duo_monitor.JPG (14147 bytes)Technical Support Resources

manifold.net products are supported by email conversations with tech@manifold.net  - email support is fast, easy and inexpensive (email support incidents are as low as $19.50 each for standard tech support incidents purchased in a ten pack.) Telephone support is much more expensive and is available on a limited basis for $295 per call for standard tech support incident questions.  

Although technical support is not included in the price of Manifold products, most products are provided with two free incidents of standard technical support by email.  Standard technical support excludes questions involving programming, scripting, customization of any kind, IMS, SQL, Enterprise features and any questions involving Runtime licenses.  Questions on those topics require use of a developer technical support incident.  Additional incidents of standard technical support or developer technical support are available for purchase.  See the Products page for information on technical support products.

Support incidents may be used only against the current edition of Manifold System with the current service pack (if any) installed.  Service packs are free to download.  Whenever a new edition is published, licensees of the previous edition are given an opportunity to upgrade to the new edition at nominal expense. It is wise to seize this opportunity when offered to preserve the usefulness of your free support incidents, if any, as well as any purchased support incidents. 

A support incident is delivered in the form of a token sent to you by email when you acquire incidents.  If you receive free tokens as part of a promotion when licensing Manifold System, the tokens will be in the same email that provides your Manifold System serial number.  A token is a long alphanumeric string that looks like a Manifold serial number. A token may be used one time for one incident.  After a token is used for an incident it cannot be used for a different incident. When you contact technical support to use an incident you must provide a valid, unused tech support token in the first few lines of your email to tech support.  If you do not provide a valid, unused token you will get a form letter referring you to this page.  When using a token, to avoid typographical errors it is best to use copy and paste to copy the token from the email by which it was delivered to you into the email you write to tech support.  Do not change the token in any way.  Do not change upper case to lower case, add or remove hyphens or any other characters, etc.  Please use the token exactly as it was sent to you.  

Keep your technical support tokens secret.  Anyone who has access to them can use them up with their own questions to technical support. Do not lose your tokens.  Print out the email that delivers them to you and keep the printout in a safe place.  If you lose your tokens, they cannot be recovered.

This page covers Manifold System 7x (the current edition).  For products other than Manifold System or support pages for legacy editions of Manifold System, click on the product link on the navigation bar at left to jump to that product's Support Page.  Each product's support page has free support resources for that product, such as the Knowledge Base, Service Packs and FAQ pages.

How to Get Fast Technical Support

Using tech support as a replacement for reading the user documentation is not efficient: tech support incidents are used for highly specific question, and relate to one function or to the lowest separable usage level of Manifold in a specific task. If a particular issue or question is discussed in the user documentation, a response to a tech support incident will not reprint that documentation. Instead, the incident will cite topics to read and any subsequent discussion will assume you have read, in full, the topics cited. 

Runtime Licenses

Runtime licenses are provided with no bundled support incidents. Any questions involving a Runtime license require a developer support incident.  In particular, if a reseller or ISV bundles a Manifold Runtime license with an application for delivery to an end user, there is no tech support whatsoever available to that end user, not even as regards Activation. If you plan on using a Runtime license and deploying it to a different user, plan on providing any support that user requires.

Checking Status of Support Tokens and Serial Numbers

Manifold licensees may want to check the status of a serial number or of a tech support token, to find out how many times a serial number has been used, whether it has been revoked or not, and whether a tech support token has been used.  To do so, see the Serial Number Status page.

Manifold-L and other Forums

Other alternatives: For peer-to-peer support, consider discussing your issue with your colleagues on the www.georeference.org forum or post it on the Manifold-L discussion list.  Manifold-L is an email discussion list for Manifold System users operated by www.directionsmag.com.   It's a great resource for discussion Manifold issues with other users.  See the Manifold-L List Guide for a guide to using Manifold-L. We encourage all Manifold users to participate in this list.  For resources in German and French, please see:

Manifold-L See the Manifold-L List Guide for a guide to using Manifold-L. 
Georeference.org Georeference.org A forum for scripting, programming and general discussions, the home of the Manifold System User Group.
Manifold System Forum in German, organized by users in Germany. "Das erste deutschsprachige Forum rund um Manifold Systems"
Manifold Forum in French, organized by users in France.  

