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 Things to expect when upgrading from FirstClass 7.1 to FirstClass 8 Server and Internet Services (Windows)
Important
It is vital that you review this document before upgrading to FirstClass server version 8.0.
This document relates to Windows 2000 and 2003 operating system based servers. An OS X operating system based upgrade document can be found here.
Please note that Windows NT4 and Mac Classic (OS8.x and 9.x) operating systems are no longer supported as server platforms with the release of version 8.0. We will continue to support Windows NT4 and Mac Classic operating systems running FirstClass Server & Internet Services version 7.1. With the release of 8.1, 7.0 is no longer supported.
Upgrade Procedure
Before upgrading...
1. Ensure that you have your FirstClass 8 upgrade license file saved on the server. A FirstClass 8 upgrade license can be requested by filling out the form located here. This file will be provided in the mailbox of the FirstClass Online account that you specified in the form after a short period of time. Please note that you must have a valid maintenance and support agreement to receive the upgrade license.
Download the appropriate FirstClass 8 upgrade installer from FirstClass online (either FC80SP2ServerBusinessUpg.exe or FC80SP2ServerEducationUpg.exe). They can be located on FirstClass Online by clicking here. Download the SP5 upgrader (FC80SP5ServerUpg.exe) located in the FirstClass 8.0 Updates folder also.
If your site uses FirstClass Voice Services (VS) please contact FirstClass support prior to the upgrade of the server. Support contact information is located at the bottom of the support page. FirstClass server 8.0 now enforces VS licenses and you must have three VS license files available. Most VS sites already have two, TTS and VS site licenses. The third, VS User license, is new and required for server 8.0. VS B217 is the minimum required version. Voice services will not function properly if connected to server 8.x until the VS licenses are applied.
2. Ensure that you have previously upgraded to FirstClass Server 7.1 b135 (7.1 SP5) on a FirstClass 8 compatible operating system (Windows 2000 (SP4 recommended) and Windows 2003). You can check this on the server application console or server monitor. Do NOT attempt to upgrade to 8.0 from any other version.
3. Ensure that the FirstClass Server application and any other server related applications such as Internet Services and FirstClass Tools are not running. If you are running the FirstClass Server as a service, ensure that you stop the service. Now back up your FCServer folder and FCPO folder(s) in full. Check the root of each of your volumes for other possible FCPO folders and back each of them up also.
4. Be advised that the upgrade may take some time depending on post office size and hardware capability.
5. Post Office size increases during the initial audit (or trash collection) after the upgrade. Due to the way the upgrade reconfigures some files within the post office to improve reliability and enhance performance, some files will increase in size, thus increasing the total size of the post-upgrade post office (now referred to as the network store). The percentage of increase can not be determined due to the fact that there is no way of accurately determining how many of the files will need to be increased in size. In most cases you should expect an increase of approximately 7-12% in the size of the network store compared to the original post office. Please plan your upgrade accordingly, with storage space to spare.
6. During the upgrade, you may see a message like the one below that states that it can't detect any mirrors and to stop the install and rename any mirror destination to the appropriate fcnsxxxx (i.e. FCPO8001 to FCNS8001) name before continuing. If you do not use mirroring, click on OK. Click on the message to enlarge.
 7. Run the appropriate upgrade application that you downloaded in step 1 (either FC80SP2ServerBusinessUpg.exe or FC80SP2ServerEducationUpg.exe) and follow the prompts. Ensure that you select the correct drive that contains your primary post office. Example screenshots of each prompt are below. Click to enlarge.
       After upgrading...
1. Run FirstClass Tools. When it starts up, you will see a prompt advising you will have to add your upgrade license. Click OK. A second prompt will advise you that this process is irreversible. Click OK. Screenshots of these prompts can be seen below. Click to enlarge. The FirstClass Tools 8.0 (build 216) window should now pop up. Click on the Configure menu and click on Add License. The Add License window will pop up. Click on Browse and go to where your upgrade license is located and and double-click on it. You should now see it under the Selected Licenses list. Click on OK and exit FirstClass Tools.
  3. Go ahead and launch the FirstClass 8.0 Server application. The first time you launch the FirstClass 8.0 Server after the upgrade, several upgrade scripts will run on the server. You will be unable to log in during this time and the server should not be interrupted. This process should take about 15 minutes depending on the size of the original post office, the speed of the hardware involved, and amount of memory available. The server may appear unresponsive and you will not be permitted to log in (you'll receive a 1044 error code), however the server should not be interrupted until you are able to log in again or until you see the following message on the server console.
********************************************************
8.0 Upgrade scripts have completed
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4. The 8.0 upgrade will change the name of the FCPO to FCNS. As a result, you may need to update any automated backup procedures to take this name change into account. The application folder remains unchanged as FirstClass Server (or FCServer on Windows).
