NAV2009 and 5.0 side by side on Vista

DenSter

I am on Vista, I use SQL Server 2005, I have NAV 5.0 installed, which I will need for customers. Does anyone know if I can have NAV2009 installed beside NAV 5.0? I'd like to know for sure before I screw up my computer (again).

eknraw

Unless I need some integrated features, I don't install the client. I have a folder with all of the NAV 4.0 through 5.0 clients and I just directly execute the finsql.exe or fin.exe executables. In the compressed archives they can be found in: \CsideClient\program files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\CSIDE Client\

I haven't installed 2009 yet but you could probably install it and run 5.0 like above.

Bill

David_Singleton

eknraw wrote:

Unless I need some integrated features, I don't install the client. I have a folder with all of the NAV 4.0 through 5.0 clients and I just directly execute the finsql.exe or fin.exe executables. In the compressed archives they can be found in: \CsideClient\program files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\CSIDE Client\

I haven't installed 2009 yet but you could probably install it and run 5.0 like above.

Bill

I tried that with the last CTP version, and totally screwed up my Win2003 server. i do agree that it has worked in the past, but unless something changed in the final release, I think it needs some stuff registered.

kine

I never had problem since I have installed CTP3... (excluding CTP3 bugs...) on Vista with NAV 5.0 installed...

freddy.dk

I have heard about 2 problems running them side by side:

The Installer might remove your old version for you (if it knows that it's there)
NAV 2009 needs a registry key to be able to find the right Classic client (when running Classic reports from the Role Tailored Client) - that key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\finsql.exe

and if you install 5.0 after NAV 2009 - it will update this key with the 5.0 location (which can't run classic reports for the RTC)

There might be similar problems with the moniker navision:// - I haven't heard about that, but I can imagine.

DenSter

Thanks Freddy, that is useful information.

When you install NAV 5.0, and it recognizes that 4.0 is already installed, it gives you a choice to upgrade or install the new version in addition to what you already have. What I would like to know (I would try it but fear that this might screw up my computer) that there is a choice when installing NAV2009.

freddy.dk

I haven't tried - but I am pretty sure that there is no such thing - I will see what I can find out!

Christian_Abeln

There are two ways to install:
a) The preferred way: With the new Installation experience Setup.exe from the DVD root. This will not ask you whether you want to upgrade a previous version but install in a side by side way
b) If you would run the Setup MSI from the subdirectory (CSideClient/Setup... .exe) you would get the traditional behavior (and the question whether you want to upgrade if you had an earlier version installed).
Please note: A number of prerequisites are added by the new Installer only.
Please note: Mixing the new and the traditional way to install NAV2009 on one machine leads to unpredictable results which are hard to troubleshoot.

DenSter

Hi Christian, thank you for the clarification. So really what you're saying is you have to make a choice that when you go for NAV2009, you really can't have any previous versions on your computer. That makes supporting other customers a lot more difficult. I guess that's another thing to push into VPC #-o I need more RAM

So putting aside the "official preferred and supported way", without any rights to support, yada yada what I used to do is actually install the latest version, and then just have a copy of the Client folder with a shortcut to finsql.exe for previous versions. This used to work well in most cases because it was all pretty much the same runtime, and would only cause issues with external apps.

Obviously this is not supported for NAV2009, but will that work if I install NAV2009 (replacing my 5.0 installation), and leave a copy of the Client folder for 5.0 SP1?

David_Singleton

DenSter wrote:

... what I used to do is actually install the latest version, and then just have a copy of the Client folder with a shortcut to finsql.exe for previous versions.

This is the way I have also been doing it... but

DenSter wrote:

Obviously this is not supported for NAV2009, but will that work if I install NAV2009 (replacing my 5.0 installation), and leave a copy of the Client folder for 5.0 SP1?

I tried this with the last Beta and it totally mangled my version 5.00 SP1 install. It even mangled xp_ndo from my sql server, which took me ages to figure out why I could not log in to old databases from 5.00 and 5.00 sp1. :shock:


Anyway, I am about to get a new laptop, and been deciding which OS to install, and now I am pretty sure that I will install Server 2008 and Hyper-V. Looks like we are going to need to move that way, so I guess this is the easy way to see how it works. I can live without hibernation etc, so its probably the best solution.

I must say though that this is a bad decision, it is going to complicate the process fo transitioning to Dynamics NAV 2009. In some way shape or form, I have every version of NAV I have ever worked with running on my current laptop with XP and SQL 2005. (And that means from DOS ver 3.04 up to 5.00SP1). So I can support any client that I need to.

My clients love that, because it shows that Navision is future proof since it just keeps running. This big bang transition concept is not generally liked in this industry. I know that most of my clients are not going to be happy to hear that if they want to test out the new product that they need to buy new computers, one for their production 5.00SP1 install and another one sitting there just so they can try out NAV 2009. (And before anyone asks... NO virtual anything is NOT an option in these cases).

