SPS SBE - SSR 2011: I am very frustrated and quite disappointed...

In some cases a simple repair installation helped. Give it a try !

Markus,

I uninstalled the product from the Control Panel.

Rebooted the PC

Reinstalled from the network share - worked flawlessly.

Go figure...

It now works ?

Well not quite

I am now set up on the master PC. I attempted to push the agent out to another PC on the domain and got:

-Error E0D3EBC0: Cannot deploy the Agent to XYZZYPC

I did some research and it turns out that this is a >known< problem with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008!

I just do not understand how Symantec can write about the functionality of a product - and then say that it won't work in a certain environment.

If it was a "known issue" then the documentation should have had a clear statement that you can't do this.

To manually install this product on all of the PCs in the site - even from a network folder is absurd!

I can't believe I fell for the marketing that this Small Business Edition was worthwhile...

Manually created the agent as per instructions on page 134.

Reboot the PC

Try to connect to the PC from the master console and get

You will not be able to connect to the network unless you enter a valid user name and password.

I am entering domain\username and the correct password of the friggin' Administrator of the domain.

If that combination doesn't work, I don't know what will.

Time to contact support...

Really frustrated!

I hope support will be able to help you. Good luck !

I have been struggling with this product sweet for 3 years

I purchased 400 licenses and so far successfully deployed 6 and let me tell ya

You think your forested now wait till you get this thing going if you can

There are some nice features about the product and they almost out weigh the problems

Problems with rotating media external media not supporting a 10 year old file system like GPT a massive amount of email on non descript messages about something didn’t do something to something and cant find what did or didn’t work

A patch just can out for the older version BESR to fix a duplicate job issue can not apply the patch working with support and now waiting for second level support to help with this patch

I am like you I try and try get frustrated so much I can not make my self call support for a couple months and start working on the issues agene

There is a known issue section on this portal check it out

Go to Community: Backup and Archiving and Known issues

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/backup-and-archiving/issues

To see what you’re in for there are two pages with 50 issues on each page that’s about 100 known issues not to mention the unknown issues

I will admit support is a little better than before

When I started they didn’t even know what BESR was

Altiris I had no access to Altiris support

Symantec, here's one word:  FAIL!

Page 134 in the SSR User's Guide (version 9.0) does not match - IN ANY WAY - the dialog boxes of SSR 2011!

On the phone for 45 minutes yesterday with Tech Support and used WebEx to share the screen while I showed the page in the PDF and the install screens - he agreed that there is a major disconnect.

I was able to get the console to see the other PC - only after turning off Windows Firewall on both PCs!

Symantec - if your product is supposed to pass through the firewall, don't you think you would have SOMETHING in the documentation about either the required ports or the program names involved?

Oh, and for those folks who can't push the agent out - Tech suggested that if the firewall was disabled, the push would work...  I don't even have the time or patience to test that theory.

As it stands, Symantec expects someone to walk to each desktop - as a local Administrator - and install and configure it separately.

You have got to be kidding me!  I want an automated solution that deploys quickly, effectively, and without a significant amount of work.  That's why I purchased the Small Business Edition in the first place!  You managed to make the console work for Endpoint Protection - why can't you do the same for this product?

So here's what I suggest, could your programming staff please provide information on how to:

• Deploy the product via GPO from a server to the domain's desktops
• Establish the settings for a GPO that creates the appropriate Windows Firewall openings
• Update the documentation to match the product that was released

That would go a long way to making my client happy - because he doesn't understand why it is taking so long to get desktop backup taken care of....

And we started the process and got stuck on some error

Then it started when I closed one of the error messages by clicking OK it killed the upgrade I emailed support and he called me back we tried to repair but now the installation manager has no text so can not tell what is what ????

He sent me to second level support

2 days later second level support called and is confused by the lack of text on the screen

He consulted with Backline and they suggested some group policy restricting XML

We searched and couldn’t find and reference to XML in group policy so he wanted to do more research and will call me back

1 step forward, 2 steps back

Going forward: I discovered there are Windows Firewall entries that will allow the agent to be pushed out in a Windows 7 environment.

Going backward: Each client has to be configured manually!

Get to the console, go to Tools, then Options, then enter all the settings.

Start the backup wizard and enter everything all over again, including the schedule.

(Linas if you have to roll out 400 you should really use the full Backup Exec product, 'cause the effort with SSR will kill you.)

If someone knows how to get the settings from the "console" PC exported to the "agent" PC, I would really love to know about it.

Next task: creating the Recovery USB