Table of Contents
Episode Summary
In this episode our host Bret Alarcon is joined by Municipal Support Manager, Jason Verdo to talk about upgrading to the NextGen VIC EXE. Jason walks through the difference between Legacy VIC and NextGen VIC, installation steps, and profile assignment considerations within RecTrac.
Recording
Transcript
Bret Alarcon 0:10
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of RecChat. I'm your host Bret Alarcon. So for today's RecChat, we actually don't have Zach today he's out on a well deserved vacation. So today, we actually have Jason Verdo. With us. He's another one of our Vermont systems, veterans. And he's been with Vermont systems for about 14 and a half years. He's going to be talking about Next Gen, VIC and the benefits of using Next Gen, VIC and how to install it, too. So if you have any questions during the presentation, there's a little q&a Button down at the bottom, go ahead and Click that you'll get your little q&a Screen. Ask your questions, we should have answers. And also if you want to put in the comments during the presentation, you get that little chat Button down there too, where you can just add your comments along the way. So with that, how're you doing today? Jason?
Jason Verdo 1:00
Doing good. How's it going, Brett?
Bret Alarcon 1:01
I'm doing all right. All right.
Jason Verdo 1:03
Excellent.
Bret Alarcon 1:04
Music always gets me in a good mood. I
Jason Verdo 1:07
t's certainly peppy. That's for sure.
Bret Alarcon 1:10
All right. So what do you have for us today?
Jason Verdo 1:12
Well, we're just going to be going through, you know, installing the Next Gen VIC exe version.
You know, we're just going to kind of start off and talk a little bit about some of the benefits to the Next Gen. VIC exe. As there are many, I think for most of you joining the session, I think you're going to find that it is a more stable platform for VIC. One being that the installation actually stays installed. Some of the challenges that we've had with the other VIC, what we'd like to call legacy VIC at this point is that it frequently gets uninstalled every time the windows 10 update sort of runs on the PC. So you're costly playing the cat and mouse game with with VIC, to get it installed. This new version of VIC installs installs in a much different way. It installs into a with a method that doesn't use Internet Explorer to have to be, you know, as a forced install installation method. And again, it's gonna stay installed. Also, within the installation, there are less points of failure for it, you're getting a single install on that PC for all the users. So the difference between that and the legacy VIC product is that the legacy of VIC product when you install the exe, you initially installed sort of a macro version out of the gate. And then everybody who signed that workstation has a different user installed their own micro version of VIC into their own Windows Profile, created uninstall issues, it created install issues and created update issues. So this one is a one stop shop install, which is into the program files 86 directory. The installation is easier. It's quicker. It's more familiar to people. There's an executable that you download out of RecTrac. And you bring that executable onto a jump drive or shared out on a network drive and you and you're running as an admin. So you know, there's no more making sure you run IE as admin log into RecTrac Go into the Profile hit, you know, install, there's none of that with this particular version. And because it's a common install location, there are some some conveniences there as well. So, you know, that's kind of the main benefits of it. We're just gonna kind of hop into the actual install, to kind of give you some insight into how to do it. And I'll kind of talk through the installation process as we go along.
Bret Alarcon 3:45
Yeah, we got a quick question before you jump in. Sure. Mark wants to know, does the installation require an upgrade for the server side?
Jason Verdo 3:54
No, I mean, your server side should be you know, a Windows 64 bit box. You know, whether it's 2012 are 220 16 2019. All those are fine. Technically 2008 will work as well. They'll typically run VIC as an application on that box. So, you know, Windows the Next Gen VIC is really windows 10 client side application.
Cullen Barber 4:19
Jason, is there a minimum RecTrac version that supports this?
Jason Verdo 4:23
There there is it's you must be on RecTrac 3.1 1001 or higher. So let's 3.1 1001.
Cullen Barber 4:33
Great, thank you.
Jason Verdo 4:34
Yep.
Bret Alarcon 4:35
And another question. You might be getting into this during the install portion. But John wants to know, does it automatically install all the needed certificates or do we still need to run the Certificate six exe.