DenSter

David Singleton wrote:

now I am pretty sure that I will install Server 2008 and Hyper-V

I just found out that you need a 64 bit machine for Hyper-V, so make sure you get the right hardware.

DenSter

David Singleton wrote:

it is going to complicate the process

Tell me about it.... I finally purchased a server, running Windows Server 2003 R2, just found out that Virtual PC doesn't work on that platform, so I put Virtual Server on it, which screwed up my RDP capabilities, so I figured I'd install 2008 with Hyper-V but that won't work because my new server is 32 bit.

Before you know it you are 3 days into the process and still nothing works, and all you figured out is that you need to get knowledgeable on 5 different technologies before you can even get it to run. I'm pretty sure it is possible to get it configured properly on my server, but the point is that you have to spend so much time to learn so many different things that is almost becomes impractical to migrate at all.

David_Singleton

DenSter wrote:

so I figured I'd install 2008 with Hyper-V but that won't work because my new server is 32 bit.

I think Intel stopped making 32 bit CPUs in about 2003, so pretty certainly your server will be 64bit.

Its just that if its SATA drives you may have trouble installing 64 bit software, unless your computer has some option to do so. I have a fairly old machine (2005 vintage) with SATA drives, it took some doing but I got Win2k3 64 bit installed, only to find that there was no 64 bit network driver for the machine. But I did it just to see if it could be done.

The hard part is getting the 64 bit disks to recognize the SATA drives.

gedas

Hi,

Nav 2009 has 2 clients: Classic and RTC.
Classic works as previuos - copy/paste folder + shortcut to finsql.exe. (not so easy, not everything works...) :P
And RTC doesn't works with just copy/paste. :roll:
But technically, installation is just few entries to WinRegistry. :oops:
Installer is created for end users installation - we need to have working system fast and correct in all points.
But for "geeks" there could be more risk way to have "working" system on laptop - "manual installation".
I think it is possible, but not acceptable for everybody. [-X

DenSter

Thanks, I know about the differences between the clients. My original question was about running NAV2009 and 5.0 side by side on Vista, though. I changed the original topic.

gedas

Ok. maybe my message was too delicate.
I have and run NAV 2009 RTC, NAV 2009 classic and NAV 2.0;2.6....3.7...5.0 SP1 on the same pc. and service and web service and SQL server and Visual studio and .... This is not Vista but Server 2003. On Vista only NAV 2009 and 5.0 and 4.0.
It was my experiments and i can't guarantee result is stable, but it is possible...
And i don't want to provide regedit changes - too public conf.

rainergaiss

I tried it the classical way. On Vista (Home Premium) I had different versions of NAV 5 and 4 which were deleted (only the program files) when installing 2009. My SQL Server Installation was unaffected but NAV2009 was not able to install the demo database. Create database seemed not to work but there was no error message that made any sence. I cannot not use the classic client as well since the partner license does not work. Now when trying to open an SQL Database with the 5.0 client it says the database has to be converted, but I refuse doing this.

The only thing that is at least a bit of funny is the fact that my Entrepreneur is still working in the same environment as if nothing had happened.

Does anybody have an idea how to escape this horror scenario without using a virtual machine?

David_Singleton

I would guess that this can be done. My experience was that it "killed" my server and I couldn't work, so I just didn't have time to hack it to work. I will install a new computer from scratch and get it working but I can't afford to affect my current work.

The issue here is that if we want to be able to transition our old clients to this new version, then we need to run all the versions in parallel on the one machine. And NO virtualization is NOT the solution to this problem. I am installing Hyper-V because I want to test how it works for server environment, not for having client versions that work.

rainergaiss

Thank you for helping so far.

There are indeed 2 problems:

The first is, that 2009 deletes all previous clients together with associated shortcuts. So you have to re-install them with the side-by-side option.

The second problem is that the SQL demo database seems to have problems with installation if there is an SQL server already running. Hereby a log file is unnecessarily created. You can attach the demo database later but you must omit this logfile since otherwise the database cannot be attached.

Now everything seems to work besides the fact that I need a new license file.

TonyH

Just convinced all your customers to upgrade to the latest .exe's problem solved......... \:D/


(just to be sure, please note the added sarcasm here)

David_Singleton

I just got back form Convergence, and discussed this with the developers there. They all run multiple versions on the same computer, and we discussed a few things that could cause problems, (like xp_ndo) etc.

I have the notes of the steps needed to make this work, and I will put it all on my Blog over the weekend. it does look liek one of those things that if you do all the steps in sequence, then everythign shoudl be fine.

Watch this space....

ultiboy

Hi David.
Did you end up putting the steps somewhere on the web?
Thanks in advance.
Seb