigger only on logon or on system startup, and the Retrospect application would stay running in the background. I've kept it to trigger every 30 minutes just to be safe - in case the application is shut down for some other reason.

 

I hope this helps someone, and I hope there is a new release from the good people behind Retrospect that fixes this properly some time soon.