Jason Verdo 4:46
But when the Certificate fix that is a no no. It does not install all the certificates you may possibly need. And I'll kind of go over those. Those particulars as I do the install but do not Don't run, the fix doesn't work, it's not good, it's gonna only be a temporary band aid. So if you have that in your repertoire of tools deleted, please, we've, we think we're moving off the FTP site too. But alright, so before you begin with, you know, installing RecTrac, Next Gen, again, you must be on RecTrac 3.1 1001 or higher, you must be installing it onto a Windows 10 PC. So no windows sevens. The install or update process for for VIC needs dotnet framework 4.8 or higher installed on your PC. So make sure that you're getting that dotnet framework version that's 4.8 or higher. And, you know, we recommend that you use Chrome as the preferred browser when you're using RecTrac. With VIC, there are a lot of reasons for that. But the main reason is, is that chrome handles our html5 and everything pretty well. It also uses the windows Certificate store to go back to that certificates conversation, whereas Firefox uses its own Certificate store. And you can modify the Firefox Certificate store to look to Windows. But it's been my sort of, you know, experience that every time Firefox updates, it resets that, that back to the Firefox so then you're playing cat and mouse with Firefox and where it's looking for certificates. So Chrome kinda is the is the way to go there. The other thing you want to be doing is if you're doing the initial install for VIC of the Next Gen rather, make sure you're logged into the PC as a as a local admin can be a domain admin with local admin privileges, but make sure you're an administrator. So I'm gonna just kind of share my Screen here and go down the the next thing is here, but I'm going to share your face for a second.
All right, there we go. And I'm going to bring up RecTrac. All right, perfect. So you know, some of the questions to be asking yourself before you do the installation is your is your RecTrac application URL in the office where you're working connecting on an HTTP or HTTPS connection. Okay. So if you're connecting on an HTTP connection, then you don't need to manually install a VSI VIC Certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities folder. And I'll kind of go into that in just a moment about what that is. If you aren't an HTTPS connection, then you do need to install a Certificate first onto the PC and every PC using VIC, before you do the RecTrac VIC install. Okay. The other thing is everyone that's, that's, you know, that isn't using access control in their RecTrac environment. So if you don't use access control for RecTrac, then you should be installing the VIC. exe. We're not going over the service method today. But the service method really only comes to play with Next Gen VIC, when you are using access control features of RecTrac. So we're going to kind of skip over the service stuff for now. Also, no matter even if you do install the service, you still get the exe so if you do both, you're just getting bloated software at that point that you wouldn't be using on that PC. Alright, so as you can see up here in my top left hand corner, my connection is secure meaning that my connection is an HTTPS connection. And essentially what that means is that I'm going to need to install a VSI VIC Certificate authority Certificate. So the way to do that is first you have to get that Certificate and you can get that Certificate from our secure FTP site. And I can kind of go to that right now.
All right, and when you can use FileZilla or when SCP to connect to our secure FTP site, and then you are going to go to File updates and drivers. And then you're gonna go the RecTrac folder, the 3.1 folder. And then there is a VIC VSI VIC ca folder. You can take that Certificate and you can download Alright, so now that we've downloaded that Certificate, you can do On the PC that you need to install VIC four, you can go on the lower left hand corner here and Type in MMC dot exe. And you're going to run this as an administrator. And then you're going to choose File, add row stepping. Certificates. Add. And this is an important Screen here, if you don't see this Screen where you get to choose from these three options, and you're probably not a local admin on the machine, because you wouldn't be able to affect the entire computer. So you want to choose computer account, if you if you say, and you don't get this pop up Screen, might want to check your your permissions, and then say Next and Finish. And you say okay, so this is going to bring up the branch of all the certificates on the local PC. And what we're going to do is we're going to import the Certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities folder. You do that by simply right clicking and choosing all tasks, and then selecting the Import option. Next, you just gonna hit Next, and browse to where you downloaded that particular file. And then it's VSI, VIC ca.cr, and Click Open there, and then just accept all the defaults. import was successful, what you're looking for in the certificates folder, is a Vermont Systems Incorporated Certificate that has a expiration date of 2044.
Cullen Barber 11:33
But what if you see more than that, Jason,
Jason Verdo 11:36
they're not for VIC, they're for other things. Okay, I've got some for hosted, I've got all kinds of self signed stuff. But you may see other things in there. But they won't be pertaining to that.
Cullen Barber 11:45
What if somebody had run that before mentioned local search fix with a residue in there,
Jason Verdo 11:52
let's see a residue. And here you may see some local hosts sitting in here, you might want to delete those. The other thing you might see as a local host Certificate sitting in your personal certificates folder, you want to delete those to the local, we'll fix that we're talking about here. Every time you run it, sort of put a new Certificate in here. So you may have five or six of them that say localhost in here. And those can be kind of naughty, because RecTrac will just pick up the first one to find. So if you have one, good one and three bad ones, you have a 25% success rate of connecting to the correct one. So certainly cleaning up this personal certificates folder of any local hosts Certificate that sort of has a remote systems issued by
Cullen Barber 12:32
so that's a good thing to do. Otherwise, you could get sporadic issues could Yeah,
Jason Verdo 12:37
yeah, you could still have the wrong Certificate it could still pick up the wrong one you know for a clean PC that's never had VIC on he really don't have to worry about that too much. It's really if you're transitioning to a new from a PC from Legacy VIC to Next Gen. VIC,
Cullen Barber 12:49
and we did get a kind of a basic question that came through chat was what what would you use VIC for somebody was just there knew a little bit newer to the VIC and wondering why do you even need VIC to begin with?