GISAdvisor.com Training Products

GISAdvisor.com is a third party company unrelated to manifold.net that creates acclaimed training products for Manifold System.  The manifold.net technical team highly recommends GISAdvisor.com training products.  Visit the GISAdvisor.com website to learn more about these products.

German Language Training: The GISAdvisor.com Manifold 6.0 video training is also available in German. In cooperation with GISWana, each of the lessons have been dubbed in the German language and are now available for purchase and immediate download via RegNow while information about the product in the German language is found at the GISWana website.

Suggestions

Would you like to make a suggestion for improving Manifold?  Please send it in!  See the Suggestions guidelines for tips on getting your ideas incorporated into Manifold.

General Tech Support Advice: Eliminate Obvious Problems First

In particular, it is important to observe all instructions when installing the product:

Do you have Microsoft IE 6 or greater installed?  Almost all manifold.net software requires the previous installation of a Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.  Installing IE (even if you choose to use Mosaic, Opera,  Netscape/AOL or other browser as your default browser) is the best way to make sure your Windows system is up-to-date with all the latest, necessary Windows .dlls.
If installing on Windows 2000, XP or NT, do you have Administrator privileges when first installing the program?  When you installed the program, did you install it for "Everyone" or for "Just me"?
During installation, make sure to exit all other applications and background processes, including all "virus protection" software and network trace or network snooping software.  Some "virus protectors" do such a great job of protecting the system they end up interfering with installations. Prevent such software from launching when you start the system and then reboot to be sure no weird processes are running in background.
Install the latest Service Pack issued for your manifold.net program, if any have been issued.  

Windows Installer Problems

The dialog you see when installing Manifold is Microsoft Windows Installer, a standard installation utility used by innumerable applications.  Although Windows Installer is a very reliable, well-understood program, it is possible for users to damage their systems in ways that might get Windows Installer confused.  This usually happens when people partially uninstall or partially reinstall, tinker with registry entries, delete installation files they might need later and the like. Some advice:

Windows Vista Installation / Activation

Manifold supports Windows Vista.  Just like in Windows Server 2003, Windows XP and Windows 2000, you must be logged in using the account named Administrator to either install or activate Manifold. This account is different from the accounts displayed as having the "Administrator" role in the User Accounts applet in Control Panel. Some Windows Vista installations may have the Administrator account turned off.  It is easy to turn the true Administrator account on.  To do so, open the Control Panel and open the User Accounts applet. If you do not see any accounts named Administrator, this account is disabled. To enable the account, do the following:

Click Start, type cmd into the search pane, wait until the system displays the cmd.exe item at the top, right click the item and choose Run as administrator. In the opened command prompt, type net user administrator /active:yes and click Enter, then log off.  There will now be an Administrator account enabled. Log in as the Administrator to install and to activate Manifold.

When installing Manifold x64 on x64 Vista, use the .msi installation file downloaded for the latest update published in the 7x Update page - The x64 Manifold installation published on the Manifold 7x DVD matches the Vista pre-releases issued by Microsoft at the time of that DVD's publications.  Final released versions of Vista are slightly different so the updated .msi Manifold installation file from the update page should be used.

Manifold 7x Image Server Modules

Manifold System Release 7x provides a Manifold Image Server Interface that can be used to write modules supporting various image servers available on the web.  Third parties have written open source modules for 7x to support Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth and Yahoo! Maps.  Note that image server .dlls occur in 32-bit and 64-bit versions and must match the Windows system and Manifold version in use.  For example, in 32-bit Windows systems only the 32-bit modules are used.  In 64-bit Windows systems, if you have installed a 32-bit Manifold version then use the 32-bit modules.  If you have installed and are running an x64 Manifold version then use the 64-bit modules.  Do not try to install both 32-bit and 64-bit modules on a 64-bit Windows system: install the 64-bit modules only.

