Hello All, Just in time to do my first import, I thought I'd check in with the BMC to be sure that I can do a backup/restore, just in case. So I click on the shortcut and I am told that the program no longer exists!?! I tried the shortcut in the start menu, same thing. I looked in Program Files, but the whole BMC directory is missing.. The only place that it still exists is in the registry.. Blackbaud has told me to download re781.exe to update/repair the BMC, but I am hoping I have another choice considering I am worried without being able to do a backup first and also of any effects on the workstations.. I am running 7.81.1334.11 Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Bryce

BMC - who needs it anyways. If you have SQL Server Standard or Enterprise then just use Enterprise Manager. The BMC is just a shell app for Enterprise Manager. Then again, EM could be called a shell for command-line sql I guess. If all you have is MSDE or SQL2005Express, then you could download SSMSE (google) to get a GUI feel and issue the backup/restore statements that way too. I like the command line better myself. Dan Larson Programmer/Analyst St. Cloud Hospital St. Cloud, Minnesota

I absolutely would not upgrade in order to get it back! It bothers me that "do an upgrade" is always the first thing they want you to do and they assume that you have granted all your users Admin rights so 'workstations update automatically!' Check the recycle bin - maybe someone tossed it. I agree with previous poster - just use Enterprise Manager until your next upgrade. you can email me directly if you are unsure how to use EM - I'll send you screen shots. [Email Removed]

Thanks for all of the wonderful replies! I took the over-cautious route of doing a back-up using SQL Management Studio and then downloading RE781.exe, reinstalling RE & the BMC, and doing a backup through the BMC. I definitely can understand your annoyance at what happens to some users when an update is done. It isn't very nice going to sleep after an update knowing that some of users will be calling you the next morning because they can't log-on to RE! I hope to move away from using the BMC all together one day... Thanks again! Bryce Visit our website at www.farmsanctuary.org  Sign up for our email news and alert list at http://farmsanctuary.org/signup.htm

With version 7.81, Admin rights are no longer required to push out the updates. The users simply need Power User rights. At least that's what the documentation claims. Drew J. Drew Allen Children's Hospital of Philadelphia [Email Removed] Check out the user run RE Forum at http://www.blackbus.org/ . Check out the Crystal Reports blog "Crystal Clear" at http://www.blackbus.org/blogs/viewblog.php?userid=63

I am new DBA for RE. I wanted to use MS SQL for dba tasks such as backups. However, the last thing I was told by Blackbaud is that if you use MS SQL to backup, it has corrupted db. Please let me know if you know of anyone that has ran into this problem. Tesa

I bet if you call them back you'll get someone different with an equally different answer! I have all of our backups and maintenance tasks setup in Enterprise Manager and have had no problems whatsoever. I do check the backups daily though: I have a job that restores the previous night's backup to a test RE database ("re7_sampleBig"), point my RE7_Sample odbc to that database and check the validity of the backups. Every time you create a task in the Blackbaud Middleman Console, it simply adds a sql job to SQL Server. So even the BMC uses MS SQL. Not sure what the point of the BMC really is other than providing a dumbed-down GUI to tasks that aren't that hard to begin with. It's really just another point of failure when you think about it (and I've got enough of those :)). Dan Larson Programmer/Analyst St. Cloud Hospital St. Cloud, Minnesota

Thinking back a couple of years I seem to remember that …… When installing Raiser’s Edge to the server, it automatically installs an RE client connection on the server desktop so no need to run the client install. If, for whatever reason, the RE client install is ran at the server, the installation will remove the BMC. I haven’t installed RE to a new server in years so don’t know if this is still the case but it definitely was and I suspect still is. Regards Alan Alan Kay Systems Administrator St Ann's Hospice [Email Removed] www.sah.org.uk