Law Enforcement Software
Law Enforcement Software
The following instructions do not apply to the CrimeStar Enterprise Version.
Because Crimestar RMS is a database program it is absolutely critical that the database structure and the program (EXE) version be in sync with one another. Different versions of the software do require a matching or corresponding version of the database to ensure that all the data fields that the program attempts to reference are present and properly defined in the database itself. When the program and database are not in sync processing errors can occur. A common error encountered in this situation is an "UNBINDING OBJECT" error or an "ERROR INSTANTIATING.…" error. This circumstance occurs when the program is attempting to reference a data field in a table that does not exist or attempts to reference a table or "view" that does not exist in the database.
The process of updating Crimestar RMS from one version to another usually updates the database accordingly once the new version of the software is run for the first time. For this automatic database update to occur the program updating the database MUST have exclusive access to the database. In other words ALL other CrimeStar users must be logged-off and not accessing the database. Additionally, if you are running on a network your user login MUST have the proper security rights to DELETE and CREATE files on the file server machine where the Crimestar RMS database resides.
This is because the update process will create new database file, which contains new fields, copy, the data from the original file to the new file, then delete the original file.
However, if something goes wrong or the network security authorization is improper and the program is updated without the database being properly updated, manual intervention may be required.
CrimeStar RMS databases are updated using the validate program that is supplied with the CrimeStar software to compare the existing installed database with a blueprint definition of the database. The validate program, then if necessary updates the existing database to match the blueprint definition. When you install Crimestar RMS or a CrimeStar update the installation process will create a \data subdirectory on your computer. In this sub directory the installation setup program will install the following 11 files.
CRMSTR00.DBC
CRMSTR00.DCX
CRMSTR00.DCT
COREMETA.DBF
COREMETA.CDX
COREMETA.FPT
DBCXREG.DBF
DBCXREG.CDX
DBCXREG.FPT
SDTMETA.DBF
SDTMETA.CDX
If these files already exist (and they usually do) they will be overwritten with the new version or copy for each file. Don’t worry none of the above mentioned files contain any of your data. These files only define what the structure of the Crimestar RMS database should be. These files are the ones used by the validate program to update (or create) your CrimeStar RMS database to the latest version. In a network environment these files would be copied out to the server where your crimestar database resides replacing the files of the same name with these new files. Then the validate program would be run to compare the existing database with the blueprint or definition contained in these files.
Now that we have explained the overall process, here are step by step instructions for manually updating you crimestar RMS database.
Step # 1: Make sure everyone is logged off and is not accessing the crimestar database.
Step # 2: Do a complete backup of your database to tape or another disk.
Step # 3: Run the installation or update EXE file to launch the setup program for CrimeStar.
Step # 4: If your CrimeStar database resides somewhere other that the \crimestar\data subdirectory of the machine that you are working on, manually copy or move the 11 files referenced above from the \crimestar\data directory to the directory where your live crimestar database resides. This action should replace the 11 files of the same name with these new ones. If you are on a network, you must make sure you have the proper network security rights to do this. Also if your database is somewhere other than the \data subdirectory of the local machine you are using, make sure to delete or rename the \data directory created by the setup/install process, otherwise a new crimestar database will be built in that directory instead of your existing database being updated.
Step # 5: Now run the validate.exe program located in the \crimestar directory. It will begin the process of modifying your existing crimestar database to match the definition blueprint defined in the 11 meta data files above.
Step #6: Run crimestar itself to make sure that the program runs and can properly access the crimestar database.
This process should make your crimestar database structure match the structure required for the installed version of the program.