32-bit Image Server Modules A zipfile containing the open source .dlls, already compiled and ready for installation and use on 32-bit Windows systems. Unzip the file and follow instructions in the ImageServersPack.txt file.
64-bit Image Server Modules A self-extracting RAR .exe file containing 64-bit .dlls for use on 64-bit x64 Windows systems together with x64 Manifold, generously compiled and contributed by forum participant and manifold expert dmbrubac.  Choose Save and then double-click on the .exe file to extract the dlls.  Installed the same way as the 32-bit modules.

A fine point: installing x64 Manifold installs both 32-bit and 64-bit shortcuts to allow launching Manifold System in either 32-bit mode or 64-bit mode. To avoid confusion, on 64-bit Windows Systems when planning on working with image server modules simply install the x64 version of Manifold and also the 64-bit image server modules and always launch Manifold in 64-bit mode.

Important: These are not Manifold products and are not supported by Manifold Technical Support. The .dll package is being provided to reduce tech support inquiries from 7x users.  Open source DLLs change at the whim of their publishers.  If you want modifications, get the source code from SourceForge or the other usual open source sites and make whatever modifications you desire.  Do not contact manifold.net with questions about source code availability or about these modules: these modules have been written by third parties unrelated to manifold.net and any issues about publication of source code or functionality are not in the control of manifold.net  Contacting manifold.net with questions about these things will mark you as someone who cannot read and follow simple instructions and will permanently exclude you from participation in beta testing or other Manifold benefits for the Manifold developer community. Open source works only if people do not abuse the access it confers.  Note: manifold.net does not publish direct links to source code to open source projects. If you have the technical skills to work with open source projects, you know how to find them.

Service Packs and Updates

From time to time, manifold.net releases Service Packs (SPs) for manifold.net products.  Service Packs fix bugs and add new features and other improvements in between major releases.  Service Packs are free to download, but they require the product that is being serviced.   Whenever a new SP is issued, it will be cumulative in that it incorporates all fixes released in previous SPs.  If your manifold.net product has had an SP issued, please download it and install it before contacting tech support.

Release 7x also issues updates.  An update is like a very small service pack that fixes minor bugs or adds small enhancements.  Updates are identified by an incremented build number.  The production release of Manifold 7.00 installed from the 7.00 DVD is Build 425.  7.00 users may or may not choose to install updates depending if they need the particular small fix or enhancement. Updates are cumulative.  A newer update will include all fixes and enhancements issued in previous updates.  Updates are an experiment to see if the user community welcomes frequent, small updates in between service packs or new releases.

Important: Service packs and updates are provided for those users who can read the instructions and have the technical skills to download the free service pack or update and install without technical support. If you have any questions on the installation of a service pack, that requires a technical support incident.

Manifold System Release  
7x Release 7x provides automated notification of updates. Choose Help - Check for Updates to manually check status for your current version of Manifold 7x.  Go to the 7x Update page to get the latest updates for 7x.
7.00 Release 7x, issued 03 August 2006.  Release 7x includes all updates for 7.00 up through the previous update build 429.     Go to the 7x Update page to download the update and to see a list of all 100+ items for 7x.  For an archived history of updates before 7x, see the readme.txt file for the last, pre-7x update, build 429.  All 7.00 users are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the free update to 7x.  One very important part of 7x is that it provides automatic notification of new updates - no more need to check the web site or fret about missing an important email!
6.50 No service packs have been issued.
6.00 Download and install Service Pack 1 for 6.00.  Read the installation instructions and the release notes for Service Pack 1 for 6.00. SP1 adds 320 enhancements, including 200 new features, to 6.00. You must have SP1 installed in 6.00 to qualify for technical support.
5.50 Download and install Service Pack 2 for 5.50.   Read the installation instructions and the release notes for Service Pack 2 for 5.50.    SP2 adds 200 new features to 5.50 and provides bug fixes as well.  Note: SP 2 requires previous installation of Microsoft's .NET Framework 1.10 package as well as JET 4 and MDAC Windows updates set forth in the installation instructions.  SP2 does not support Windows 95.
5.00: Download and install Service Pack 3.  SQL Server Desktop Edition users must also download and install Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3.
4.50: Download and install Service Pack 4.  Some users may also wish to download and install Hot Fix 1 to Service Pack 4. 

