Welcome to the DHIS version 1.3.0.x installation
CDs from the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP). The last
number (x) in the version number is the build – patch upgrade files are
available for users of previous builds of version 1.3.0.x.
The “HISP tools 1.3.0.x” CD contains nearly 650M MB of free
upgrades, shareware, freeware and other 'goodies'. Some of these – see below
for details – are necessary for the DHIS to run properly.
The “DHIS v 1.3.0.x” CD contains the DHIS installation package and
possibly DHIS Data Files for some provinces in South Africa plus possibly DHIS
Data Files for some other countries currently implementing or piloting the
software. What has been included usually depends usually on the space available
if it’s on a single CD – if you have got a dual CD, it usually contains most
available Data Files. For
A more detailed specification of recommended hardware and software
for a typical district / provincial / national office running the DHIS can be
found in the file “District HardSoftWare <MonthLastRevised>.rtf” on this the DHIS CD. In short, we
recommend a typical “small business PC” for districts and a typical “technical
workstation PC” for higher levels that handle larger amounts of data.
DHIS will run on any PC that can run Access 97: 16 MB of memory
(RAM) and around 200 MB of free hard disk space is the absolute minimum. The
web applications (e.g. Data Dictionary) and the HISP Application Server needed
to run them locally use around 8MB, so the practical minimum is 32 MB of RAM if
you want to run the web apps.
With prices of memory hitting rock bottom – 256 MB of RAM now
costs only around USD 40 (R 350) – you are strongly recommended to upgrade your
PC to at least 256 MB if possible. For new PCs, it makes no longer sense to buy
them with less than 256-512 MB of RAM.
Operative System Requirements
The DHIS software runs on all Windows platforms EXCEPT Windows 95A
(also called OSR-1) and NT 3.5x, but you must
make sure the relevant Service Packs (upgrades) have been installed -
preferably before you install the DHIS software. All the necessary
service packs and upgrades are found on the HISP tools 1.3.x CD (sub-folder
where they can be found is specified in each case):
1.
Windows 95B (OSR-2) users should install
Service Pack 1 (<HISPtools>\Windows
95\WIN95SP1).
2.
Windows 98 First Edition users should
install Service Pack 1 (<HISPtools>\Windows
98\Win98SP1).
3.
Windows 98 Second Edition (no Service
Packs available).
4.
Windows Millennium Edition (no Service
Packs available).
5.
Windows NT 4.0 users must install
Service Pack 6a (<HISPtools>\Windows NT
4.0\SP6a).
6.
Windows 2000 users should install Service
Pack 3 (<HISPtools>\Windows 2000\W2KSP3.exe).
7.
Windows XP users should install Service
Pack 1 (<HISPtools>\Windows XP\xpsp1_en_x86.exe).
Note: The Windows 2000 service pack is a self-extractable file.
Double-click on it and extract the content into a temporary folder – e.g.
C:\temp – and then run SETUP.exe in that folder to install the service pack.
All of these and other updates can also be obtained from the web
site Windowsupdate.microsoft.com
The DHIS is currently not available for Linux, but we are
exploring various options for making the DHIS platform independent. This will
most likely happen through a gradual translation of all software modules from
Access/Excel/VB/VBA and over to using Java and XML combined with flexibility in
choosing any SQL-compliant Data Base Management System: Access, Oracle, MySQL
(Open Source), DB2, SQL Server, PostgreSQL (Open Source), etc. Major progress on
this can be expected in 2003/2004 – The Data Mart files can currently be moved
to ORACLE or SQL Server with few problems.
Application Software Requirements
Before installing DHIS, you should have installed the following
application software upgrades on your PC. All these upgrades or Service Packs
are found on the HISP Tools CD – the CD sub-folder is specified in each case.
1.
All users must have Internet
Explorer version 5 (sp-2), 5.5 (sp-2) or 6 (sp-1) or later installed, even
if you normally prefer to use Netscape, Opera or another browser (or no Web
browser at all). We recommend the installation of the latest version of IE6
with Service Pack 1 from the Microsoft Web-site. This can be found on various
CDs or on the MS web site. Note: if you select to install the Access 2000
Runtime module as part of the DHIS, the installation routine will fail unless
you have Internet Explorer 5 or later installed.
2.
