SAP GUI for JAVA installation and configuration

Recently, I was doing some RnD on SAP GUI for JAVA, and thought to share some knowledge and experience on same.

As we know Microsoft Windows has dominated over the past decades in the field of desktop OS. We use this OS in our daily work in offices or in home. However Windows in not only the desktop OS on market, but also there are other OSes available such as Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Fedora etc. All these OSes are of Linux variants.

By looking into this SAP has developed SAP GUI for JAVA specially meant for Linux OS. However the best thing is, one can install in Windows OS also.

Before using SAP GUI for JAVA let me remind you that, there are few drawbacks or limitations assiciated with it. Such as below. For more details you can refer to SAP note 454939

• Office Integration with regard to embedding Office documents inside the SAP GUI screen or controling Office programs by automation is not supported (note 509690). However downloading and opening documents is possible, opening of course depends on the installed Office products on the client.
• Search help control is not supported (the old style F4 help window is used instead, offering the same functionality).
• Graphical Screen Painter is not available. The alphanumeric layout editor is supported.
• Front-End Printing needs to be done using access method ‘G’, the new printing architecture for all platforms supported by SAP GUI for Java.
• eCATT is not supported.
• Chart control : copy/paste is not available yet.

In this document I am going to demonstrate how to install and configure SAP GUI for JAVA 7.40 in Windows and Linux desktops.

Before installing, we need to download the installation files and manage some pre-requisites.

Pre-requisites are as follows

Hardware:

Hardware according to the requirements of the Linux/Windows distribution

RAM: 4GB recommended for better performance

Software:

Oracle Java SE 8 32- or 64-bit (update 40 or newer)

Visual C++ Libraries VS 2012 11.0.60610 (x86 resp. x86_x64) – for Windows

Supported Windows OS:

Windows 7 32- or 64-bit (Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise Edition)

Windows 8 32- or 64-bit (Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise Edition)

Windows 8.1 32- or 64-bit (Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise Edition)

Supported Linux distributions:

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 and 12

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 and 12

openSUSE 13.1 and 13.2

Fedora 20 and 21

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Ubuntu 14.04

A) Downloading required softwares from SMP.

1. The latest version avaiable in SMP is SAP GUI for JAVA 7.40. Go to the link and click on “SAP GUI FOR JAVA”.
2. Now click the link based on your OS
3. Click on link with the latest patch (here patch 3). The patch files are cumulative in nature. This will download the installation files.

B) Installation Procedure in Linux OS

1. Type the command to install SAP GUI for JAVA.

        java -jar PlatinGUI-<Platform>-<Version>S.jar install

        For uninstallation type the below command

        java -jar PlatinGUI-<Platform>-<Version>S.jar uninstall

  2. Go to the installation directory and type ./guilogon to open logon pad. 

C) Installation Procedure in Windows OS

1. Double Click on the .jar file or type the command to install SAP GUI for JAVA.

        java -jar PlatinGUI-<Platform>-<Version>S.jar install

        For uninstallation type the below command or run the uninstall.bat batch file present in installation directory

        java -jar PlatinGUI-<Platform>-<Version>S.jar uninstall

   2. Go to the installation directory and under bin directory run guilogon.bat to open logon pad or double click on the shortcut created.

D) Configuring for Connection settings (valid for Windows & Linux)

1. On the logon pad click on new connection
2. Give description and click on “Advanced” tab. Here we have to set the connection string.
3. Check the “Expert Mode” and put the string in the following syntax

        conn=/H/<HOSTNAME>/S/32<INSTANCENo>

That’s it. All done.