Installing IBM RPM in Microsoft Windows Vista

The IBM RPM 7.1.1 documentation stated that you can install and use IBM RPM client in Microsoft Windows Vista. Is that really true? Yes and No.

No in the sense that the installation is not one step process. Some additional steps are needed to ensure all the necessary components are properly configured. Yes because I tried and the program seems working after the installation. Of course, maybe there will be some bugs I haven't discover yet. I will briefly describe the steps you need to perform.

There are 2 components (RPMBrokers.dll, RPMImpex.dll) to be registered for RPM Rich Client to work and 3 components (RPMBrokers.dll, RPMImpex.dll, RPMPlgin.ocx) for RPM Plugin.

Ok, the ONLY REAL installation in Vista is just the ActiveX component registration is troublesome. If you try to register these components manually after the RPM installation, most probably you will hit by a 0x80004005 error.

Note: The below are the steps I conducted to make the thing works, however I'm not sure whether some of it are mandatory.

The first thing you should do is to enable ActiveX Installer in Vista. You can do this by going to [Control Panel] > [Programs and Features] > [Turn Windows Feature On or Off]. Then from the list select [ActiveX Installer]. Click Ok to proceed.

Then you go to [Control Panel] > [Administrative Tool] > [Services] and turn the [ActiveX Installer] service on (Started).

And finally the real meat is here.

You need to remove the "cached" copy of the regsvr32.exe from Vista.

P/S: It might be helpful to restart your PC first.

Using Windows Explorer, go to C:\Windows\Prefetch, remove all the files where the names start with REGSVR32.

Next, you need to use the regsvr32.exe program shipped along with the IBM RPM. This file can be located in %RPM_INSTALLATION_FOLDER%, i.e. C:\Program Files\IBM\Rational Project Manager\regsvr32.exe. To do this, go to [All Programs] > [Accessories], right click on [Command Prompt] and select [Run as administrator]. After that you need to change directory to the RPM installation folder using command like [CD C:\PROGRAM FILES\IBM\RATIONAL PORTFOLIO MANAGER]. Try to execute the regsvr32. If you succeed, you shall get a message box on how to use it.

You can register the RPMBrokers.dll by typing the command [regsvr32 RPMBrokers.dll]. You will get a message indicating the registration was succeeded.

And before you continue to register the next one, you should perform the removal of REGSVR32 files from PREFETCH folder again.

You can register the RPMImpex.dll by typing the command [regsvr32 RPMImpex.dll]. You will get a message indicating the registration was succeeded.

Again, do the C:\Windows\PREFETCH\REGSVR32 clearing steps.

Lastly, You can register the RPMPlgin.ocx by typing the command [regsvr32 RPMPlgin.ocx]. You will get a message indicating the registration was succeeded.

Taa Daa, you should be able to run the IBM RPM client program now.

Good luck.