Contacting Technical Support

megaphone.JPG (13851 bytes)If neither your product's Help system nor the FAQ for that product in the product support page answer your question or solve your problem, do not hesitate to contact the manifold.net tech support team by emailing us at tech@manifold.net  You must include a valid, unused technical support token in the first few lines of your email message.  The example below shows the beginning of an email letter to tech support that begins with a token on the first line and then continues with the letter.

Example

63AD4E38E989-4490B540-7DF13F3D3ACDCF56EA6CC8896CC9

Dear Tech Support,

I am using 7.00 Pro Build 428 on WinXP Pro SP2.  When I ....

Technical support and the email 'bots that automatically scan all emails to tech support know a token when they see one, so there is no need to add descriptive text such as "I'd like to use the following token" or other comments.  Simply placing your valid, unused technical support token in the first few lines of the email message is enough.  Note: if you are viewing your Internet browser through a small window, the above token might be "wrapped" to appear to consist of two lines.  Tech support tokens are sent to you on a single line and should be pasted into your email on a single line without any line breaks.

If you do not have a technical support token, you cannot use manifold.net tech support.  If you send an email to technical support without including a valid, unused technical support token in the first few lines of the email message, you receive a form letter reply indicating the need for tech support tokens.  If you send an email asking questions of a technical nature to any other manifold.net email address it will be routed to technical support.

If you use a token that has already been used up, you will receive a form letter stating the token you used has already been used up.

Email is the fastest way to get tech support from manifold.net.  Response time is normally less than two days and will often be in less than 24 hours.  Our technical staff often works late hours and on weekends and will from time to time check the Tech Support inbox for questions; however, this is an exception and email tech support should not be counted upon during weekends.  Keep in mind that asking technical support any question will cost a technical support incident.  See Knowledge Base article 80, What constitutes a technical support incident?

Note: your purchase of manifold.net products does not include tech support services. All tech support services provided by manifold.net at no charge are provided on a voluntary basis as a promotional program.  Although technical support is not included in the price of Manifold products, most Manifold System products are provided with two free incidents of standard technical support.  Additional incidents of standard technical support or developer technical support are available for purchase.  See the Products page for information on technical support products.

How to Buy Technical Support Services

All orders for technical support are processed by the Online Store.  Purchase the technical support product and you will receive by email tech support tokens of the number and class (standard or developer) you purchased.  You can then use them when contacting tech support by email.

To purchase telephone support incidents, purchase the Standard Tech Support Incident by Telephone product on the online store and then send an email to tech@manifold.net with your token and telephone number for contact.  Tech support will contact you by telephone to deliver the support incident.  Note that standard tech support incidents by telephone are subject to the same constraints as other incidents: they are not consulting, they are not a replacement for reading Help and they relate to one function or to the lowest separable usage level of Manifold in a specific task. See the FAQ below.

The Advantages of Support by Email

Long experience supporting complex hardware and software products indicates that electronic mail is an extremely efficient way of resolving complex technical problems at minimum cost.  It is not as instantly gratifying as on-call voice line support, but it is very efficient, especially since it is self-documenting as to problem reports and suggested solutions.

One major benefit for you of email tech support is that your letter to us may be forwarded by the tech support engineer reading it to as many people as necessary to answer your question.  This allows us to deploy our entire organization, if need be, as a "parallel processor" to solve your problem.   It also makes it easier to update documentation to prevent errors, improve feature sets, and to involve our developmental programmers in customer engineering and tech support.  All this results in a better manifold.net product for you at a lower cost. 

