Now as we have mentioned earlier a couple of times,
when we install PI, we suggest
that you set it to AutoStart so that it automatically
starts up every time the Operating System starts. But there are
other ways to start up PI and also to shut down PI.
You can use this pisrvstart.bat
to start up PI when the Operating System is not
currently running. In fact,
there are some times, like after an upgrade, for example, where that's,
in fact, that's exactly how you would want to start it up. There's no reason
to reboot the Operating System simply because you want to start up PI.
Now, what you will notice is that pisrvstart.bat --
that, in turn, calls in
pisrvsitestart.bat and
pisrvsitestart.bat is where we put those things
that are site specific like, for example, interfaces
that are unique to running on that particular computer.
So, that file, pisrvsitestart.bat,
that can, in fact, be used just to start up interfaces
if you need that. Now,
to stop PI, we have a pisrvstop.bat
which in turn calls up pisrvsitestop.bat.
We do suggest that before
you power-down your computer, before you
stop the Operating System to shut down Windows, you always
run PISrvStop.bat
so that PI does shut down and shut down properly.
This has to do with how Windows shuts down
processes. There's a certain timeout involved.
And if it takes longer than -- I believe it's
90 seconds or two minutes or so -- then Windows just
unceremoniously kind of shuts that process down
whether it has saved all its intermediate files
or closed out all of its cache items
or not. So that's why we think it's very important,
very import to emphasize that you run pisrvstop.bat
when you do want to shut down the Operating System.
So make sure PI is shut down before you
shut down the Operating System. Now, take a
look in the PI Directory and you will notice one more
Batch File that you could use. This is in the
PI-adm Directory. It's called
simply pistart.
So, here is the
pisrvstart.bat, here's pisrvstop.bat,
and then there's this pistart.bat.
That's simply used for debugging purposes. We
suggest that you do not run that unless you are,
well, trying to start up PI, what we would call
Interactively instead of as a Service. By
Interactive Startup, that means it is going to start up in a series of
windows, and those windows might be a little bit more useful
for troubleshooting because the
standard output that's going to those windows is --
it's going to show you everything that's encountered by
that application, even things that we might not think to write into
the Message Log. Occasionally it will be a,
a good diagnostic tool. However,
starting up PI using pistart.bat, it's really about,
the -- about the only time you would ever do that is
when you are working with Tech Support and doing some serious
troubleshooting. So, in fact, some of our
field service guys have been known to rename this pistart_
neverrunthis.bat because
it, it really is not something you would normally
run in the course or normal operations with PI.
Oh, and one more thing about starting up PI when you
use pisrvstart.bat
is, on a larger server, it, it can take up to
30 minutes for PI to start. So, do not be surprised if it takes
a little while for things like the different Utilities or
Client Applications to respond.
As I mentioned
in the last segment, there are basically
two ways of starting up PI: the automatic way,
just when Windows reboots, or when you run
pisrvstart.bat. Now, either way,
you want to make sure that when
you start up PI, exactly the same
set of applications start up. So,
what we are suggesting is these Interfaces that you are
going to be installing on your Pi Server --
that you want to make sure that those Interfaces
are configured properly so that they start up
properly no matter which method
you use to start up PI -- whether it's rebooting
or running pisrvstart. Now, the way we do
this is, if you do have a new Interface -- so, for
example, let's say you are running the -- let's
say the TCP Response Interface
or the OPC Interface that you see right here.
Now those are two Interfaces that are not standard.
So, on the PI Server that you see pictured right here,
on this PI Server we are running, in addition
to the regular Interfaces, some additional
Interfaces. And, we simply want to make sure
that those Interfaces -- like for example, these Interfaces
you see right here -- that they are
started up in the Operating System and
also in the pisrvsitestart.bat.
Now that does mean you are going to have to edit
this pisrvsitestart.bat
and put in all those Interfaces that are site
specific. And, at the same time you are doing that, you should
edit pisrvsitestop.bat to
make sure that when you stop PI, we stop those Interfaces as well.
So, simply put, no matter how you start up PI,
whether it's by rebooting the Operating System or running
pisrvstart, you want to make sure that
all those things that normally start up with that Server
do start up, regardless of how your --
you know, what meth... method you use for starting up PI.