Installing WebFOCUS 7.6.2 on Windows Vista

By Jon Zuckerbrot

Now that Windows Vista comes pre-installed with almost every PC, Information Builders is getting a lot of calls about whether WebFOCUS can be installed on Vista. In April, we posted a support statement on our Web site (http://techsupport.informationbuilders.com/tech/wbf/wbf_tmo_vista.html) detailing our Vista certification plans. While that page is being updated with more detailed information, I thought it might be helpful to share the instructions for installing WebFOCUS 7.6.2 on Vista.

Please note that the instructions cover WebFOCUS Version 7 Release 6.2 only as there were some installation fixes put into this service pack to recognize Java 1.6.

Currently, Vista comes pre-installed with Sun’s Java Runtime Edition (JRE) 1.6.0. You will need to install Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 7.0. WebFOCUS requires a servlet container so I installed Apache Tomcat 5.5, which is included in the WebFOCUS distribution.

While Tomcat 5.5 does run with a JRE, to avoid our install from forcing you to use Java 1.5, you must install the full Java Development Kit (JDK). You will need the JDK when you want to update our web application archive (the .war file) the jar command is not included in the JRE. So before installing WebFOCUS, I installed Sun’s JDK 1.6.0_02.

How to Add IIS 7.0 to Vista

In the dialogue window to turn Windows features on or off, I first clicked on the root node “Internet Information Services,” which selects a default set of features. Then I added ISAPI Extensions & ISAPI Filters, resulting in the following selection: 



Internet Information Services 
---Web Management Tools 
------IIS Management Console 
---World Wide Web Services 
------Application Development Features 
---------ISAPI Extensions 
---------ISAPI Filters 
------Common Http Features 
---------Default Document 
---------Directory Browsing 
---------HTTP Errors 
---------Static Content 
------Health and Diagnostics 
---------HTTP Logging 
---------Request Monitor 
------Performance Features 
---------Static Content Compression 
------Security 
---------Request Filtering

Next I ran the WebFOCUS 7.6.2 installation program. The install now detects Java 1.6 and no longer offers to install the older JDK 1.5. At the present time we do not have a utility to configure the aliases in IIS 7.0. The WebFOCUS install found that we have a version of IIS and tried to configure it and failed, so I had to create them manually. The WebFOCUS install program installs Jakarta ISAPI filter software (if you selected it) but it must be manually added to IIS 7.0. There is a warning about this in the install.

To fix/configure the IIS issues, do the following in the IIS manager:

1. On the server node open the “ISAP and CGI Restrictions,” and add the isapi_redirect.dll, allowing this extension path to execute.
2. On the default web site, add a new virtual directory and enter its alias (“Jakarta”) and, as physical path, the directory where isapi_redirect.dll resides.
3. On the default web site, open the “ISAPI Filters” and add the isapi_redirect.dll, naming the filter “Jakarta.”
4. You have to create the Virtual Directory (not application) named Jakarta inside “Default Web Site.”
5. Finally, on the node of the “Jakarta” virtual directory, open the “Handler Mappings” and enabled the “ISAP-dll” handler. Selecting the “ISAPI-dll” handler I edited the handler permissions to check “Read,” “Script” and “Execute” checked.
6. Create virtual directories for ibi_html and approot pointed to their respective directories.

One thing I’d like to point out is that the support site statement says something about msvcr71.dll not being available. I found that it was available in the production versions of Vista environment’s \windows\system32 directory.