How to copy Primavera projects from new version to old version

Primavera P6 users always face such a situation: they want to copy their projects from old version to new version, vice versa. Oracle Primavera does offer import/export feature to do such jobs. But it's not so efficient, in particuar, when you need mass copy of projects, or large number of projects to transfer. In my case, I need to help my client to copy a lot of projects from the production database to the acceptance database. What I did is to use a tool called Primavera Database Utility I found on http://www.eppmsoft.com. With such a tool, and within minutes, I finished copying Primavera projects from production to acceptance. All project codes, activity codes, resource codes, cost accounts, and UDFs are copied to the acceptance too. Nice tool!

Install PHP 5.3.3 for IIS7 in Windows 7

1. Enable IIS 7 from Control Panel>Programs and Features>Turn Windows Features on or off, and make sure CGI feature is selected.

2. download and Unzip the PHP5.3.3 package in c:\php5.33

3. Configure IIS7 to support PHP5.3, that involves couple of steps:
1). Launch Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager from Control Panel>System and security>Administrative Tools
2). Browse to FastCGI and open it, and then hit [Add Application], in the [Full Path], enter C:\php5.33\php-cgi.exe (that is my case), final hit [OK] button.
3). Back to IIS main page, open [Handler mapping], hit [add module mapping], enter *.php in the [request path] field, and select FastCgiModule from the Module dropdown list, enter C:\php5.33\php5-cgi.exe in the [Executable] textbox, and enter php in the [name] filed, finally hit [OK], and confirm the creation.
4).From IIS7 main page, open the [default document], and add index.php to the default document list.

4. Back to c:\php5.33 folder, make a copy of php.ini-development, and rename it to php.ini; and open Computer Properties, and add C:\php5.33 to the environmental variable PATH. Next edit php.ini to enable php_mysql module or more, and set the timezone to your area, for example, America/Los_Angeles.

5. Make sure Network service and local service have read access to c:\inetpub\wwwroot, and give IUSR and IIS_IUSR users the read/execute rights in c:\php5.33 folder.

6. Restart the Word Wide Web publishing service.

7. Open your browser and navigate to a php page, and it's done, and you can test from the Command line with this command: php.exe -i

SQL Server does not exist or access denied.

I installed Primavera P6 R8 Professional EPPM on a Windows Server 2008 based Terminal Server, and the database already installed and tested on a dedicated MS SQL Server. When the installation wizard run dbconfig.exe to configure the database connection, I got this error message:

Bad public user name or password. [DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect()).]SQL Server does not exist or access denied.

Because in the same terminal server, Primavera P6 V7 is connecting to the same SQL Server without any problem. In another Windows Server 2008 R2 with P6 R8 installed, we can connect to the same database in the SQL Server. SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility package already installed. I think the problem must be in the Windows Server 2008. First, check the Firewall settings, and in the Exceptions tab, I did not see anything related to P6 Professional EPPM being showed there. So I hit the Add Program, and select P6 Professional, and hit OK return. Run P6 Professional again. Bingo, this time it works.

Error at object ‘DatabaseSelection’ in markup file

I tried to install AdventureWorks OLAP and OLTP Sample by running AdventureWorks2008_SR4.exe on SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition, but after I accepted the license agreement, the installation gave me this error:

Failed object initialization (ISupportInitialize.EndInit). An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. Error at object ‘DatabaseSelection’ in markup file ‘DatabaseInstaller;component/databaseselection.xaml’ Line 78 Position 3.

Then I launched the SQL Server Configuration Manager, and I found there are 3 instances running in my desktop: ACT7, SQL Express, and MSSQLSERVER. Only MSSQLSERVER instance is SQL Server 2008, the other two are SQL 2005. I guess the installation have not ability to identify which one is SQL Server 2008 instance, and already pick up the wrong instance to connect, so I stopped the two SQL Server 2005 instances, and run the AdventureWorks2008_SR4.exe again. I found the error's just gone.

It looks like the installation need to be improved so that user can select the instance to install when multiple instances exist.

Exception setting "ViewEntireForest": "Could not find any Domain Controller in domain myoffice.local

Tried to run Exchange 2007 server EMS(Exchange management shell), and most of time, I got this error:

Exception setting "ViewEntireForest": "Could not find any Domain Controller in domain myoffice.local. The myoffice.local is up and running and all other machines did not complain the main. I run nslookup against this domain in the exchange server without any error. I remember I can use the lmhosts file to define the location of the domain, so I put a line below in the end of the lmhosts file, and it fixed my error:

192.168.1.20 MylocalDomain #PRE #DOM:myoffice.local

Bad public user name or password. Database Server Error: ORA-28001: the password has expired

One of our Primavera user tried to login to Project Management it is coming up with , and the user select to configure the database connection, but in the end, it gave the following error message:
"Bad public user name or password. Database Server Error: ORA-28001: the password has expired;"

I helped them to fix by the steps below:

1. Open a DOS Prompt, and type the command below:
sqlplus /as sysdba

2. After you see the SQL prompt, type the SQL statement below:

CREATE PROFILE Primavera_Profile LIMIT PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME UNLIMITED;

alter user pubuser PROFILE Primavera_Profile;
alter user privuser PROFILE Primavera_Profile;

NOTE: the user above may need to be changed if pubuser1 or privuser1 is used.
3. Try to launch your PM6 again.

Manually remove mpstxgx.exe or rttrwq.exe trojan

Kaspersky V6.0 reported there is a trojan named mpstxgx.exe on my PC, and Kaspersky tried to deleted the mpstxgx.exe file, but it was created again and again in the C:\ and D:\. I have to remove this Trojan manualy.

After did some research, I knew these files are related to this Trojan: mpstxgx.exe, rttrwq.exe, and mkfght0.dll. To remove mpxstxgx.exe, I first restart the Windows XP to Safe mode with Command Prompt, then from type the commands below:

c:\>attrib -r -s -h autorun.inf
c:\>del autorun.inf
c:\>attrib -r -s -h mpstxgx.exe
c:\>del mpstxgx.exe
c:\>attrib -r -s -h \windows\system32\rttrwq.exe
c:\>del \windows\system32\rttrwq.exe
c:\>attrib -r -s -h \windows\system32\mkfght0.dll
c:\>del \windows\system32\mkfght0.dll
c:\>D:
D:\>attrib -r -s -h autorun.inf
D:\>del autorun.inf
D:\>attrib -r -s -h mpstxgx.exe
D:\>del mpstxgx.exe


After that, restart my PC to Windows XP normal mode. run regedit from CMD. and change the CheckedValue value in this location from 0 to 1:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Advanced\ Folder\Hidden\SHOWALL\

That's done.