Install SOA suite on Windows Vista

Why I write this post?

I have a laptop at home and I want to install SOA suite in that.
Now this piece of equipment that I have got has Windows Vista Home in it.
When I first tried to get this software into it, it was a failure. The setup process itself did not run to completion.

I originally thought that it might take a few hours. But it was days before I could get this working.

How did it start?

I could not get the installation process to complete.
And the error message that I saw was
"Error: Missing ormi[s]://host:port"

That is when I started digging for information.
It turned out that I was not the only one struggling.

And even the installation of Oracle Database faced issue with Vista with DHCP settings.

Is Windows Vista Home the only standalone?

Well having read the different flavours of Vista had similar issues in forum, my impression was that Vista was the culprit. And when I did install the same software in XP in a flash.

What all did I do?

I found a host of things that need to be done, or at least I need to be aware of before I hit the road. Some are pre-installation and some during installation and some post installation.

If you do not find these in your system, do not be surprised. Every time I have done this I have faced a different issue. Thought not completely sure why so. Might be my system got bored of me with repeated installation and de-installations.

Pre-Installation Issues

Under score in Computer Name
Remove any under scores that you find in your computer name

If you ask me how to do this in Vista? Here are the steps:

Right click on MyComputer

Click Properties

Locate some thing called "Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings"

Under there Click "Change Settings"

Some thing called "System Properties" pop up and you will be in a tab called "Computer Name"

You should find a button "Change", click that

Change the Computer Name there

Use any name that does not contain a underscore(_)

Configure loop back adapter

You need to get this loopback adapter into your Vista.

And to get this in do the following

Go to Control Panel (use classic view)
Click "Add Hardware"

Click Next

Choose "Install hardware manually"

Choose "Network Adapters" in Common Hardware Type choice

Choose "Microsoft" as Manufacturer and "Loopback" as the adapter

Follow the signs and you are done.

DHCP configuration

Disable IPv6 completely is important for successful installation
Have a look at the Metalink Note 444112.1

If you do not do this installation goes smooth till a point booom. Fails with error unable to locate OC$J URI

Use the following link to disable IPv6

http://nsegainkc1.aliant.net/knowledge/Docs/Internet/Conn/HSI/Vista/disableip6/disableip6.htm

Hosts file

Get rid of ::1 localhost from hosts file. To work this out you need to type in some thing in RUN.

In RUN type in "drivers"

Go into the folder "etc"

Edit the file "hosts"

Comment out part "::1 localhost"

The changed value will look like

#::1 localhost

Completely Disable IPv6

I missed this and I could not complete my installation till I figured that this was the issue.

This is to do with adding a new entry into registery to disable IPv6.

This is documented in 

http://www.approach-alliance.nl/index.php?option=com_jd-wp&Itemid=2&p=52

The setups would be like

Run regedit to open registry

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SYSTEM, CurrentControlSet, Services, Tcpip6, Parameters

Create a new DWORD called DisabledComponents with value 0xFF

Thatz it. I think you are ready to rock DHCP now.

No WhiteSpace Directory

Do not use white space character in directory structure that has the SOA setup files.

Though I have not tested this I could find some people who seem to have faced these issues.

What all this white space actually means is if you get the directory to SOA installation file, there should be no blank space there.

JDK version

I tried to run the IRCA script with java 1.6. To my surprise the IRCA complained that I have to go to a lower version of JDK.

I expected the higher version of JDK to work with out issue. But it did not. I had to uninstall and go back to a older version of JDK i.e 1.5.

Installation Steps

Run as Admin

While firing up you setup file, be sure to right click the setup file and choose "run as Administrator". I guess this gives the setup rights to do stuff that running in normal mode does not.

But frankly I have not tried running otherwise.

Version of OS

Do not be surprised if you see some error message stating that version of OS is 6.0.

And installtion does not go any further.

See the post http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=711505&tstart=0

Gives details for getting this working.

Could not get DeploymentManager

Do not be surprise if you see this error message

Failed at "Could not get DeploymentManager".

This is typically the result of an invalid deployer URI format being supplied, the target server not being in a started state or incorrect authentication details being supplied.

More information is available by enabling logging -- please see the Oracle Containers for J2EE Configuration and Administration Guide for details.

If you get this then you have missed the disabling of IPv6. each and every step is important and you can not skip even one of them.

What are the links I liked

Oh my god, at last this is done. Took me a while to get here.

The link that I could find that gave the most details was

http://www.approach-alliance.nl/index.php?option=com_jd-wp&Itemid=2&p=52

Another post with quite a few issues covered was

http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2299674
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=2568623

Other links that I looked at were
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2236119&#2236119
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2437440&#2437440
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=358789