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TAS accounts password lockout. Solved

Did a disaster recovey for a client yesterday. All went fine bar one issue. After the restore was complete, all programs worked with the correct data in place bar TAS accounts software. The client was not able to log in to his TAS accounts pack with the user and password credentials he had always used.

We contacted TAS expecting this to be a time consuming issue and were pleasantly surprised.
If this happens you, you will need to have the following information when you contact TAS support.

TAS serial number and TAS system code. If you don’t have these they may be able to assist based on customer number and proof of I.D.
Our client had his serial number and system code so this ruled out having to fax a request on headed notepaper.

TAS support got us to run a utility which is embedded in the software so there was no need for any downloads. On entering the serial number and system code we were presented with a key code. This TAS key code allowed us to initialise some dd and .b files (under TAS instruction) which reset the passwords for the selected company. Additionally, the exercise only reset the passwords for the affected company so users of other companies were unaffected. The result was that all user accounts for the affected company were deleted and the original default supervisor account “SPV” for the affected TAS company was automatically put in place. The client could then access the company. We asked the client to check that the information was correct. It was. Next he just created the user accounts he wanted and changed the passwords.

Well done TAS. Solid support. Well engineered software. 
You can contact TAS as per the following details.

TAS Software
3096 Lake Drive
Citywest Business Park
Dublin 24

Tel: (01) 6420820
Fax: (01) 6420871

Sales Freephone: 1800 222 123
LoCall 1890-946-881

For sales enquiries e-mail: sales@tassoftware.ie

For support enquiries email: support@tassoftware.ie

Remember to keep your software maintenance subscription in place. This issue was easily resolved with a TAS maintenance contract and possibly not resolvable at all without proper support in place.,

Do understand that we are fans of pervasive software. It is commonly used in non server network environments to allow software such as TAS to work for independent users with all files kept on one workstation.

While the solution for the client was to allow them to use a server network product without a server, the solution for us was to allow one system to control all TAS backups.

Pervasive has lived up to its literal name by becoming the dominant player in a very important market which now enjoys support of and use in a much wider set of environments.

So why would we call it perversive?

Not in its own right it isn’t but the insistence of some products it is used for on using older versions of .net framework has caused considerable confusion. The problem arises when a functioning system with pervasive and the application it is set to support are compromised by the installation of other software which requires (and therefore prompts the user to load) a later version of .net framework.

This in itself should not be an issue but non related issues post installation can cause a misdiagnosis of .net framework being the problem and a choice being made to do without one or the other of the applications.

In reality, a system can have two versions of .net framework and two applications requiring different versions, there should not be a difficulty and the perception of a conflict leads to the user actions which cause the problem.

In summary (outside of very unusual circumstances) you should be able to have two versions of .net framework on a system. Each application with dependencies should correctly identify the version it uses and work as normal.

If you have a difficulty (not a perceived difficulty) it is likely but not definitely to be the older application mistakenly looking to the newer framework and not the newer application or either version of .net framework.