NetWeaver 04s Developer Workplace Installation
I’m really sorry that I have to write this, because my feeling is that an installation should be able to live without such explanations. But live is as it is and the best and fastest thing I can do about it is to write my knowledge down (and of course this goes into the product too, though the next SR will not see this again).
Java Version
Let’s start with something that is out of SAP’s scope : the Java version used. According to the documentation you should use Java 1.4.2_08 for NetWeaver 2004s. Usually this means that you should be able to also use follow up versions, as those are usually compatible with the elder ones.
Usually.
In this case it is a good idea to keep exactly with the recommended version as there is unfortunately a bug in Java 1.4.2_10, that doesn’t prevent you from installing, but it slows down the process. Sources say it takes about 20 hours to finish the install this way….
Swap Space
As you surely know, Windows uses a system file for swapping processes, that means the use of virtual memory. An installation is a primary user of such memory and therefore there is a formula that calculates the need of swap space on your computer. Unfortunatley in Developer Workplace 04s the outcome of this formula is outrageous. On my 2GB RAM laptop the message was to please provide more then 7GB of swap space. Colleagues reported the need of 10GB on larger servers.
The trick is to just ignore this message. Unfortunately the concept of sapinst is to let you change things in the system and then repeat the last step by clicking “OK”. That means if you just click OK, the same message appears again after some seconds. Logically correct, but intuitively you may feel different (like me). The alternative is the “Cancel” button, but depending on your personal feelings, you might expect this button to end the whole installation. Fortunately it doesn’t. Just dauntlessly click on “Cancel” and there you go. And reading the text in the small box will tell you that the text completely describes what you just did.
Deinstallation troubles
Do you sometimes have the feeling that the world turns against you because you get all the odds? That is what happens to me when installing software: when I go through it, I go through it all. If at home or in the job, if there is a flaw in an installation, I seem to be the one who gets it. Which makes me the perfect installation tester…
Good for you, as I can use this for my job and protect at least some of you from this trouble. After I turned down my installation because of the Java troubles I just described, I tried to stop the program and did this in a quite rude manner by breaking the process. Usually this is ok, as Java programms live relatively isolated – If there are only Java programms. At the end there was no way to move either forth or back.
What I found was that there was a service still running in the background. To kill such services is not an easy task and I would be completely stuck, if there hadn’t been a colleague giving me this tip: There is a program in the installation that is able to deinstall such services. You can call it from a windows command line with:
sapstartsrv
This starts a small window to enter the needed parameters like SID, instance number, and profile.
With that program it is easy to uninstall the services that are installed by the NetWeaver AS Java. All you have to do is to enter the SID and the instance number. But be careful by trying out! Without tzhose services the server will not start again.