Information We Need to Help You

Any request for technical support must include, at a minimum, the information technical support may need to service the request. Such information must include:

Other additional information that might be required later but which is not necessary initially:

Do not contact technical support unless you have:

Failure to provide the required  information listed above will delay tech support's response to you.  Tech support works first on all requests that are accompanied by the above information.  Next in the queue come requests that do not include the above information. In such cases, tech support will respond with a letter asking for complete information.   At times tech support may ask questions you think are unreasonable.  You may not think that the size of your page file or the amount of free space you have on hard disk could possibly be related to the question you pose or the problem you have; however, long experience at tech support shows that getting answers to such questions is the fastest way of resolving problems.firemen.jpg (39877 bytes)

We realize that most people don't contact Technical Support unless they have a problem.  We'll try to make the experience as painless as possible for you.  The policies we have set forth are designed to solve technical support problems as rapidly as possible.

Don't hesitate to contact us if the documentation is in error or unclear,  or if you have found a bug or wish to make a suggestion, or would like some advice on using our products.  If you do not wish to use up a technical support incident, make it clear that you do not expect a reply.  Customer email is always welcome. Technical Support is here to serve you!

Technical Support FAQ

Why are incidents charged for simple questions?   Most questions sent to technical support are elementary questions already answered in Help, the Knowledge Base, the FAQ or on free Internet resources such as Manifold-L, georeference.org or the various GIS newsgroups. However, there is no way to foretell if a particular email received from a user is either a trivial question or a sophisticated question - each question requires reading by a trained engineer to assure that a sophisticated question that might appear to be a simple question to the untrained eye is properly answered.  For that reason, it costs as much to process an apparently trivial question as it does a carefully thought-out complex question. In fact, some classes of trivial questions require more time because users neglect to provide required information. 

Can anyone use my tech support tokens?  Yes, if they have them.  Keep your tech support tokens secret to prevent other people from using them up.  On the other hand, if you want someone else to be able to ask a question of Manifold tech support on your behalf you can give them a token to use.  For example, if someone with more expertise with computers is helping you do a Manifold project you might prefer to have your helper contact tech support with a specific question.  To make sure your tokens are used wisely, have anyone to whom you issue tokens read this page, the knowledge base article reference above and the Technical Support topic in Help before they contact tech support.

Why are CC'd emails excluded? Manifold.net tech support does not respond to any emails that are shared with third parties or are cc'd to any other recipient. There are three reasons for this policy. The first reason is financial: A tech support incident is a valuable service provided to a single individual. It is not offered to multiple individuals at the same time.   The second reason is practical: Experience shows that users will puff up their expertise and are less willing to consider dumb mistakes when an exchange takes place in front of third parties. To avoid any incentive not to be completely honest all tech support exchanges must occur in private.  The third reason is privacy: Tech support may at times need to discuss information that is covered by the Manifold privacy policy. Because the policy allows no disclosure to any third party we require all such communications to occur in private. Even if users are willing to waive their privacy rights we are not willing to waive our privacy policy. Only if it is never violated can we absolutely guarantee the privacy policy.   Support questions that are cc'd to newsgroups are excluded because support incidents are a valuable, limited resource - if a question is also being asked of a newsgroup the assumption is that the user does not want to spend a support incident.

Why do you ask for so much information? Long experience shows that having all required information at hand is the fastest way of resolving a tech support problem.  If Tech Support must repeatedly ask that necessary information be provided, a technical support incident will be charged.   For example, tech support questions of the form "I can't open the file - what am I doing wrong?" are a good way to waste incidents. Tech Support must respond by first asking for all information noted as required in the "Technical Support" topic in Help. Only after that information is provided can Tech Support help the user.  Most tech support questions are very elementary errors or misconceptions. Even the smartest people can miss something very simple, so it is essential in Tech Support that the details be nailed down. Getting the background information is essential to getting the details right.  Some users will not cooperate with Technical Support. The classic case is a user who "knows" his problem is not something dumb he is doing so he refuses to answer questions asked by Tech Support that he feels are demeaning. However, when tech support asks simple questions it is based on long experience that shows even the smartest people will at times make really simple mistakes. Such mistakes must be excluded by asking specific questions and getting clear answers, with nothing taken for granted. If a user does not answer all of Tech Support's questions the incident will be closed (and charged to the user).