Jason Verdo 13:01
Right? So a VIC stands for vermont integration client. And basically what it is, is it's the middleman that relays a connection between the browser to your hardware. So if you're looking to direct print without preview everything first or you're looking to pop a cash drawer, well, you know, for the most part, we don't want Facebook pop in your cache, or are there security protocols in place to prevent that from happening? So VIC is sort of a middleman that acts as a trusted authority between the browser and your hardware to make those connections viable and work.
Alright, so what we're going to do is once that's installed, just go ahead and close this out, you don't need to come back in here again. And if you're not on an HTTPS connection, you don't need to install that Certificate. So the next thing you're going to do is you're going to get the the VIC install, there are a couple of different ways you can get it. You can, you know, go to a particular area on your server and get it so if you are on your server and you wanted to get the install, you could go to from a RecTrac server, you could go to C or x or whatever driver installed on VSI three RecTrac programs VIC. eXe windows and you can grab it right from here, this setup exe that's what you're downloading from on the client. You're just downloading it from your own RecTrac server. So it's there, you can grab it, copy it to the network location, wherever you see fit to do. If you want to do it from the PC, you certainly can log into RecTrac on your workstation. Grab a fresh new session and you're going to go into your Profile assignments you can go into you know really any VIC Profile I like to go to the VIC Profile. That's the defaults level. Whether this is still your legacy, VIC, or you know you and you haven't reconfigured I'll show you what you could put into a reconfigured to get that download. Or you may want to create a new VIC Profile over here by clicking the Add Button and creating a whole new Profile. That's just for the new VIC exe, Windows installer, totally up to you. That's not going to affect anything here, if you if you just get the download through the Profile.
So when you come in here for the first time, if you've never used Next Gen VIC, which you're probably going to have to do is you're going to have to take a little bit of this connect string here, and you're gonna have to grab the HTTPS to the.net. And in this case, so yours would be your HTTPS and your domain name, up until you see the AIA, okay, is everyone's gonna be a little bit different. But that's basically the general rule there. And you're gonna go to the installation tab. The top stuff here is the legacy stuff. So we don't really need to concern ourselves with it. The other thing you may want to concern myself with is just make sure that this deployments URL is the correct URL. And then we have down here the VIC Windows Installer. So this is the new stuff that if you're on 3.1, dot 1001, or higher, you're going to see this bottom half here. And you're going to make sure that you put your domain name in the front of that, and this would usually just say server name, colon 4180. So you're gonna replace the 4180 stuff with your, your install URL. If you're having troubles finding, it's also the install URL at the top of the page here for most customers.
But it's some customers, I will cut tangent for a minute, some customers use like a WAN connection for VIC, and they still connect on the land in the office. So this is usually the best one to use, because this is the one you're actually using to connect to the VIC back end with. So that's generally the smart choice there. And then you're going to Click this little download VIC installer. And what it's going to do is it's going to download, pop up this little Window, and then it's going to download the exe setup. It's about 63.6 megabytes. And we're just going to show it in the folder. That's just in my Downloads folder. And we're going to right Click, and this is an important part, right Click and run it as administrator, you always want to make sure you're doing that with this particular product.
And you're just going to hit the next Button and accept all the defaults for this. That's going to start installing the product.
Cullen Barber 17:42
Jason, as somebody was going to use this for access control, would they not take the defaults? And would they potentially choose the service so
Jason Verdo 17:50
that they won't have to choose the service? And they'd have to enter some credentials for the service account to operate against?
Cullen Barber 17:56
Okay, yeah, that somebody did mentioned that they were going to look to install this today or this week for one of their access control PCs. So they're curious.
