Install hangs on NT 4.0

I have a Informix PE 7.22 and have tried multiple times to install it on Windows NT Server 4.0 SP5. Each time the installation gets stuck with a window that tells me that it is initializing the server and asks politely for me to wait. No matter how long I wait it never gets any further. I cancel, uninstall, and start over, with no better success. Plenty of memory (160MB), plenty of disk space (10+ GB), system is stable, I've got administrator privileges, other apps are shut down. I don't get any error messages. Any clues? Is this a foretaste of this product's quality? Thanks. Bob

On Sat, 9 Oct 1999 22:19:48 -0400, "Bob Kline" <bobklin@idt.net> wrote: >I have a Informix PE 7.22 and have tried multiple times to install it on >Windows NT Server 4.0 SP5. Each time the installation gets stuck with a >window that tells me that it is initializing the server and asks politely >for me to wait. No matter how long I wait it never gets any further. I >cancel, uninstall, and start over, with no better success. Plenty of memory >(160MB), plenty of disk space (10+ GB), system is stable, I've got >administrator privileges, other apps are shut down. I don't get any error >messages. Did you check out your event log? You have to switch to the 'security' section! Do an "oninit -v" and check the messages. >Any clues? Is this a foretaste of this product's quality? Only user 'informix' can start the server - plain admin doesn't have the rights for this. You can try to set up a user "informix" (all *lower* case) with admin privileges before installation. Or do the installation as user with admin rights and _skip_ the server initialization. Log out, login again as user "informix" then enter the "services" section and for the first time manually start the database server as explained in the installation manual. If the server comes up, you can change the service to start automatically. This worked for me. Axel

Axel Sander <axsander@okay.net> wrote in message news:7tq9fq$4qv$1@bnews.gigabell.net... > On Sat, 9 Oct 1999 22:19:48 -0400, "Bob Kline" <bobklin@idt.net> wrote: > > >I have Informix PE 7.22 and have tried multiple times to install it on > >Windows NT Server 4.0 SP5. Each time the installation gets stuck with a > >window that tells me that it is initializing the server and asks politely > >for me to wait. No matter how long I wait it never gets any further. I > >cancel, uninstall, and start over, with no better success. Plenty of memory > >(160MB), plenty of disk space (10+ GB), system is stable, I've got > >administrator privileges, other apps are shut down. I don't get any error > >messages. > Did you check out your event log? You have to switch to the 'security' > section! Do an "oninit -v" and check the messages. > > >Any clues? Is this a foretaste of this product's quality? > Only user 'informix' can start the server - plain admin doesn't have the > rights for this. You can try to set up a user "informix" (all *lower* case) > with admin privileges before installation. Or do the installation as user > with admin rights and _skip_ the server initialization. Log out, login > again as user "informix" then enter the "services" section and for the > first time manually start the database server as explained in the > installation manual. > If the server comes up, you can change the service to start automatically. > This worked for me. > > Axel > Thanks for the reply, Axel. I appreciate the time you took to offer some advice infinitely more than I appreciate the quality of the Informix product, at least at this point. I tried all your suggestions. There are no entries in the Security section of the event log. The output of oninit -v shows the same hanging behavior: F:\\informix\\bin>oninit -v Reading configuration file 'f:\\informix/etc/onconfig'...succeeded Creating /etc/.infxdirs ... succeeded Creating infos file "f:\\informix/etc/.infos.ds_kline_home" ... "f:\\informix/etc/.conf.ds_kline_home" ... succeeded Writing to infos file ... succeeded Checking config parameters...succeeded Allocating and attaching to shared memory...succeeded Creating resident pool 512 kbytes...succeeded Creating buffer pool 404 kbytes...succeeded Initializing rhead structure...succeeded Initializing ASF ...succeeded Initializing Dictionary Cache and Stored Procedure Cache...succeeded Onlining 0 additional cpu vps...succeeded Onlining 1 IO vps...succeeded Forking main_loop thread...succeeded Initialzing DR structures... I waited several hours at this point, no disk activity, no change in file usage allocation (as reported by du), no evidence that more that about half the space InstallShield indicated as necessary had been allocated. Even the custom installation doesn't offer the option of skipping the server initialization which you were recommending. The best I could do was cancel at that point, log out and log back in as informix and try to start the server -- same result. I uninstalled and tried your other suggestion of doing the entire installation logged in as informix. Same result. By the way, it would be difficult to express politely how unimpressed I was by the fact that the installation procedure wiped out the entire System (common) portion of my search path, replacing it with f:\\informix\\bin. I'm sure I'll be discovering what that's broken for weeks to come. :-<} Any other suggestions, or is this "product" just a lemon? Bob

In article <7tqu5n$b22@nnrp4.farm.idt.net>, Bob Kline <bobklin@idt.net> writes > >> >I have Informix PE 7.22 and have tried multiple times to install it on >> >Windows NT Server 4.0 SP5. Each time the installation gets stuck with a Get a proper version of Informix 7.31. Less than about 7.30.uc7 only works on Sp3 and below. Something our security and permissions changed in sp4 which stops informix working.. -- David Williams

[This followup was posted to comp.databases.informix and a copy was sent to the cited author.] In article <7tot5l$q5c@nnrp4.farm.idt.net>, bobklin@idt.net says... > I have a Informix PE 7.22 and have tried multiple times to install it on > Windows NT Server 4.0 SP5. Sorry, no go. PE, and IDS before TC7 in general, is incompatible with any SP above SP3. MS changed aauthorization of writing to NT logs, and engine waits indefinitely to start writing there. > Each time the installation gets stuck with a > window that tells me that it is initializing the server and asks politely > for me to wait. No matter how long I wait it never gets any further. I > cancel, uninstall, and start over, with no better success. Plenty of memory > (160MB), plenty of disk space (10+ GB), system is stable, I've got > administrator privileges, other apps are shut down. I don't get any error > messages. > > Any clues? Is this a foretaste of this product's quality? Actually, it is (was) OK. This is 7.2 codebase. AFAIQ, it will not be upgraded. Pity. Out salesmans will have to run full IDS on there laptops. > Thanks. > > Bob > > >