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SAP NetWeaver Business Client (NWBC) 5.0 : Released!

julieplummer20
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
‎10-09-2014 8:17 AM

Yes, finally SAP NWBC 5.0 is available!

Prerequisites

Software

  • Microsoft .NET 4.5 - if necessary, available here: Download Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.1 (Offline Installer) for Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1, Wi...
  • Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012. Note: Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 is included in NWBC 5.0. If you do not have this, it is automatically installed with NWBC 5.0.
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0, 9.0, 10 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 for the desktop. If higher versions can be used, this will be published in SAP PAM (Product Availability Matrix), product instance Frontend
  • SAP GUI for Windows 7.40 This is part of the common installer with NWBC 5.0. NWBC 5.0 is not supported with SAP GUI 7.30. (Corollary to the above: NWBC 4.0 and NWBC 5.0 can run on the same front end, but SAP GUI 7.30 and 7.40 are exclusive.)

Hardware

  • For desktop installations, the same requirements apply as for SAP GUI installations. For more information, see Note 26417.
  • We recommend at least 1 GB of memory. The actual memory consumption depends on the number of windows that are open.
  • We recommend a minimum screen size of 1024x768, but larger if possible.

Relevant SAP Notes

Software, operating system and browser requirements as well as restrictions are listed in SAP Note 2066345. Planned release dates for the next patch can be found in SAP Note 2023658.

Documentation

SAP Help Portal: NetWeaver UI Add-Ons 1.0: SAP NetWeaver Business Client

Download and Installation

Download from Service Marketplace:

http://service.sap.com/installations

-> A - Z Index -> "N" -> NETWEAVER BUSINESS CLIENT -> NWBC NW BUSINESS CLIENT 5.0 -> Installation:

You will see two options:

Generally, we strongly recommend that you choose the first option (in red), since this offers you the joint installer with both NWBC and SAP GUI (which is kind of the point 😉 ). (The other option is intended mainly for testing or patching purposes).

What's New

Well mainly, if you install NWBC 5.0 and open it up, it looks remarkably similar to 4.0. This is because most of the interesting new developments are under the hood. We’ve tried to minimize disruption for end users be keeping most of the visual idioms of 4.0 – Corbu theme, tabbed browsing, etc – and focused this time on installation and configuration. So – what exactly has changed?

Common installer

The first thing you may have noticed is that you only download one installation file for both SAP GUI 7.40 and NWBC 5.0 – SetupAll.exe. BTW, once you open this file up, there are still checkboxes for each component – so you can still patch one component without the other, or just install one for testing purposes:

Common infrastructure

Before, you had to create system connections for NWBC manually – even if you had already created these connections in the SAPLogon pad. Now, SAP
GUI/SAPLogon for Windows , SAP GUI for Java and NWBC all share their system connection information. There are just two files: admin and user.

So now, if you create a new system in NWBC, the system reconciles this automatically:

One access point to all systems regardless of release

NWBC 4.0 (and earlier) required all systems to be 7.0 or later. NWBC 5.0 consumes content from all SAP ABAP systems - 6.20, 4.6C etc. (See the documentation for a complete list of system requirements.: SAP Library: NWBC Versions .

Much tighter SAP GUI integration:

These are arguably smaller features taken individually but together they add up to a much more closely integrated desktop client, so that the number of reasons for choosing SAP GUI standalone over NWBC is dramatically reduced:

  • GUI transactions always open in NWBC tabs - in 4.0, if you opened one transaction from another (eg to display a role from User Maintenance (SU01), the new transaction opened in standalone SAP GUI. Now, it opens in a new tab.

  • SAP Shortcuts open in NWBC tabs - that is, these:

  • Stop transaction from context menu of tab - you could always access this function from the menu of a stand-alone SAP GUI window. Now, it 's also on the context menu of the tab hosting the SAP GUI session.

  • Use SAP GUI theme - In SAP GUI 7.3 standalone (Signature theme), you could set different color themes for different systems - eg to distinguish between ERP and HCM, or DEV and PRD. In the NWBC Corbu theme, these color systems were lost. Now you can retain them:

Other features:

  • Easy entry - In 4.0, the default entry page was the index page. Now you can choose between: Index page, first pinned tab, New Tab page, First Work Center Page (eg Page Builder entry page, or Power List (POWL)). The Work Center title is now a live link, so you can open the work center entry page / POWL without having to open the work center.
  • Favorites - you can now structure favorites in folders (and sub-folders) and manage your structure using drag and drop:

  • Side Panel - we've made the side panel symbol more more obvious (just for you, skemp 😉 ). Also, you can personalize your settings so that the side panel opens by default (if available) when you open a new tab.

In summary, For the first time, SAP NetWeaver Business Client and SAP GUI are released in step, with one common installer and infrastructure, and much tighter integration. For more information on the new SAP GUI 7.40 release, see the following blog :

Announcing SAP GUI 7.40: New Features

And see the following video: NWBC 5.0

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