Jason Verdo 18:05
Yeah, when you're when you're typically when you're earning an access control environment, you almost always will have VIC as a service installed on every PC, not just the the access control PCs. So what ends up happening is the default level of the VIC application in Profile assignments would be the VIC service configuration. And then you certainly can configure VIC exe at the workstation level, it does add a bit of extra points of failure because the logic has to switch from service to exe when you do that. So it does get a little bit more involved with that scenario. For majority of our customers, the VIC exe, VIC Profile configured, the default level will be sufficient. But there are tangents for access control. So we installed that and it finished. And when it finishes, what you should see is a new icon on your desktop. And you should see in the lower right hand corner, a VIC icon. And that's the circle. So if you see a square, that's the Old VIC, if you see a circle, that's the new VIC, if you want to look at a little bit more about what it's doing down here, it's just sitting here and it's listening. This is a listening application. So what happens is, is when RecTrac is called in the browser and you log in, it starts running some code to then talk to the listening agent down here in the lower right hand corner. Now if you have all VIC installed and you want to install new VIC, no problem go around and install new Click on every PC. All the communicates on the 65 range of ports and the new VIC communicates on the 55 range of ports. So then they're not going to cross over they're not going to interfere with one another. This gives you the opportunity to do sort of a controlled deployment of the Next Gen. VIC. application without interrupting your your legacy VIC application. So it's important to know, if you are doing a switchover then you want really want to kind of make sure that you've installed the Next Gen VIC on all the PCs that would be making the switch before you turn the Profile over to the default Profile rather over to the Next Gen. VIC ports. And we'll talk about that in just a moment.
Cullen Barber 20:32
We do have quite a few questions that have come in you've you've hit on a couple, do you have time now? Or do you want to wait till the end Jason for?
Jason Verdo 20:40
Well, let's make sure it connects first, let's do that moment. So what we're going to do is we're going to launch RecTrac here. And I'm going to just make sure I log out because I don't like to start with an old session, I'm just going to connect back in, I'm just going to do a hard refresh or Ctrl f5 Just to launch it. And out of the gate right now in the lower right hand corner, you can already see that I'm green. Okay, I didn't have to log in for to find me, because of a few different reasons. One reason is, is that we have reverse DNS enabled on our workstations. So that codes running when we kind of go to log into RecTrac. And it's already picked up my workstation name. And it's already found the VIC Profile at my default level before Profile times before it even logged in. Because it's at the default level, it knows that it'll it can find it no matter what. So it's connected. How you can tell it's connected is in the top right hand corner, there's no red line. So it's not blinking. If I hover over here, and it says localhost 55 110. That's what the browser is talking to the client on. So as long as I'm listening on 55 110, and my browser is communicating on 55 110. And I've applied the proper certificates for a secure connection, meaning that VSI VIC ca, the two will then connect and you'll see it Build out this particular list where it's finding all of my hardware and things like that in my in my on my workstation. So we're connected, we're good here. Why don't we answer a couple of questions that havecome in?
Bret Alarcon 22:26
Awesome. Looks like you already answered Mark's question. He was wondering if we're going to transition from legacy to Next Gen, can I run both clients, different versions at the same time,
Jason Verdo 22:37
you sort of can mark, basically, what you would have to do is, you know, we're presuming that your legacy is the the one that's more deployed at that point, and that you're transitioning to the Next Gen. The problem is, is that if you know your legacy, as long as your legacy continues to work, yes, you can sort of automatically switch from, you know, running the legacy version of the default level, to the Next Gen version at the workstation level. But you do have to link a Next Gen VIC Profile to that workstation. And the sort of part there that could be complicated or problematic is that if your windows 10 updates and your legacy version of VIC fails, it's never going to kind of make it through the default legacy Profile credential authorization piece to say, Oh, I'm on a workstation. And my workstation has a VIC exe, so he gets a roadblock for the default. So it's it's sort of a careful balance of you know, making sure that everything both fixer entirely working if you're going to run two sets of them, because the legacy VIC could prevent you from connecting to the Next Gen VIC by sort of uninstalling or or partially undoing itself when an update comes through. It's really my recommendation that you go in and you install all of the Next Gen VIX. And then once you've done that, then just make the switch all in one fell swoop from legacy to Next Gen. And that portion of the process is actually pretty easy. The easiest way to do that is just to go to Profile assignments. And you come in here to your VIC Profile, even if it's the legacy VIC Profile. And just make sure that you're running, you know your exe and then just change your ports here where it says 55 with or that also 65 So if I go here and I just do this, I'll set it back to the way it was. So it says 65 here by default. Just change this to 55. change this one to 55 and change this to 55 and then save it and then have everybody reboot their PC. The Next Gen VIC will automatically start up when they log into the PC. It will I'm start listening on the 55 range. And then your browser, when they log into RecTrac. When authenticates through the default, VIC Profile right down here, is going to be communicating on 55. Now, instead of 65, that's the trigger that really kind of changes the direction of the traffic from legacy to Next Gen is just those ports. It's really not much difference there. So, hope that kind of answers your question. Now, if you do want to have one, two versions of it. And you want to bypass the default Profile here, for instance, maybe I want to go up here into my workstation. And on my workstation here, I want to
I want to bypass it, I can link a VIC Profile to that workstation. But in order to get past the legacy, so let's say I don't have legacy installed on here, which I don't in this case, in order for me to get to the workstation, I would actually in my URL, have to pass a parameter, I'd have to pass station name equals, and then my workstation name, ops desk, Jason V, and then put an ampersand sign at the end. So I have to extend the URL. So that I know that to to give the browser the instructions to say, don't worry about the default, or worry about the legacy VIC finding a workstation name or trying to determine the workstation name, Skip, or overall that this is the PCM on here's my PC name, use this VIC Profile, and then it would just kind of skip over everything below it. And use this Profile, which is already configured for 55 range of ports, and would talk to the Next Gen. VIC down here.
