Old and mixed radios on Radio Management

I got asked the following via my contact form the other day:

I'm getting ready to set up my first RM-enabled Cap+ system. I have collected and refurbished a variety of radios like XPR7550, XPR6550, XPR3500e, XPR3500, and so on. The "customer" is a non-profit and I'm donating the whole thing. Since it's about 65 radios, I'd like to have RM for OTAP abilities (for the radios that support it, and for the rest, Device Programmer stations).

I have a couple questions:

How does RM handle mixed codeplug versions and possibly firmware versions? I take it mixed firmware versions would be a different MVO and/or configuration, which is fine as I've gotten almost all of each model are on the same firmware and CP version as each other, but not necessarily as other models. If I have radios with FW 2.09 do I need to use RM 1.x?

There will be no problem with different models and firmware versions. The only thing is that the database will become a bit busier. By this I mean, more configurations will be needed even though all of them contain the same information. There will also be one MVO per model-firmware-enabled-feature.

If at all possible, try to get all the radios onto the same firmware version and with the same CfS features turned on.

To save you from having to retype stuff, you can copy sets (e.g. channels; contacts etc.) from one configuration to another. To do this, when editing the configuration, right-button click and choose Copy Set From on the context menu.

MOTOTRBO radios and repeaters with firmware versions between R2.0 (firmware version R02.00.xx) and R2.3 (firmware version R02.30.xx) need to be upgraded using CPS 16.0 (828) to R2.4 (R02.40.01) or later. Once upgraded, that radio/repeater can then be added to RM as usual.

R2.9 (firmware version R02.09.xx.xx) will be no problem. The same applies to their XPR6550 (what we know as a DP3601 in EMEA), this can also be managed from RM but will not support OTAP. No need for RM 1.x (a.k.a. Template Mode)!

The XPR6550 cannot be upgraded beyond R01.12.01 but that's to be expected and will work with the current RM version.

We haven't sorted the server config at the install site yet, but I want to get everything as ready as I can. Can I lab this whole thing up on my end in a VM (all components will be on one VM) and then somehow migrate the database or installation to it's final PC?

Yes that is possible. I see two ways of doing this but it depends on what your plans are:

If you are moving from one VM to another, you can make a backup of your VHD and deploy it onto the customers PC using their Hypervisor. Once you have a known-good setup.
Once you have done all the radio and system configurations done, you make a backup of the database and restore it on the customer's RM server - described here. For this to work, you must have the installer that was used to set up RM on your VM (i.e. the 2,8GG ZIP file).

Do you know the minimum specs or how heavy Device Programmer is? I was thinking of sprinkling a few "PC's on sticks" around, similar to one you might use for digital signage, if the app is light enough, so that folks have multiple options to visit to update their radio.

There is no hardware specification for a PC just running Device Programmer that only handles USB jobs. While busy with stuff, the processes associated with the Device Programmer only consume around 8MB as far as I can see. So, in my opinion, a low spec PC like you describe would be quite fine - just make sure there is enough memory for Windows and Device Programmer.

If you will be using Windows 10 on these, may I suggest having a look at this post. There are a few other built-in Windows tools that can also go (e.g. calendar, sticky notes, weather, news etc.) as they aren't needed for Windows to run.

I would advise against using Atlas OS (an unofficial stripped-down Windows build) as it does not have important stuff like updates and Defender.