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The California Power Crisis and Your PcRegister© System

If your system is involved with problems after a Rolling Blackout occurs, here are the steps to take to restore your system.  This Information Bulletin is in two parts.  Part 1 applies to those users who have a Master Register with multiple Slave Registers, and part 2 is for users with standalone systems. At the end of these procedures is a similar process for Aim's Point.

The best advice we have is of course to mitigate the impact of a blackout on your system by paying attention to your local news source, preferable a Radio or TV station, as they will be advised by the electric utility serving your area of the potential blackout.  If you receive this information, the best thing to do is reduce the need to be running the registers as soon as possible.  This can be accomplished by either shutting down all non-essential lanes in a multiple register location, or even going to paper sales checks during the outage.

In either instance mentioned above, a "graceful" shutdown of the PcRegister© program and the computer is recommended.

We also highly recommend that you take this opportunity to invest, if you haven't done so already, in quality surge protectors and Uninterruptible Power Supplies. Please see our article on these by following this link.

What to do if your systems are affected.

Part 1: Master Register with Slave terminals.

  1. Exit PcRegister© at the Master Register and all Slave workstations to the Windows Desktop.

  2. Click on the Start button and select the Run option at the Master Register computer.

  3. Type COMMAND at the Open prompt and click on OK

  4. Change to the PcReg directory (usually c:\PCREG) by typing:
                    CD\PCREG      then push the <Enter>  key.

  5. Make sure you are in your PcReg directory before you continue.
                    The prompt on your screen should now look similar to this:
                            C:\PCREG>
    I    f this is what you see, proceed to Step 6.  If not please contact COUTS Industries for support.

  6. Type the following command at the prompt:
                    DEL *.CDX      (Note: there is a space between the DEL and the *), When you have verified that the command you entered is correct, push the <Enter> key.

  7. After a few seconds, the screen will return to the prompt you saw in Step 5.

  8. Now type: REINDEX and push the <Enter> key.
    The system will reinitialize all your indexes.

  9. Type EXIT and push the <Enter> key.  The system will return you to the Windows Desktop.

  10. Repeat Steps 2 through 9 at each of the Slave Workstations.

  11. Restart PcRegister© at the Master Register and then at each of the Slave workstations.

Part 2: Standalone System

  1. Exit PcRegister© at the register workstations to the Windows Desktop.

  2. Follow steps 2 through 9 as described above.

  3. Restart PcRegister©

Aim's Point Users

  1. Follow the same procedure outlined above but change the instructions in step 4 above to the Aim's Point Directory.  This is usually C:\POS

  2. Restart Aim's Point in order to manage your Inventory and Closeday procedures.