5. If you use FirstClass' Rapid Application Developer, the name change from FCPO to FCNS will likely require that you update your ODBC datasource information. To view your current ODBC information in Windows 2000, go to Start, Settings, Control Panels, Administrative Tools, and open the Data Sources (ODBC) control panel. Check the System DSN tab and open each Data Source listed. In the details of each Data Source, look for a path that includes FCPO in it. If found, use the Select button to browse to the new FCNS location.
6. The upgrade will add a new FirstClass 8.0 Bonus Material conference and an Admin Help folder alias to the admin desktop. You will want to look through the FirstClass 8.0 Bonus Material for additional information on the new 8.0 features. Also added is new Internet Services WWW templates, new Help files, a new HeaderMatch document, rules.MailRules document, etc. As with previous upgrades, if you have modified any of these files or have multiple websites enabled, you will need to update the documents, templates, and aliases.
7. Administrative account users should ensure that they use the latest FirstClass 8 client version for admin and sub-admin activities.
8. SMTP Authentication change. A change has been made to the Basic Internet Setup form on the UCE/Spam tab. The six checkboxes related to SMTP AUTH clients must have these features/user prefs to relay area on the old 7.1 form have been removed on the new one. In version 8.0 the ability to relay mail is now a group level permission called Allow mail relay. By default after the upgrade this permission will be disabled, so any users who were required to use SMTP AUTH for relaying on your server will no longer have permission. To correct this you will need to turn on the "Allow mail relay" permission on an appropriate user group form.
Image below shows the version 7.1 Basic Internet Setup form's old UCE/Spam tab.
 Image below shows the version 8.0 Basic Internet Setup form's new UCE/Spam tab.
 Image below shows the version 8.0 User Group features tab with the new Allow mail relay privilege in the Special Status area.
[Image:62804_60531_10.png
 6. At this point, once you have verified that you can log into your server after the initial upgrade, shutdown the FirstClass server and internet services applications and apply the SP5 update that was downloaded in step 1 of Before Upgrading section above. Then restart the FirstClass server and internet services applications. The server should be version 8.0b242 and internet services should be version 7.986 after this update.
Details and Changes
Detailed "New in this version" documents
When you upgrade to Version 8.0, a detailed New in this version document will be installed in each area of the Online Help documentation. Below is a link to these help documents available on FirstClass Online.
Nomenclature Changes
The names of several important items have changed in version 8. Here's a list of the most important changes you should be aware of.
Some of these items will retain the old name (i.e. Address Book, Home Page Folder) in upgraded servers but will still include the new functionality.
New Privileges
Old privileges have been replaced and new ones have been added. Please refer to the table below.
Mail Rules and Container Limits Improved
You can now have up to a total of 100 mail rules or conditions or combination there of, per container. Thats a 4 factor increase over 7.1.
You can now have up to 4096 flaggable items in a container. That's more than double the limit of 7.1.
For information on what is defined as a flaggable item or a container, click here.
Internet Services can now be run as a Service
Like the FirstClass Server, Internet Services can now be configured as a service. See the FirstClass Services control panel in the Windows Control Panel.
MyDocuments path used to store specific user information on FirstClass 8 client for Windows
You will notice that the FirstClass 8 client now uses the local user's MyDocuments path to store certain information such as downloads, settings files, and the dictionary in a folder called FirstClass. This makes for easier customization on multi-user Windows machines.
See example screen capture below.
 Audit (Trash Collection) Changes
Audit now combines most of the diagnostic and repair capabilities of FirstClass Tools with what was referred to as Trash Collection in previous versions. When the audit finds something of note, it will send a summary of this information to the admin account in the form of a message with the subject Audit Summary. Much like the old diagnostics, most entries with the exception of errors (such as Audit Error:...) can be ignored on the audit reports. Audit reports are only issued if the audit actually has something to report. If all is well, the admin will not receive an audit report at the end of a full audit.
You can now perform audits on single containers or users via FirstClass scripting (see AUDIT command in the FirstClass Scripting doc in the Administration section of Online Help). You can also perform audits on individual conferences, calendars, and users via the Admin menu, List Directory. Find a user, conference, or calendar that you wish to audit, right click on it and click on Audit Single User. You will be sent and Audit Summary based on that individual user, conference, or calendar.
Some changes have occurred in the audit scheduling located on the "System Profile" form under the "Timers" tab, and as such it is important to note the following behavior change.
An audit will occur automatically under the following circumstances:
1. An audit has not been performed for 24 hours.
2. If you shut down your server before the audit was scheduled to run, and the "End Time:" is set to "Completed", then an audit will run if you launch the server at any time after the scheduled Start time.
 3. If you shut down your server before the audit was scheduled to run, and the "End Time:" is set to a fixed time, then an audit will run if you launch the server any time between scheduled Start and End time.
