Product Version and Operating System Support

Modified on Fri, 8 Nov at 3:14 PM

Introduction

This document provides information on what support is available our main Products and also how long you can expect our products to operate on each of the different Operating Systems (OS's) - such as Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows Server 2016 etc. It also explains under what circumstances we may not be able to provide support in the case of unsupported Operating Systems.

If after reading this document you have any further inquiries please contact your sales account manager via [email protected]

Terms Explained

For the purposes of this document the following terms are used:

Product - this means a piece of software or package of software provided by Broadcast Radio - e.g. Myriad Playout or SmartSign
OS or Operating System - this is the computer language that your computer uses to run the Products - for instance Microsoft Windows 10 Professional or Windows 7 Professional.
Version - this is the major version (and also the first part of the number) for a given product - for instance Myriad Version 5 and Myriad Version 4 are different versions of the same Product.
Release - each time a Product is updated within the same Version number, this is called a Release. e.g. Myriad v5.1 might need a bug fix so the new Release is v5.2 - same Version ("5"), but a different Release "x.1 and x.2" . Most customers are entitled to free updates within the Version number - i.e. If you purchased Myriad v4.x you are entitled to any Myriad v4 releases, but upgrades to Myriad v5 would be a cost option. If you are on Total Subscription, then you are entitled to all new versions as long as your Total Subscription is up to date.
Support Contract - This is the period of time that you are entitled to technical support from the Broadcast Radio Support Team. If your purchased your product outright with a single up front cost, then most products ship with 1 year of Technical Support from date of purchase, If you purchased an Upgrade from a previous version, then the period may be different.
Once your initial Support period expires, you can choose to either renew the Support Contract for a fixed price for another period of time, or pay for Engineering Time each time you need to contact Technical Support. If you are on the Total Subscription service then this includes support for the whole time you have an active Total Subscription. More details about our Technical Support Services can be found in the Support and Installation Guidelines

Description

Because we continually develop our Products to include the latest features and 'bug fixes', the design of older OS's start limiting our abilities to push our products further. A (very old!) example of this is that Windows 95 did not support multiple monitors, so cannot be used to show Myriad on two separate displays attached to a single computer. Eventually limitations like this mean that we can no longer guarantee that the newest versions of our Products will run on every single OS. When this happens, you may be unable to use newer Versions or Releases of our Products so will have to remain on the last Release that did, meaning you would miss out on new features and 'bug-fixes'.

Coupled with this, whenever we prepare new Versions or Releases of our Products we have to test the Product itself and also the installation program for it on each OS that we support. This can cause significant delays in releasing a Product because each time we test a Release we have to wipe the test systems and begin again from a clean version of the OS to guarantee that the Product is being fully installed, not relying on older copies of files already installed to keep running.

Finally, the Broadcast Radio Support Team can typically only provide support for Operating Systems that we use on our own desktop computers (this is Windows 10 Professional on most computers) so if you were to experience a problem with one of our Products, or even ask for advice on how best to configure your OS to run our Products then we are not in a position to help because we can't see the same screen in front of us to help talk you through the issue.

Important: Please don't worry though - this doesn't mean that on the day that we stop supporting a given OS that your currently installed Products will suddenly stop working or even that we will stop answering your phone calls or emails. As long as you have a Support Contract in place we will always try to assist you with any issues about the Product in question. Only if the issue is determined to be with the OS itself or with the Product running on that OS will we be unable to provide support.

Wherever possible we try to provide information when a new Release of a Product will cause it to stop working on a given OS, and usually our Products will actually continue to work on older OS's even after we have ceased support. For instance, even though Windows XP is no longer supported, there is currently no reason why Myriad v4 or earlier will not run on it. It's just that if you experience problems doing so, then we are usually unable to help you resolve them.

Timetables

Microsoft have published their Life Cycle Policy which gives details of when they will terminate support for their OS. It is available at http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/

Where possible, we will continue to support OS's until Microsoft cease their official support. After this we are unable to obtain support from Microsoft and other vendors - for instance hardware drivers etc.

Note: This does not affect the terms and conditions that your software is provided under. You are still entitled to new Releases for free as long as your License is in effect. It is also worth reviewing your Terms as they give details of how long after we make a new release available we cease support for the previous version - e.g. how long we support v5.1 of a Product after we have fully released v5.2 etc. These can usually be found on the EULA agreement displayed when you install one of our Products.

