[Tech Support] Sorry about this ...

[dancefloorlandmine]

We're currently having joy with a database that's playing up, and the person to blame for credit with creating this has decided to change the way it's set up. Previously, each volunteer had a desktop shortcut to the server copy of the database on their PC (we're ruining Windoze 2K, btw). However, the new cunning plan is to put a front end .mdb on each PC, and replace the current shortcut with the appropriate for the new database.

Copying the .mdb to the individual pcs is no problem (nice shared C: drives, stroke, stroke), but she's in a bit of a quandary with regard to how to be able to manage the shortcut change, without requiring someone to wander around each PC and do it by hand (there are several PCs in Macclesfield and Bristol). If I was going to take the time, I'd use VNC to do it remotely, but I'm not in the office next week (due to the joys of revision).

I've scavved a couple of vb scripts that can create and delete shortcuts on the local PC, but not quite sure how to get them to run remotely on the other PCs. Alternatively, would a simple command line "erase \\machine01\c:\blahblah\desktop\blah.lnk" do the job in a reliable fashion. And would a similar copy instruction do the trick for adding the link (once a sort of template shortcut had been created)?

You see, I truly know nothing! And I'm tired.

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

*hugs* because there were whole swathes of that I didn't even understand at all.

You're clever, you'll work it out. And on Sunday there's a picnic and I will feed you chicken.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you!

Only bugger is that I'm trying to work this out for tomorrow, as I'm not in all next week, in order to get my mind off work and onto revising, and it looks like they're going to have to sort the database issue over tomorrow and next week - as it keeps corrupting. Daft setup anyhow. SQL core data on server in london, front-end with translating lookups in london, bristol, and macclesfield, and multiple users simultaneously using each front end. Should the connection between london and the other sites even flicker momentarily, it goes pear-shaped! Oh well, not my design, and I wasn't even consulted on that one!

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Neither did I - I know nothing about Windows through a process of strategic incompetence.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Good planning sir. Most of what I know is stuff that I've picked up through doing it wrong. Or appealing to my elders and betters out there in LJ-land. I know enough to get myself asked to do things, and not enough to do them.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Ah, the more you get asked, the more you learn - and generally speaking any decent UNIX admin can muddle through most Windows problems - which is why I have found it so important to avoid learning anything at all.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Aha - but I'm not really any sort of Admin at all - "I'm just a simple lad with ideas above his station" (Skyclad) [grin]. Fundamentally speaking, this job started out as being a data-entry monkey.