Installation on Windows host where System Drive isn't C:

[Former Member]

Dear experts,

We have a customer that is trying to install SAPgui 7.20 on a Windows XP SP3 host where the System Drive letter is "H:" instead of "C:", and they can't perform this action because there is an error on the DLL registration (regsvr32.exe) in the installation phase.

I would like to know if someone have experience with an installation of SAPgui on Windows OS with System Drive letter different than standard "C:" and if there are problems with this type of installation.

Thanks a lot for your attention.

Kind regards.

--

M

[jude_bradley]

There should be no problem installing SAPGUI on another drive letter.

I have done this myself on a 😧 drive.(not system drive).

If you upload the sapsetup.log files we can take a look.

Regards,

Jude

[Former Member]

Hello Jude,

thanks for your reply.

Just to be sure, I want to make clear that in this Windows host the system drive is H:. There's no disk C:, there's only H: and the Windows directory is called H:\Windows .

Having said that, I'll try to get all the logs from the installation and post them here (I don't have a direct access to that PC sadly).

Thanks again for your reply, kind regards.

--

M

[jude_bradley]

Hello Marcello,

Unfortunately, I'm not able to change a system drive letter to test it.

But I would advise using compilation 2 DVD if not already used,and provide the install logs

when you get access to them.

[former_member201355]

Hello Marcello,

Is this a standalone installation or installing from an SAP GUI Installation Server?

If you are installing it from the Installation Server, you should be able to pull up all the workstation log files from your server.

From SAP Installation Administration Tool:

• Go to Remote->Collect log files on the menu bar and provide the workstation name, username and password.
• It downloads all the log files from the workstation to your server at(C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Temp\SAPRemoteWksta\<Host Name>.

Thanks

Thirumal

[Former Member]

Hello Thirumal,

no this is a standalone installation. Still waiting for the customer to send me the logs.

Thanks for your reply, kind regards.

--

M

[bxiv]

What version of Windows does the customer have?

I can see under disk management (the MMC) that you can change the drive letter...not entirely sure what would happen in this situation, it may allow you to finish the install.

Another thought, plug in a USB flash drive or disk and assign it the drive letter C:\.  Now if its Windows 7 or Vista you can leverage 'mklink /d' and create a symbolic link to the H:\Windows folder and complete the install.

[Former Member]

Hello Billy,

the host where the problem happens is a Windows XP PC. I'm not 100% sure but I seem to remember it's SP2.

I wouldn't change the system drive letter because, as far as I know, the Windows registry contains the full path for a number of crucial system directories, like Windows itself, Program Files, Documents and Settings and so on, and I'm afraid if I changed the drive letter nothing would work at all afterwards.

I like your second idea though: even if I can't do the mklink trick, I wonder what'll happen if there's a C: drive while installing the SAPgui. I'll forward this idea to the customer.

Thanks, kind regards.

--

M

Message was edited by: Eric VanDeCatsije

[bxiv]

With Windows XP they would need to utilize this tool from Microsoft:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

Same concept as 'mklink /d'.

I also agree with not wanting to change the drive letter, I think I am going to load up a VM at some point and see what happens; I would assume that Windows in its typical fashion would force a shut down to update the registry with the drive letter change.

This is also why I enjoy the layout of *nix with no drive letter being a requirement for your folder structure and just work off of mount points!