Broadcast Radio Software Product Support

Support Contracts are currently available for the following products:

Product Name
Myriad v6 (All products)
Myriad v5 (All products, including Playout, Logging etc.)
Myriad AutoTrack
SmartSign v2 and SmartSign v3

Legacy products no longer actively being developed, but support is available:
Certain Myriad SE Products (e.g. Advert Scheduler/Myriad Network/Myriad News Capture)
Myriad Playout v4
Myriad AutoTrack v4
Myriad Network v4
Myriad News v4
PowerLog v4

Older products with expired Support
Myriad v2 and v3 (All Products) - Note, support expired 18th October 2020
PowerLog v3 - Note, support expired 18th October 2020
SmartSign v1 - Support expired 1st November 2024 as Microsoft no longer provide the tools to deploy the operating system used.

Any products not listed above are no longer supported. In some cases we are able to provide some limited support via "Engineering Time" bookings. Please contact your account manager for more information.

If you are a product that is no longer supported, or support is ending soon, but DO have an active Support Contract then you are still fully supported until the end date of your current contract, but you should start making plans to upgrade to a newer product before that contract expires.

Microsoft Windows Operating System Support

Supported Desktop Operating Systems

For all new installations, we recommend Windows 10 Professional, although a large number of users have now upgraded to Windows 11 and in general are not seeing any significant issues.

Broadcast Radio Products are currently tested and fully supported running on:

Windows 10 Pro (32 or 64bit)

Windows 7: Microsoft Support for Windows 7 finished in January 2020, so we no longer recommend using Broadcast Radio Products on any version of Windows 7. As noted above, this doesn't mean the software will suddenly stop working, but we can't guarantee that any future releases will definitely run on Windows 7 and we will no longer be testing new releases against Windows 7. Future releases of our software may not install on Windows 7.

Windows 8: support ended 31st December 2020 and future releases of our software may not install on Windows 8.

We strongly recommend using Windows Professional or Enterprise editions, but other editions may well work just as reliably. Please contact us for more details.

Broadcast Radio Products are not supported on Windows XP and earlier.

Broadcast Radio SmartSign v2 Note: Broadcast Radio SmartSign v2 will only work on Windows 10 or Windows 10 IOT edition.

Broadcast Radio SmartSign v3 Note:Broadcast Radio SmartSign v3 will work on Windows 10 or higher.

Supported Server Operating Systems:

If you want to store your data and SQL Databases centrally then you will usually use a Windows Server Operating System.

For all new installations of Windows Server, we recommend Windows Server 2019.

Broadcast Radio Products are currently fully tested and supported running from data and databases stored on:

Windows Server 2019 (recommended)
Windows Server 2016 (see note)

Note: Microsoft ended support for Windows Server 2016 on January 11th 2022. Although our products currently all run on Windows Server 2016 we are unable to guarantee that future releases will continue to work on 2016, and you should plan to upgrade to Server 2019 or higher. All new deployments should be on Windows Server 2019 or higher.

Broadcast Radio Products are not supported running from Windows Server 2012 R2 or earlier.

Microsoft SQL Server Support

Supported SQL Server Versions

For all new installations, we recommend Microsoft SQL Server 2019 in either Express, Standard or Enterprise Editions.

Broadcast Radio Products are currently tested and fully supported running on:

Microsoft SQL Server 2019 - see note below
Microsoft SQL Server 2017 - see note below
Microsoft SQL Server 2016
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 for 32 bit computers running Myriad Playout v5 only - see note below.

SQL 2017 Note: Microsoft SQL Server 2017 have both been used successfully by several users, but we primarily recommend using SQL 2019

SQL 2012 Note: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is only supported for Myriad Playout v5 and earlier. Myriad v6 and higher require a minimum of Microsoft SQL Server 2016.

For the vast majority of installations Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express is more than adequate, but if you do need to do real-time mirroring or more advanced database replication then SQL Server Standard will likely be the correct choice, so please feel free to contact us for more details.

Broadcast Radio products are not supported on any version of SQL Server prior to 2012 (e.g. SQL 2008)