Since the beginning of time, Evolution has been a 32-bit computer application, but more modern 64-bit CPUs have been available for more than a decade, leaving a great deal of enhanced performance out of reach. Evolution runs just fine on a 64-bit system, but won't take advantage of any of the 64-bit features (such as far more memory).
This is about to change, and it's unequivocally a good thing.
Note: this has no impact on web-only users, whether Evo Payroll, Employee Portal, or any of the Advanced HR properties.
Table of Contents:
Initially the changes will be on the server side, and this only impacts you if you're self hosted and you have 32-bit servers; a few of my customers are in this position and are either upgrading, replacing servers, or migrating to AWS.
Evolution pods in AWS have always been 64 bits, so bureaus there don't have to think about the server part.
Evolution classic GUI desktop: 64-bit readiness notification
Upgrades to the desktop - the classic Evolution GUI client - won't happen until mid-year, but this is where it's far more likely to impact bureaus or payroll customers: there are certainly many users still running older 32-bit operating systems that will not support Evolution once the 64-bit desktop upgrade hits at the end of June: the application will simply fail to start.
Fortunately, Asure has provided a facility to warn users that they are running on a soon-to-be-unsupported operating system. When they launch Evolution.exe on a 32-bit machine, it will show this popup dialog box:
I've been told that for now, the user can check the [X] box to silence the warning, but after a certain point - I don't know when - that box will continue to pop up and can't be silenced. The goal here is to avoid an unhappy surprise when a user tries to do payroll and finds that they forgot about the warning from a few months ago, and now can't run Evolution. I hate unhappy surprises.
It's important to understand that the vast majority of users running 32-bit systems are also running unsupported operating systems (such as Windows 7 or even Windows XP), which are no longer receiving updates, including security updates. These users should have updated a long time ago.
Some users may have the ability to perform an in-place upgrade of their operating system, others will need to get a new machine, but this ought to be plenty of notice for everybody.
Kudos to Asure for providing this feature: the alternative is crafting an announcement to your customers with instructions for how to tell what kind of OS they are running, and then walking people through this over the phone, and it makes my head hurt thinking about it.
The "Client Info" tab
An additional feature can be found in the menu SB Admin - Maintenance in the Client Info tab, which shows remote user activity and their 64-bit readiness.
The important field here is Windows64; you're looking for a Y in this column to indicate 64 bit status: they will be able to run the updated Evolution even if they have an older operating system that really ought to be upgrades (Windows 7 or Windows 7).
But users who show up with Windows64=N will receive this popup at startup, and it would be good bureau practice to keep an eye on this
and touch base with customers in this circumstance. Seen the next section for possible options.
Of additional note here is the IP Address column, which is somewhat misleading: this is the IP address of the computer on their own local network, and it's only going to be useful to their own IT department in locating that machine. This will virtually always be an RFC 1918 private address (aka: 192.168.X.X, 10.X.X.X, etc.), and it's specifically not going to be useful to find out which public IP they logged in from.
This Client Info tab is for 64-bit readiness, not for keeping an eye on general user activity or login history, though I suppose some future enhancement for this wider purpose might be possible.
Customers Upgrade Options
It's a certainty that computers with 32-bit operating systems will refuse to run the Evolution.exe classic desktop GUI by mid-year, so for customer in this position, what to do?
Users running 32-bit operating systems are already struggling under these limited machines, especially with a limit of 4 gigabytes of memory.
This amount of RAM is possibly sufficient for very casual web surfing and email, but it's not enough for any meaningful business applications; when I specify machines for customers, I always start with a minimum of 8 gigabytes of RAM and go up from there depending on the intended use (I've had 32 gigabytes of RAM on my workstation for 5 years).
Options available to the customer:
- Get a new machine; this is probably the cleanest option and the customer was probably thinking about it already.
This might start a chain of hand-me-down at the customer where the Evolution user gets the new machine, and the old
machine goes to someone else.
- Reinstall a 64-bit operating system on the same machine; this requires that the underlying CPU supports 64 bits,
and it might require a paid Windows 10 OS upgrade from Microsoft. I don't believe there's any way to convert in place, it requires a
full clean install of the OS, so this will certainly requires help from their own IT people.
- Consider Evolution Payroll; users who can't or won't upgrade their computers might be able to switch to using
the web-based Evo Payroll, though it's possible that their out-of-date computer is also running an out-of-date web browser.
This might require investigation.
Who's responsible for this upgrade?
To answer one question that I'm sure is going to come up: is the bureau responsible for these required customer upgrades?
My opinion: No way.
The vast majority of customers with 32-bit machines are running obsolete and out-of-support operating systems that have not
been receiving critical security updates in some time. These machines should have been replaced a long time ago, and there's
simply no way this can reasonably be pinned on the bureau.
As I type this, it occurs to me that there's a fair case that Evolution should refuse to run on unsupported operating systems
because it's just dangerous to run financial applications on machines that are more likely to get hacked (due to lack
of security updates).
Only customers running 32-bit Windows 10 are able to play the "we have a current operating system" card, but these are not
common, and my guess is most of them are also old machines that were previously upgraded from Windows 7. Microsoft offered
a free Windows 7 → Windows 10 upgrade for a long time and repeatedly nagged the user about it.
It's unthinkable to me that anybody intentionally purchased a new machine in the last 5 years with a 32-bit operating system,
but I guess the world is full of people who make unfortunate choices.
In any case, it's increasingly common that line-of-business software is going 64-bit only, and this has been the case
for quite a while, and is completely reasonable for Evolution even if only for the availability of a larger
address space.
Many Evolution users have struggled with "Out of memory" errors, especially for large clients, and this was
strictly a limitation of the 32-bit address space: going to a 64 bits application means you can use all the
memory in your machine.
By way of example, the outstanding Fusion 360 software I used for 3D modeling and design has been 64-bit only,
and it's been out for almost 10 years.
I suppose it's inevitable that some customers will push back and/or throw a fit, but I don't believe the bureau (or Asure)
is responsible for end customers having to upgrade their computers to perform an important business functions in the
year 2021. 64 bits is not a new thing.
It seems likely to me that some customers might even leave a bureau over this, though I suspect they were already
unhappy and were already looking for an excuse. Some bureaus might even welcome this for some customers :-)
All bureaus have made accommodations to customers who make unreasonable demands just to keep the peace;
this would be one of them if you care to.