Ches,
But......from what I have read, you are making this change path thing WAY too difficult.
Say you have x amount of clients and the old "main computer." The ONLY computer any client could connect to would be the main computer. Period. You could try all you wanted to connect to any of the other computers but you couldn't, because while they would have an AC folder and databases, the computer would not have SQL.
Now, you have purchased a new "main computer." So far, all clients are pointing to the old one. Fine. So, you install v5.x to the new computer:
We have talked about this above. Install v5 with SQL Server, run AC until it connects to database at the point of showing a brand new practice, restore latest backup, run Database tuner. You should be finished.
**Note: When you first connect to the SQL database, you will come to a screen that shows the green fields where you enter your practice data. You do NOT have to do anything there. At that point AC is connected to a database. All you have to do is restore which will save you all the time of setting up all those fields.
AT THIS POINT, you have two computers that have Amazing Charts, SQL Server and data. They are EXACTLY the same. Also at this point all of your clients are directed toward the old computer. So, the last step is to reset the paths. I think we are making this too difficult. If lightening, or a spilled cup of coffee on the computer can do it, I think we can do it.
The part where I hear you are having a hard time is "after I reset the database, how do I know it won't go back to the old computer?" Because you WON'T set it to the old computer. When you reset or take the client off the path to the old computer, it is now in never never land. It has no idea where the databases are. When you restart the client, it will ASK you where the database is. You then browse to the new computer.
There are a few ways to reset the path. One is to go into the folder on that computer, open Amazing Utilities, and choose reset paths at the bottom. This is confusing because of the plural as you are only resetting one path. This will ONLY reset that path. The next time you open it, it will ask you where to browse to, and you browse to the new server.
Another method which is must less known, is when you open AC and it opens to the first window where someone logs in, you can right click between your company name in bold black letters and Electronic Medical Record System just below it. This will ask you if you wish to reset the path. The one advantage to doing it this way (while admittedly a very small advantage) is it will first tell you what computer you are connected to and then the path where the Utilities method will only give you the path. Not much of a difference since the path generally starts with the name of the server. But not always.
Another method which really isn't another method, but it is helpful if you are changing the path of 20 computers is to share the Amazing Utilities file on your server so you can quickly browse there each time where it will be easy to locate.
Now, once you have connected all of the computers to the new server and since users should have the basic knowledge of how to reconnect if their coffee spills, you should do something to put the other computer out of commission. You can certainly still use it, but you don't want it do be available as a database. Granted, there are many ways to accomplish this, but I would simply suggest 1) unsharing it or 2) deleting its .xml file or 3) stopping and disabling the SQL\AmazingCharts service. Probably the easiest way would be to rename any of the three databases (either the .mdf or .ldf) to anything else such as meds.mdf.old. That makes that computer unusable as a database at least for that folder.
So, in summary again, install, open to new practice, restore, run database tuner and done with installation. Then simply reset or, more correctly, unset the paths on each client and browse to the new server.