Bret Alarcon 26:58
Cool. Mark said that's what do you need to know? And thank you so much.
Jason Verdo 27:01
Yep. Perfect. A couple more questions.
Bret Alarcon 27:04
Yes, quite a few. Actually. Let's see, I see some questions for the hosted people. Do any of these directions differ if you're hosted?
Jason Verdo 27:15
Yeah, the difference for hosted is obviously, you have a you know, you can go download it the same way, obviously, you can browse the server and get the exe, like I did, you have to download it through the Profile. But once you download it through Profile, you're not going to be able to change these settings in here for the legacy of VIC, there, it's all going to be kind of grayed out. So you're not going to have access to make the changes to the to the port ranges. But what they generally do do is they set up a a Next Gen or VIC exe Windows Installer Profile. And you would just simply swap the profiles, you would drag this one off, drag the new one on at the default level, and you'd be switched over have everybody reboot their PC, and they would come up with new VIC. So the install process is the same. If you're hosting, you're definitely installing that VSI VIC ca Certificate into the MMC that we went through, because every hosted customer has an SSL connection.
Bret Alarcon 28:12
Gary has a question. What about installing on managed computers?
Jason Verdo 28:18
On what Type of computer
Bret Alarcon 28:20
managed computers? And I'm not quite sure if the names are there. Gary, if you could Type in and kind of give us a little more explanation about your question, please. Let's see. Alex wants to know what happens if we do not have that certain stalled. We use the service and have run Next Gen install for a while and it uses the HTTP s hosted service. I do not think we ever installed that cert. And I'm curious what issues we would see without it.
Jason Verdo 28:50
I would double check that Alex, you probably do have it. You just may not remember installing it. If you don't, I'd be surprised because you you're talking to a secure entity here and a secure entity here. And usually those two need to speak the same language. And that Certificate helps facilitate that. I mean, maybe lower permission computers, or other computers with less restrictions, maybe. But I haven't experienced a hosted customer having a successful and stable connection without that Certificate being present. So you might want to look into that.
Cullen Barber 29:31
Going to kind of a similar question. Lloyd asked, Is this a self signed Certificate by VSI? Will Will there be problems with newer versions of Chrome if it is self signed?
Jason Verdo 29:45
That's a Certificate authority. I mean, it's self signed through us. But it does meet all the current chrome requirements as far as you know, future chrome requirements. I'm not you know could do a mixed number of things. We don't have much control over that.
Cullen Barber 30:05
And wonder if he's
Jason Verdo 30:07
connection between the browser and the client is not securing it over the internet.
Cullen Barber 30:12
I think early on when there's some debate whether or not a self signed would would work, and maybe there was some issues with Microsoft rejecting it or something like that, but I think this new this, this newer cert, right, as, as far as we know, there's no issues with Microsoft having any Type of problem with it, right?
Jason Verdo 30:31
Yeah, the only issue that comes up from self signed certs seems to be when you're, you know, when you're securing your RecTrac URL, like you're on, you're an on premise customer who's using an SSL Certificate, but you're signing your own self signed cert, those tend to be, you know, good for a little while, but not always, you know, Sha 256, or TLS 1.2. enabled or they're not. Or there was another one don't have a Santa secondary game against it. So some of the self signed ones that that customers have used for securing the RecTrac application have caused problems. But if they are hosted, and you're using, or you have, you know, a regular SSL from a Certificate authority, you should be fine.