Users of Microsoft Office 97
(Standard, Professional, and Developers Editions) must install Service
Release 1 (if not already installed) and then Service Release 2b (if not
already installed). The DHIS installation program will terminate with an
error message if you don’t have sr-2b installed before installing the DHIS. You
can find out which Service Release you have by opening for instance Excel, go
to the Help pull-down menu and select About Microsoft Excel. SR-1 or SR-2 will
be displayed just after “Microsoft® Excel” if any of them already are
installed.
If
there is nothing, do the following: (a) Note down the Product ID from the “This
product is licensed to:” box, and close Excel. (b) Install Service Release 1
from <HISPtools>\Microsoft Office
Updates\Office97\SR 1, and reboot the PC. (c) Install Service Release 2b from
<HISPtools>\Microsoft Office Updates\Office97\SR2B,
and reboot the PC (SR2b will ask for the Product ID you noted down).
If you
already have SR-1 install, you can skip step (b) above.
Users
of Office 97 might also benefit from installing Office 97 Service Pack 3 –
found in <HISPtools>\Microsoft Office
Updates\Office97\SP3. Office 97 SP3 also
solves problems with ODBC and IISAM drivers.
3.
Users of Microsoft Office 2000
(Standard, Professional, Premium, and Developers Editions) should install
Service Release 1 from <HISPtools>\Microsoft
Office Updates\Office2000\SR-1\o2ksr1adl.exe. Note: Extract o2ksr1adl.exe
into a temporary folder – e.g. C:\temp – and then run SETUP.exe from there to
install the Service Release. The installation program will ask you to insert
the original Office 2000 CD during installation, unless you copied the
original CDs onto your hard disk and installed Office 2000/XP from there. If
you have space enough, we STRONGLY recommend you doing that since it will save
you a lot of hassle looking for the original CDs later. This is particularly
important for the public sector, where original CDs often are kept under lock
and key by the IT department and getting hold of copies a bureaucratic hurdle.
4.
The HISP Tools CD also includes Office
2000 Service Pack 3 – that is a temporary collection of hot-fixes that should
be installed if you are experiencing problems with your Office 2000
installation. Furthermore, the CD includes Jet 4.0 Service Pack 6 upgrades
(they vary depending on your version of Windows).
5.
Users of Microsoft Office 97/2000
Developers Edition can find updates for the development modules in <HISPtools>\Microsoft Office Updates. (Note: This is not
directly relevant for running the DHIS, unless you intend to modify the design
or code used with the software.)
6.
Users of Microsoft Office XP (various
Editions) should install the DHIS 2000 module files – they run fine under
Office XP. They should also install Service Pack 2 for Office XP – found in the
<HISPtools>\Microsoft Office Updates\OfficeXP\Office XP SP-2 folder. The upgrade will ask you
for the original Office XP CDs unless those CDs have been copied into your hard
disk and Office installed from there.
Finally, note that the DHIS development team is working on
automatically including all the upgrades above in the DHIS installation.
Currently, though, you must install these upgrades yourself (preferably before
installing the DHIS).
For the technically interested: Microsoft System Files required by
the DHIS
The following groups of Microsoft System Files are required by the
DHIS. They will be automatically installed, unless you choose the “Compact”
option that will be made available as an Internet download (not before November
2002). Use the Compact option ONLY when know these system files already
exist on your PC, and if you have very little free space on your hard disk.
·
Jet 4.0: Jet 4.0 is a
component database engine, composed of Dynamic Link Libraries (.DLL files) and
other components. The Jet database engine is one of the engines shipped with
Access 2000, but in the case of DHIS it is also used by some of the Web
applications (e.g. Data Dictionary). Note that you should install the Jet
4.0 Service Pack 6 after installing the DHIS – the file relevant for your
operative system can be found in the <HISPtools>\Jet40SP6
folder.
·
DAO 3.6: Microsoft’s Data
Access Objects (DAO) is a set of objects that enables OLE Automation clients to
access and manipulate data in local or remote databases, and to manage
databases, their objects, and their structure. DAO are used by e.g. Access and
Visual Basic.
·
Visual Basic 6 Runtime (Service Pack 5 or
higher): The Visual Basic 6 Runtime files are necessary to enable any
program created with Visual Basic 6.0 to run properly.