Why must I have the latest versions of everything and the latest service packs?  Manifold uses many Microsoft system facilities to assure perfect compatibility with Windows.  Problems within Microsoft code might therefore show themselves as problems encountered when running Manifold.  Both Manifold and Microsoft eliminate problems by issuing service packs and by issuing newer releases.  Because technical support is a limited resource, it does not make sense to waste it on figuring out and fixing problems that have already been fixed by either Manifold or Microsoft in a service pack or in a new release.  Requiring that customers use the latest release of Manifold and install the latest Manifold and Microsoft service packs is the only way to guarantee that problems that have already been fixed are not at issue.

Can I get free tech support by sending a question to Sales?  Tech support incidents also apply to questions of a technical support nature that are sent to sales. Some users occasionally try to gain additional incidents by sending email that is clearly of a technical support nature to sales or to other manifold.net email addresses. Such emails are forwarded to tech support and will be charged as tech support incidents.

Can I ask more than one question in the same email?  When more than one question is asked in the same email, Technical Support will apply an incident to each question in turn until the user runs out of incidents.

Can I file a bug report without costing an incident?  Yes.  Bug reports are not considered incidents if you do not request a reply. If you wish to report a bug, send an email of any length; however, make it clear you do not require a reply. For example, begin your letter with "Bug report - no reply necessary."   Users will at times send in a bug report and then ask that the bug report be confirmed or denied as a known bug. This is counted as a tech support incident because the user is asking for a custom report of bug status. Most bug reports (well over 95%) do not identify a new bug. Instead, they are errors arising from failure to read the documentation, the FAQ, this Knowledge Base or otherwise errors in concept or operation. True bugs are very rare.   When a bug report is received it goes into a queue for examination. If it is found upon investigation to be a real bug it gets fixed and eventually appears as a bug fix in a service pack (SP). Publication of the SP is notification of the bug. Bugs that are around long enough to be a possible factor in usage before an SP can be published will be noted in a Knowledge Base article.  If you want a custom response as to whether what you think is a bug really is or is not a bug, that requires usage of a tech support incident. If you do submit a bug report and do not request a reply, Tech Support may contact you as part of their investigation. If so, that does not count as an incident.

What does a tech support incident cover?  A technical support incident is any single question asked of technical support. The same incident continues no matter how many emails are exchanged until the single question is answered. "Single questions" mean those that relate to one function or to the lowest separable usage level of Manifold in a specific task.  General questions will receive general answers, since they usually involve numerous functions or very many lower level usage levels.  For example, a general question such as "How can I link to external database tables" will receive a general answer pointing out various Manifold Help topics to read, which will cost one incident.  The thread does not continue into subsequent specific questions, such as, perhaps, how to operate the ODBC dialog, how to configure one's SQL Server database system and so on.

Excluded from standard support are questions related to any form of scripting, any other programming, customization, SQL, Enterprise Edition features, Manifold IMS and any questions involving Runtime licenses. Excluded also are questions that are of a consulting or educational nature or that describe the operation of Windows in general or products other than Manifold System. Only supported are the specific functions and capabilities of Manifold.  Development level support incidents are required for Manifold questions excluded from standard support.

Examples of supported questions: 

Examples of unsupported questions:

Note also that Manifold Technical Support provides technical support on Manifold products, not on Microsoft facilities or on other products.  Manifold can work with many other software products. For example, one can create a linked drawing in Manifold that draws its contents from a SQL Server table.  However, support on Manifold is limited to Manifold only.  For example, if you are having difficulty creating a linked drawing because your SQL Server system or Windows security is configured in a way that prevents your user login from accessing the desired SQL Server table then Manifold tech support will not undertake what is, in effect, a consulting project to help you re-configure SQL Server or diagnose the improper administrative setup of Windows.

 

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