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Subj:	Re: VMS x.y patches

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Date: 21 Mar 92 11:15:59 GMT
From: ais!bruce@mcnc.org
Organization: Applied Information Systems, Chapel Hill, NC
Subject: Re: VMS x.y patches
Message-Id: <719@ais.com>
References: <1992Mar18.112748.1@se.alcbel.be>
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In article <1992Mar18.112748.1@se.alcbel.be>, mvbr@se.alcbel.be (M. Verbruggen) writes:
> VMS 5.5 has been shipped and a lot of people experience problems. A lot 
> of these problems are probably known by Digital and corrected by patches. 
> It is my opinion that Digital should provide us with all the necessary 
> information on these problems and patches in order to avoid that upgrading 
> to VMS x.x becomes a 'trial-and-error' activity in which you  are 
> constantly confronted with "oops, what went wrong again !!".
> We where informed by Digital about 2 problems
>  - LOCK MANAGER crashes in clusters (supported by a patch)
>  - QUEUE MANAGER problems in All-in-One environments
> Is this all ?

It most definitely is _not_ all.  The queue manager apparently has
some significant problems from some things I've heard (not just in
All-in-One).  Also there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth
on DECUServe about the various problems in the LATmonster software 
(which is NOT optional on VMS 5.5 as it was on earlier releases).

From things I've heard about it I'd suggest that people wait until
VMS V5.5-1 or V5.5-2 before upgrading unless V5.5 has something
that you absolutely _must_ have ... and if that's the case be
prepared to spend some time working around the bugs.

> By the way, calling TSC about this revealed that there exist a lot of 
> patches for VMS 5.4-x and VMS 5.5 for several other problems. Why can't
> we get (e.g. on their CD-ROM distribution) these documented patches 
> automatically ? It will avoid situations in which we experience random 
> occuring problems for which no immediate solution exists. 

CD-ROM mastering has a pretty long turnaround cycle - it's only
practical to come out with a new CD-ROM about every 3 months.  I
don't think this would be very satisfactory for obtaining quick
patches - that's what networks ought to be used for.

> News is a good place to report and discuss problems but you loose a 
> lot of time in consulting all items.

You could try some of the DEC support networks but I don't have a
solution to suggest for this ...

Bruce C. Wright