·
MDAC 2.6 SP2: The Microsoft
Data Access Components (MDAC) enables Universal Data Access. These components
allow data-driven applications to communicate across the Web or over local
networks. MDAC 2.6 Service Pack 2 includes
WARNING to ArcExplorer 1.1 Users
If you have already have ArcExplorer 1.1 installed on your PC,
please remove it before installing this version of the DHIS. ArcExplorer 2.0
installs during the last part of the DHIS setup.
Note: Users of Windows 95/98/NT/2000
should install the latest version of Windows Installer before starting the DHIS
installation, unless you are absolutely sure you have it already. If your
version of Windows Installer is too old, you will receive an error message
informing you about that fact when trying to install the XML Parser (happens
right after the main part of the DHIS has been installed). Installing the
latest version of Windows Installer is a good idea in any case – just
double-click on the relevant file for your PC found in <DHIStools>\Windows
Installer. Users of Windows XP do not need to bother with this – XP ships with
version 2.0 of the Windows Installer.
After you have installed the relevant Service Packs + the latest
Windows Installer 2.0 outlined in the previous section and above, do the following:
1.
Double-click the 'Setup.exe' icon (a small
computer) on the DHIS 1.3.0.x CD. Follow instructions on the screen. You will
be asked to accept the Open Source license agreement – basically telling you to
use the DHIS for whatever you want as long as it’s not for commercial gain –
and shown yet another warning message about the service packs mentioned above.
2.
Do not change the default installation
folder unless necessary. If you later want to share data files on a network
server, you are advised to install DHIS on every workstation for performance
reasons. You can later copy the data files to the server, and then on each
workstation change the active data file to the copy residing on the server. Note:
if you install the DHIS to another hard disk on your PC because of lack of
space on the C-drive, you might have to change the target strings of some
shortcuts later.
3.
Note that running the DHIS installed on a
server and used by client machines with NT Terminal Server software seems to
work fine, but this has not been exhaustively tested by the DHIS development
team.
4.
The default (only) setup type - Custom
with data files – allows you to install real-world data sets from all the 9
provinces in
5.
When selecting "Custom with data
files", you get a window with the main components for an installation
under either Office 97 or Office 2000 already ticked. Verify that this
auto-selection is correct, and if not change it. Note that no data files are
ticked by default – you must scroll down and select those you need.
6.
All component with a ‘+’ in the small box
to the left of them can be expanded by clicking on the ‘+’ symbol. Various
sub-components can then be selected or unselected as appropriate.
7.
If you have Office 97 Professional, Office
2000 (Professional, Premium, or Developers Editions) or Office XP installed on
your PC, select only the first three sub-components under “DHIS for Office
8.
If you have Office 97 Standard Edition,
which do not include Access 97, you must select the sub-component “Access 97
Runtime”. If you have Office 2000 Standard Edition, which do not include Access
2000, you can select either the sub-component “Access 97 Runtime” or the
sub-component “Access 2000 Runtime”. We have had more reports of problems with
the latter, so the 97 runtime version is usually preferable.
9.
After you have finished selecting program
files and Data Files, click “Continue” to start the copying of the DHIS files
to your PC.
10. During
the copying process, you might get a message saying that a locked file was
found. This usually happens with the file MSVCRT.dll (it is a Microsoft C
Runtime Library file). The installation is trying to install a newer version of
this file, but it is in use by Windows and cannot be replaced straight away. Just
click “Reboot” and the installation will continue. The new MSVCRT.dll file
will then be logged for installation after your system has been rebooted.
11. Towards
the end of the installation, you are asked to install additional applications:
·
Snapshot Viewer 9.0 (free
utility from Microsoft - needed to email or view Access reports). Make sure
you click on the LARGE “Complete Installation” button.
·
Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.1 (free
utility from Adobe – needed to read Public Document Format (.PDF) files,
commonly used on the Web and for manuals.
·
ArcExplorer 2.0 (free
desktop GIS viewer from ESRI - needed to use the GIS interface). You can also
install ArcExplorer 4.1 for Java
·
WinZip 8.1 (shareware
compression utility - needed to email or move larger files).
12. NOTE:
You will be asked to reboot after installing ArcExplorer 2.0. You can safely
say NO to this, but make sure you reboot when the whole installation
finishes.
13. Reboot
after installation (DHIS will not run properly unless you do!!)