 These changes are especially important to note if you are launching a restored backup of the FirstClass server to recover items that were deleted by the audit. The only way to prevent the audit from running at start up would be to place a FirstClass scripting file into the "fcns/Server/Batch" folder which would delay the audit from running.
Headermatch document
Your existing headermatch document, located in Internet Services, has been renamed to Pre 8.0 Headermatch and a new 8.0 Headermatch has been created.
See About browser steering for additional information.
Rules. mailrules document
The rules.mailrules document (found inside the Filters folder) will be renamed to pre80rules.mailrules and a new and updated rules.Mailrules document has been created.
If you have modified anything in the original rules.mailrules document, you will have to do the same in the new rules.mailrules document.
New Template Sets folder
Within the Internet Services > WWW, a new folder named Template Sets has been created. This folder contains the four template sets. Aliases of the four template sets have been created within the WWW folder.
"Shared Documents" button on "Directory" Form
The "Home Page" button on the "Directory" form is being changed to "Shared Documents" It will link to a folder on the user's desktop named "My Shared Documents". This means that after upgrading to version 8.0 clicking on the "Home Page" or "Shared Documents" button on the directory form will cause a 1081 error to be displayed until the user has created a shared documents folder. This could be done through the model desktop, or the users can go to the "File / Open / My Shared Documents" menu option.
Image showing 7.1 Directory form with "Home Page" button.
 Image showing 8.0 Directory form with "Shared Documents" button.
 Admin access via web browser restricted
Administrators and sub-administrators are, by default, no longer permitted to log in via web browser to improve security.
If you have a valid SSL certificate and FirstClass Internet Services is configured to use it, the Administrator account or sub-administrator accounts can log in via SSL. For full functionality, it is still recommended that you use the FirstClass Client when administrating your server.
You can also disable this restriction via the Advanced Web & File form in Internet Services on the Admin desktop (see image below). You will need to click on the Reload Config button on the Control tab of the Internet Services monitor for this change to take effect.
Newer installs may also contain a permission group called Subadmin Users which may have the Web Client option disabled. You will have to enable this option also in order to permit admin or subadmin web logins.
 Online Help
The FirstClass 8.0 Online Help is available by choosing Help > Contents. The originals are located in Multi-site Setup > FC Resource Registry > En > Online Help.
If you have added custom content to the Online Help, it will be located in Multi-site Setup > FC Resource Registry > Pre 8.0 En > Pre 8.0 Online Help.
Within your Admin Help folder, you'll find a New in the version document in each of the subcontainers.
Hidden Option in Properties
It is now possible to place containers or items in different locations via Properties (see image below).
One of these options is Hidden. This is a powerful option as the container or item will dissapear from view.
To make a container or object unhidden, go to the View Menu and SHIFT+click on Explore. All objects and containers of where you are, including those that are hidden and unhidden, will be listed in the left hand frame. Choose the container or object that was hidden and go to the FILE menu and choose PROPERTIES. Change the setting in the View, Icon ID, Icon position section. If there are too many items, you could move the items that are NOT hidden to a subfolder and what remains will be the hidden items. Hidden is not an option to be used lightly.
 Calendar changes
Calendar events can either go to the user's Mailbox or to the Calendar. This behaviour can apply to all users, or be based on the user or group.
Calendar events from users who do not have Add participants permission for your calendar will be delivered to your Mailbox. Calendar events from users with Add participants permission will be added to your calendar.
The No access and See Times permission sets will result in events being delivered to the Mailbox. All the other permission sets will send Events directly to the Calendar.
On receipt the Event form automatically includes an Accept, Tentative, & Decline buttons. Clicking Accept or Tentative will move the Event from the Mailbox to the Calendar. Clicking Decline or closing the Event form will leave it the Mailbox.
 Be prepared. Check your All Calendars group to see what the permissions are set to currently. Getting calendar Event go to users Mailboxes may be as simple as changing the All Calendar group to All Users > See Times. However, keep in mind that All Calendars controls the top permissions for personal, group, resource, and location calendars.
If you suspect that your users have set their own personal Calendar permissions it would be best to create a "To Mailbox" and a "To Calendar" calendar group, and instruct users to make their Calendars a member of one or the other.
Maximum recipients set to 100 by default in All Users group
There is now a maximum message recipients limit that can be set at the group level. This applies to messages sent to local users on the FirstClass system and/or internet email addresses. By default, it is set to 100 in All Users.
It is recommended that you advise your users of this limit. This limit can be changed via the user group permissions.
The user must log out and log back in for such a change to take effect. See screen shot below.
The All Users permission group is the location of the default for this setting so do not set the All Users Maximum Recipients to Default.
 Voice Services and FirstClass 8
FirstClass 8 includes new Voice Services privileges including the Create Voice Menu and Make Voice Calls. You may need to grant these privileges to the Call Answer user and any voice menu user if they have not already been granted.
See screen shot below.
[Image:6212004_90610_00.png
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