Cullen Barber 31:26
Mark had a follow up wondered if the install is it will work as a silent install. So can you can you push out the new Windows exe. MSI, or can you just
Jason Verdo 31:40
hear, you just come in here, you typically use the MSI because that's, you know, that's the what the standard for you can push out through group policy, everybody's group policy, you know, deployment is different. So we don't get into that are really kind of in support of that. But to get the MSI, you can either browse out to your server and get it or if you're hosted and you want to get the MSI, you can just Type MSI down here and the Windows installer, or copy the URL into the browser here. And then change it to MSI. Oops, helps if you spell MSI correctly. And then it'll download the MSI, just like it did here. And then you can use that MSI to deploy out to the workstations via GPO or, you know, some other application. Right? Let me see here. If I got through everything here, we downloaded and installed VIC, we connected. We've edited the VIC Profile. That's, that's pretty good here. We've kind of dipped into some, you know, basic troubleshooting steps. But that's sort of the next kind of topic that we've kind of got into a little bit. Do we want to answer a few more questions? Or do we want to jump
Bret Alarcon 32:51
over time. So if you've kind of shown everything you want to show today, we can stick around a little longer and nail out some questions. So those of you that want to stick around for some of the questions, you're more than welcome to but as long as you're good with your side, Jason will just continue with questions.
Jason Verdo 33:09
Yeah, let me cover the what I what I what I haven't covered yet, which is some basic troubleshooting steps. And that might alleviate some of the questions that that come in. You know, the first question people ask is, you know, how do I verify what version of RecTrac is running, and I did cover that, obviously, there's two, there's two areas, you have to check to make sure that you're wearing the correct version. First is to hover over the icon and see you know, what the URL is if the URL ends and starts in 55, like it has 55 110 That is a Next Gen VIC, if it's 65, and then some numbers that is legacy. And then down here, again, if it's a circle icon, it's Next Gen VIC, if it's a square icon, it is legacy VIC, and subsequently, one is talking on 55 and one is talking on 65. So that's kind of the first waits to kind of figure out a lot of times where I get his calls. And they're, they've installed Next Gen but they haven't kind of switched the Profile over or somewhere up higher and Profile assignments. There's a legacy of VIC linked and so when I hover over here, even though the default may say that you're connecting on 55 ports, this hovering will tell me it's on 65 And that's sort of indicative for me to kind of you know, kind of go through the Profile assignments hierarchy to determine if I'm being interrupted somewhere along the lines by n a legacy VIC Profile that's been linked somewhere higher. Other things is stopping and restarting VIC exe. This does happen occasionally sometimes have to do it. I've seen situations where the computer goes to sleep after some activity and then comes back up and you kind of need to restart VIC to get things kind of refreshed and reinvigorated. And so to do that you just kind of exit VIC To log into RecTrac. And then everyone should have a desktop icon that they can then Click on. And then that'll bring up VIC down here. And then again, when you go to watch RecTrac It will
reinvigorate things. Now are we back connected. So that's kind of an often one that we get. There are other things that are good, like there are certain logs that produces. So I'm going to show you guys where some of those logs out. If you are troubleshooting them, it's helpful to have some of those logs. The first is the VIC E X E log. And that is, you know, you can find that by just displaying VIC and going to the log tab. And these logs will tell us a lot of things about where we're connecting and how we're connecting. There's also logs in the local PCs Event Viewer. So I bring that up here. Under applications and service logs. This sometimes takes a moment or two to Build. And then you'll see that you have a VIC exe, loc VSI VIC exe. And this is sort of just kind of a little bit more organized fashion of information. That's it's basically the same as you get in the VIC rock with this is a little bit more organized a little bit better timestamp, sometimes a little bit more readable too. And then the third log is something that we would only do in advanced troubleshooting situations, it's what's called a VIC trace log. And that log, you can enable through Profile assignments, and the static parameters. So this is called the VIC trace log. So if you go into the static parameters Profile, within Profile assignments, on the logging area, where we have all the different logging and debug settings, you can turn on the VIC connection, logs stack trace.
And then usually I just do a reconnect. And then if you display VIC, you're gonna get Progress trace logging on, and it's gonna give you the path to where your log is, the really the only difference between you and me is that you're going to have a different Username in there. So you can just kind of pick that whole path, drop it into your search, and then it'll bring up a log. And it gives us a lot more information as to the connection and what VIC is doing. In this particular environment. I don't usually need to get into this particular log too too much, but it is there for use if you do find yourself needing some assistance from us, and we may ask for it in certain times. The last couple of things is antivirus exemptions.