14. Install
the Jet 4.0 Service Pack 6 relevant for your PC from the <HISPtools>\Jet40SP6 folder. There are three files in the
folder: One for Windows 95/98/ME/NT, a second for Windows 2000,
and a third for Windows XP. Note that you do not need Jet40SP6 for Windows 2000
is you have installed Windows 2000 SP 3. Also, to install Jet40SP6 for Windows
95/98/ME/NT you must already have Jet40SP3 installed.
The DHIS installation programme places a number of shortcuts on
your desktop. If you are using the Runtime versions of Access 97 or Access
2000, you can delete the three shortcuts called “AccessMD”,
“AccessTB”, and “AccessRG”.
Note that all the same shortcuts also are accessible via Start -> Programs
-> DHIS. The shortcut 'Hisp' brings up the
Web-based Shell, whereas the shortcut 'Data Dictionary' brings up the Web-based
Data Dictionary. You can launch all modules and Excel files from the Shell,
which allows you to delete all the other shortcuts on the desktop.
WARNING: If the shortcuts do not work as expected due to peculiar
configurations on your PC, you might have to edit their target strings:
·
Right-click on a shortcut icon and select
properties
·
Click the "shortcut" tab and
look at the target string.
·
In particular, make sure that the first
part of the target string reads "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office\msaccess.exe" if you have Office installed in that folder.
Edit the string and click OK if it's different.
·
If you are using the Runtime 97 version,
make sure that the first part reads "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Access 97\msaccess.exe". Edit the string and click OK if it's
different.
·
If you are using the Runtime 2000 version,
make sure that the first part reads "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\ART\Office\msaccess.exe". Edit the string and click OK if it's
different.
·
The same procedure should be followed for
the Excel shortcuts if the automatic search for excel.exe is not successful for
some unknown reason.
For
details on how to start up the various components in the DHIS, we refer to the
DHIS draft manual found in the “Help Files” folder under the DHIS folder. This
can also be opened through the “DHIS manual” shortcut on the desktop or in
Start->Program->DHIS.
A more
advanced, searchable Online Help system (HTML format) combined with an updated
DHIS manual is under development.
Running DHIS on a network
The DHIS application should run OK over a modern network (don't
even try with an older DOS-based network like Novell 3.1x!!), but make sure you
install it as a so-called THICK client. In other words, install the software on
all workstation AND on the server. When you click on "Change Data
File" in the DHIS Control Centre, a common dialogue box opens and you can
navigate to the shared DHIS data file ON THE SERVER instead of selecting the
Data File in the default folder (usually C:\Dhis). Different users can thus
share the same Data File residing on the server.
With regard to sharing Pivot Table files (spreadsheet files), it
is best to provide a basic, updated Pivot Table file on the server with its
read-only attribute set to yes. Users can then copy this file to their own
workstations and play around as they see fit. Somebody should then be
responsible for refreshing the basic copy on the server when
additional/modified data is available.
If you want people to be able to refresh their Pivot Table files
using a Data Mart file residing on a server, you must modify the Pivot Table
files – or re-create it using the Pivot Generator – so that each pivot table is
“pointing” to the correct Data Mart source.
Running the software over networks has been tested only to a
limited extent, so the DHIS team would appreciate any experiences or
suggestions from users. We have recently had reports that running the DHIS on a
server with NT Terminal Server clients works fine.
The
Running DHIS on a PC with both Access 97
and Access 2000/XP installed:
The shortcut target strings will point to the 2000/XP version of
msaccess.exe if it is found on the target PC. If you selected “DHIS for Office
Runtime users:
For Access 97 or 2000 RUNTIME users: In order to launch the DHIS
modules from the DHIS shell, you need to update the three shortcuts "AccessMD", "AccessTB",
and "AccessRG" found in the DHIS folder.
You can either
·
copy the runtime shortcuts from the
Desktop to the DHIS folder, or
·
add
"/runtime" as the first parameter in each shortcut's target string
(separated from the rest of the target string by one space on each side).
Backup folder with all Module files:
If power disturbances or other problems should result in any of
your module files being corrupted, you can extract the relevant module files
from one of the backup archives found in the “DHIS Module Backup” folder under
the DHIS folder. “DHIS97_ModuleFiles.zip” contains the 97 versions of the three
module files, and ” DHIS2000_ModuleFiles.zip” contains
the 2000 versions. Just extract the file you need and overwrite the corrupted
version in the DHIS folder.
The DHIS team -