Frequently Asked Question

How do I install or update Plato.exe on a user machine?
Last Updated 4 years ago

APPLICABLE TARGET: PLATO Intranet Applications, United Kingdom and Australasia.

Platosetup.exe can be used to copy app files onto a new machine, or after machine licenses have changed.

Before you start:

Your new Plato.exe install machine will need to be granted licenses so that the correct modules will be installed. You can add the new machine and assign licenses in the Licenses section under PlatoAtlas System Admin.

Note that when installing into the Program Files or Program Files (x86) folder, Windows UAC frequently causes issues. The following steps can be used to ensure the cleanest installation experience.

1) In share.ini in middle tier, find this section:

[Client Version]
Autoupdate=C:\...\Client\Autoupdate
Version String=27/07/2011 2:22:12 p.m. - v8.6:
DontInstallSysFiles=Yes


2) Note the Autoupdate setting. This is the folder from which platosetup.exe gets the app files to install. If the contents are not current, platosetup can install older/incompatible files that throw errors.

3) Before installing a new machine, best advice is to copy the Plato folder content from a known working Plato.exe install into the autoupdate folder. This should give you the latest compatible versions. Running platosetup.exe with older versions of files in the Autoupdate folder is by far the most frequent cause of support requests about new plato.exe installations. Inconvenience and cost is easily avoided if files from a known working plato.exe installation are copied to autoupdate first.

4) From the install machine, navigate to the middle tier and run platosetup.exe. It will ask for Admin escalation. Allow it. Now it should copy correct known working files to the PC.

5) Run Plato.exe. You should not see error messages and once licenses are processed, everything should run as expected.

6)  The DontInstallSysFiles setting above can be tried if errors are reported for the Microsoft ActiveX mscomctl.ocx. Change the setting to read DontInstallSysFiles=No and run platosetup.exe again.

7) If you still see an error dialog, please press YES and follow the steps.

If you see another error referring to log files saving into the install folder- almost certainly this is UAC protecting the app folder. See 9) below.

8) Note: pre-Vista, you could cause Plato machines to update at will, if you changed machine licenses or the Version string in the [Client Version] section above. However, this requires users to have rights for Admin escalation- which they usually won't. For this reason, we don't advocate this method of updating any more. Usually it's easiest to simply copy the Plato folder content from a known working Plato.exe install, onto the new machine.

9) If UAC continues to cause difficulty, copy the Plato folder out of program files and run it elsewhere, which usually gets you out from under UAC and try again. If errors persist, press [Yes] when asked and add the log files to a support.platocode.com ticket.

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