Backups for Windchill Quality Solutions 10.2+

I had a failed hard drive recently and with it a corrupted back up. It turns out that Relex / WQS files are not easily saved like a simple .file or .proj it turns out you need to make a backup of your SQL database that was created for Relex. You need to make sure when you installed SQL Server EXPRESS you also installed the management studio tools. If you didn't download the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). Sign in with the sa account, or if you forget you might be able to with windows credentials. Expand the Databases heading. Right-click on the database to be migrated and choose Tasks > Back Up. On the Back Up Database window make sure the Backup Type is set to Full. Lastly make sure to actually set a file name / location in by clicking [Add...] intuitively they don't have an automatic name for the .bak setup, so without it you can't actually create the backup. I'd recommend committing this .bak file somewhere safe because without it a migration to a new system is a horrible process.

Once again I'd still like to make note that PTC has excellent support.

PTC Windchill Predictions FTA Copy Over Entire Tree Model

Quick note,

If you need to make a copy of the entire tree:

View > Project Properties
Click on the project you want to make a copy of under the "System" category of the model
>Copy Files
>Paste Files

And you will see another version of your project with the (1) next to it.

PTC Windchill Solutions won't start with Error "Could not connect to net.tcp://:/Relex.Security/IAccessManager"

Problem: Message "Could not connect to net.tcp://<host-name>:<port>/Relex.Security/IAccessManager" appears when launching PTC 

Solution: The PTC Forums describe the issue at Document CS192106, however, the issue for me turned out to be that not all the PTC Windchill Services were running. 

To check: Click the windows button and type "services.msc" in the services window go down to the main PTC serices: Alert Services, Long Running Task Service, Object Broker Services, Search Indexer Service, and make sure they are all started

Error Launching PTC Windchill Quality Solution

Error:

Could not connect to net.tcp://[host]:[port]/Relex.Security/IAccessManager. The connection attempt lasted for a time span of ##:##:##.#######. TCP error code 10061: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.

When I was googling around for this error all I could get were comments on SQL server. The solution is to restart some PTC services that have been turned off: