Installing GenStat in a multi-site organisation
by
Peter Franz
Department of Natural Resources and Environment
Coauthors: Mark Caban

The Department of Natural Resources and Environment (which includes Agriculture Victoria) has scientists and biometricians needing GenStat at 23 sites across Victoria. Our aim is to provide all biometricians and scientists with access to GenStat at all these locations.

Our Department's computing environment has been standardised across all the sites in recent years. A wide area network connects LANs at all sites using Novell networking software and Windows NT or Windows 2000 Professional operating systems on PCs. In our standard operating environment, most software is stored on the PC.

The system for installing and running GenStat has to cope with installing GenStat on desktop PCs connected to LANs, laptops which connect to the LANs and a few desktop PCs not connected to LANs. PCs are being replaced regularly so a transparent and effective system is needed. To this end, we create a batch file for each edition that essentially installs GenStat on the local PC if needed, checks that the FLEXlm license file is up to date, then executes GenStat.

The issues that crop up with each new edition include licensing and procedure libraries. These issues, an outline of the batch file and our desires will be discussed.

Institute for Horticultural Development, Private Bag 15, Ferntree Gully Delivery Centre, VIC, 3156.

Date received: August 29, 2002