I’ve changed from Windows batch files to Powershell for almost every other repeated tasks & one of the scripts that I use to connect to our IKEv2 VPN script has a shortcut on my desktop. This script helps me to connect and disconnect from the VPN network just by double clicking the shortcut. You can checkout the script here
I had multiple iterations for the script and kept on deleting and recreating the shortcut and noticed that a black window started appearing when I executed script from the shortcut.
All I could remember was, not changing any settings for the Powershell & couldn’t find a “solution” (that was mere eyesore to my rigid expectations). Interestingly, my semi desktop/server class box didn’t have this “issue”, whenever I executed the script from the shortcut, all I was provided was the “Connected” or “Disconnected” message boxes.
After sometime, I decided to check the shortcut properties on my desktop & noticed that the “Run” option was selected as “Minimized”
Powershell provides many switches & one of the switches is “WindowStyle” that supports Normal, Minimized, Maximized and Hidden styles for the Window. Well, the style “Minimized” just hid the entire window, including the message popups that had prompts.
Quickly I moved to my laptop and changed the Run to “Minimized” and that was it. No more annoying black window behind my script message boxes! No more script outputs shown on the screen. So, if you reached here seeking a how to hide those annoying black windows, give this a try.
Upgrading Forms & Reports developer 11g could be equally confusing & interesting, as there are not many documents explaining a how to. Recently we were closely following up an “issue” raised by one of the visitors and opted to “upgrade” the development machine to check the feasibility of Forms & Reports 11g over Windows 8.1 64Bit
We were able to complete the upgrade process without much issues and the steps followed were described as below
As we were on 32Bit environment for the Weblogic, we downloaded the 32Bit packages for the upgrade. The total download should be roughly around 1.8GB
Once the downloaded archives are extracted, you can start with the upgrade process.
Prior the upgrade process, please make sure you stopped both Weblogic Admin server service & Weblogic Node manager service to avoid any kind of failures with the process.
You can kick start the upgrade process by executing the “setup.exe”
You should “Skip” the software update, as usual :)
Select “Install software – do not configure”
There could be multiple warnings about incompatible setups, you can “Safely” ignore and continue with the installation. We warn you, you shouldn’t install uncertified Oracle products on any OS, in case if you are going to use such setups for Production purposes
Setup should automatically pickup the “Middleware Home & Oracle Home Directory”
Going ahead will produce an error stating another installation is available in the selected location, ignore and continue
Unless you have a valid Oracle support contract, uncheck “I wish to receive…” and continue with the upgrade process
We got an error at 19%, all about certain java components. If you are familiar with LINUX, most of the times you could monitor a log file, as it is being updated using “tail” command. With latest versions of Windows OS you can use powershell to monitor the log file online.
Open up powershell and copy the installation log name like following
It does the job and if errors are found, go ahead and cancel the installation and start over, which should deal with the java related errors. The total installation will be stuck unless.
You may save the setup steps and try out your upgraded forms & reports now. The only one element what we have noticed as “created” new as part of the installation was
Start Forms designer and check the about window and you must having the following information.
Forms [32 Bit] Version 11.1.2.2.0 (Production) Oracle Toolkit Version 11.1.2.2.0 (Production) PL/SQL Version 11.1.0.7.0 (Production) Oracle Procedure Builder V11.1.2.2.0 – Production PL/SQL Editor (c) WinMain Software (www.winmain.com), v1.0 (Production) Oracle Query Builder 11.1.2.2.0 – Production Oracle Virtual Graphics System Version 11.1.2.2.0 (Production) Oracle Tools GUI Utilities Version 11.1.2.2.0 (Production) Oracle Multimedia Version 11.1.2.2.0 (Production) Oracle Tools Integration Version 11.1.2.2.0 (Production) Oracle Tools Common Area Version 11.1.2.2.0 Oracle CORE 11.1.0.7.0 Production
That’s it folks. Give it a try and post us your issues, success notes.