A lot of anti viruses can you know not like executables to run automatically and fire off. So we do instruct people that are using Next Gen VIC to go into their antivirus and make an exemption to the VSI. Program Files 86 directory VSI folder exempt that folder. You won't have this folder here. But you will have this folder here. And there's some big stuff that runs in here and all of our deals, this is where your install is being installed to. So there's a lot of a lot of useful things in there that make that this whole program work. So if this is being blocked by antivirus, you can have problems starting stopping, updating that sort of thing. Generally, if you do have a problem with VIC, the nice thing about this particular version is you can just, you know, run the download again. And if it's already installed, it's going to ask you to do a modify or repair or remove. So modify means that maybe you want to add service to the package. So you've already installed the exe and you want to add more product to this by adding the service product into this PC repair is just going to kind of go through and run a repair of the VIC application. If it's running, which both of my things are currently running right now it's going to ask you to stop them.
So it's kind of smart enough to go ahead and shut down the applications before it starts the repair process that it continues into the repair, which is basically just a reinstall of the initial product. But again, if you just run the exe, it's going to kind of do the same thing. And so this will kind of go through, take a couple of seconds more, and then we're finished. And then it starts right back up. Again, it's been repaired. So those are some of the common things that you can do as basic troubleshooting for the Next Gen exe. So that's kind of what I wanted to make sure we did cover in this wreck chat as well. So I didn't want to like leave that out to dry. And we can certainly hop into some additional questions.
Bret Alarcon 39:56
Yeah, we'll try and bring out some some questions here. Oh, And why does the VIG dialog box keep popping up every time we open? RecTrac? And can that stay minimized?
Jason Verdo 40:07
Yeah, so probably what's going on is in your VIC Profile, you probably have it set to display the box, display the VIC. So if that's odd, that's gonna make you pop up. Generally, this is odd for people who are not using a secure connection, and they need to take photos, Click exe is what they would use to take those photos. And so they often want this on it if they're not on a secure connection, and they are taking photos for like cards or for visit processing identification, because it'll bring that box up and let people know that VIC has started. And so they can, when they go to get prompted to take a photo, you know, they can transition to that much easier.
Bret Alarcon 40:49
What's the difference between VIC 3.1 dot five and newer versions
Jason Verdo 40:55
3.1 to five doesn't update properly. Bug fixes basically 3.1 Seven is the current version, it's got the you know, sort of the best features, you know, programmatically how it works, how its installed, all that's the same. But there were some modifications made to updating. So there's some bug fixes in that. Oftentimes 2.15 will update to 3.16 or 3.17. So you have to kind of just download the 3.17 and run it again and then it'll update and then from there on, you're good. At least as far as we know from here on out.
Bret Alarcon 41:31
Since it uses a different port range, the Next Gen verse versus the regular VIC does it require a another VIC app server broker?
Jason Verdo 41:40
Nope. Same broker actually change anything in the Profile? Just change those ports.
Bret Alarcon 41:46
What version of Chrome Are you demoing on?
Jason Verdo 41:51
Mine usually pretty up to date
nine point 91 dot 0.4472. So the official Build right now.
Credit card question. We have CardConnect USB pin pads we continually have issues where we have to start and stop and restart VIC legacy VIC and verify it's connected with an RecTrac Well this resolve our issues are thoseissues.
Yeah, I mean certainly the Next Gen VIC is more stable. So you should be switching to that anyway. So I guess the answer is yes, it could resolve those issues. I would also encourage you to contact CardConnect and switch to the bolted units their ESP drop they use Ethernet as opposed to the USB so it's a little bit more PCI compliant
Bret Alarcon 42:46
see we use access control with the legacy VIC service now when we do switch the Next Gen do we need VIC exe since it's just bloated and just stick with VIC service and VIC update service
Jason Verdo 43:00
we kind of have that backwards VIC exe always gets installed the Bloat is actually the service product. So you're always going to get the VSI VIC exe no matter what you do, you can't actually even turn it off in the Next Gen install it's required so the the VIC service is an add on feature to the exe I hope that may be answered the question
Bret Alarcon 43:20
then as a follow up question that can we have both the legacy VIC service and Next Gen VIC service ran at the same time and slow switch users workstations over to the default new VIC Profile?
Jason Verdo 43:31
Yep, they can both work can they operate the same thing with that exe does they operate on different ports so they can be installed side by side and the only thing that's going to determine whether or not you're talking to legacy VIC or Next Gen VIC is the Profile and ports configured just to start up on
Bret Alarcon 43:49
I'm hosting currently see legacy VIC in my Profile options how may I obtain the MSI if not downloaded from profiles to prepare deployment also when I see the new VIC as a Profile option to include in the art sorry, When will I see the new VIC as a Profile option to include in sign assignments.
