As BlackBaud pumps out a ever-increasing sized EE patch, it takes longer and longer to install. Are we the only users that have this problem? Our servers (one each for EE, FAWEB and NC7) now take from 45 to 80 minutes to complete). Some of our users have reported times of 1.5 hours. The only fast CPUs seem to be the newest Dual-Core models which run the program in 30-45 minutes. We also use RE7 which only takes 15 minutes

John, I am running EE7(RO, AO, GL, AP) on a Windows 2000 SP4 with a 2.2 GHz CPU and 1.5 G of RAM and it takes about 20 minutes to install a patch. I do this about every other week. There is nothing else that runs on this server other than Symantec AV and RE7(two users). On my NC7 and FAWeb server, I am running Windows 2003 SP1 with dual Xeon 3.2 GHz CPU's with 2 G of RAM. The patches take seconds to complete. EE takes about 4 or 5 minutes to update on this server. This server is also dedicated to only running NC7 and FAWeb and of course, Symantec AV. My workstations are all Windows XP Pro with 2.8 GHz CPU's and 512 M of RAM. They take about 7-8 minutes to install updates after a patch is applied.

My hardware setup (servers and workstations) is similar to Norm's, except I have EE7 (AO & RO) on Server 2003 and FAWEB on Server 2000 (SP4). I see similar times when installing patches. The workstations (Win2K or WinXP) can take up to 20 minutes.

John, I installed the EE7 patch 0028 this afternoon and timed it. It took 30 minutes to install the patch on my EE server, a little longer than I thought. When I updated my NC7 and FAWeb server it took 11 minutes.

Norm, Thanks for responding to our problem. After reading you and Tim's reply I created a case with BB. After about a week their answer (for workstations) is plainly - deal with it; run the update at off-times (which I already do -Sorry but 1 hour and 45 minutes (and growing) I will not take. Our servers/workstations are similar if not faster in some instances, so I was wondering what infrastructure and SQL version you are running. (We have 1 Gig fiber to gig switches with 100 MB CAT 5e to the workstations; and are using Microsoft's Enterprise 2000 SQL with 8 Gig of RAM in the dual Xeon server). John Longo, MCSE 813-839-5371 x 228 [Email Removed]

John: I am feeling the same frustration about these updates. Here is my take. First of all, the software has been available for 3 years. Why are they having so many patches this late in the game? Since we use FAWEB and NETCLASSROOM, we have people on line at all hours. I have had to resort to carving out a time every Wednesday night and remotely running the patches from home. But that does not solve the problem of the log on's to the local machines the next morning, which can take up to 30 minutes per workstation to patch. Can you help me answer the question of how to script the local machines to do the update during the evening hours after the servers have been updated? William J. Hankel Director of Systems and Technology Central Catholic High School Portland, OR 97214 [Email Removed] [i]--- Edited at 12/15/2006 11:45:25 AM by William Hankel[/i]