Jason Verdo 44:11
Usually hosting goes through and creates them automatically. We can, you know, make a note here and get hosted to create you a Profile for the Next Gen exe that's pre configured and then it's just a matter of copying that URL. You know from the from the Profile to change exe to MSI. Also, we're going to be kind of publishing a Quick Install Guide doc and the link that's actually in the Quick Install the guide Doc is from the hosted team. So you can certainly Click on that link and then change it to MSI. So we'll be posting a quick guide to installing Next Gen VIC exe after the election is over
Bret Alarcon 45:01
Joe wants to know, we seem to have issues with Next Gen. VIC connecting when we logging in from outside the network, can we connect fine, we can connect five using a VPN, we installed VIC as a service? Wouldn't exe correct that issue or is it likely a firewall issue that we need to debug?
Jason Verdo 45:20
It's likely just, you know, Local Area Network versus wide area network when you're off your network, you know, running a ns lookup command isn't going to help you find your workstation name, and that workstation name is not going to exist on your network. So what you probably want to do is, you know, turn on this force VIC to be used to obtain workstation name. And then if you're off the network, VIC will actually try and find your workstation name, and it won't use the NS lookup command. And so there's that'll probably alleviate that issue.
Bret Alarcon 45:53
Okay. Jonathan wants to know, are there any known issues with the Chromium version of edge?
Jason Verdo 45:59
They're less secure than Chrome? No, not really. I mean, chromium in a ik edge, let you get away with being less secure. Chrome well, so in some cases, we've been able to not install the HT the VSI. VIC Certificate, and still get RecTrac to work. But I certainly don't recommend that
Bret Alarcon 46:22
wasn't mentioned earlier that is recommended to import the certificates prior to the installation of VIC? If so, is there a particular reason
Jason Verdo 46:31
you want to install the VSI the one Certificate VSI VIC ca Certificate prior to the install, because when you do the RecChat, VIC install, run the exe or the MSI? It creates a little bit of a relationship with that Certificate. So it's good to be there first.
Bret Alarcon 46:47
Okay. And this one kind of goes back to the question about installing and they weren't sure if they had a Certificate and when they installed the service version? Remember that question from Alex?
Jason Verdo 47:04
Maybe I mean, I think I'll probably just install the Certificate and run repair.
Bret Alarcon 47:07
Yeah. So they're asking, yeah, is it possible it installed during the VFC install, I know for sure that we have never installed the Certificate manually.
Jason Verdo 47:17
I mean, the only the only Certificate that gets installed, when you run the exe is the local host Certificate. We don't install the VSI VIC ca at all. So either somebody pushed it out, or if it's not there, you know, it's maybe workstation permissions that's allowing it to happen. But it doesn't happen on most networks. And
Cullen Barber 47:36
Jacob had one too says I'm running the new installer as admin is so they don't have sufficient privileges to install system services. Any idea what's happening there? I am a local admin. What's why would that message come up?
Jason Verdo 47:52
Do you need to be a domain user with local admin permissions. And you have to put in the credentials of the account that you're installing, ask. So you're logged in as that account that you're using as the credentials for the service. That should work. I mean, there could be a bunch of different tangents based on your network permissions and allocations. But that should
Cullen Barber 48:18
be so so login as that user on the machine, and then run the exe as that user, you'll be prompted for the Username and information, you
Jason Verdo 48:28
Click on service,
Cullen Barber 48:30
only to Click on service.
Jason Verdo 48:31
If you're running the if you're logging into the computer as an administrator, and you're right clicking on the exe and running as admin. And it's then asking you for permissions, you're not an admin on that machine. Officially, it's asking for secondary authentication. So that might be a permission to check on the Windows side.
Bret Alarcon 48:49
So it also says the content. So the credentials VIC service uses also needs to be an admin, you need
Jason Verdo 48:56
to be admin, you need to be able to talk to local resources, network printers, things of that nature.
Bret Alarcon 49:02
Well, if that I think you banged out all our questions. I know we went over but I think this was a good one to go over on definitely a lot of information going through this Rechat. So if there's no more questions, thank you very much, everybody, for showing up. And thank you for sticking around to the very end. Jason, thank you very much for coming in and showing us how its installed the benefits and everything like that with the Next Gen. VIC.
Jason Verdo 49:29
Yeah, thank you guys. If anything? Well, we'll get that Doc out there as well with RecChat and certainly reach out to support if you have any questions.
Bret Alarcon 49:37
Yep, be on the lookout for that earlier this or sorry, later this afternoon. Alright, so again, thank you very much, and we'll see you all next time.
Jason Verdo 49:47
Thanks Guys.
Cullen Barber 49:47
Bye. Thanks, everybody.