By Marie Scott and Thomas “Duffbert” Duff
In this installment of the TDI series, we’ll take you though the installation process. It’s so easy, even a developer can do it. [Duffbert – so that means I can install it!] And for reference, we’re installing this onto a Windows XP 32 bit machine. But given that Java is a prime component of the installation and running of TDI, you should see many of the same screens regardless of your target OS. [Marie – TDI 6.1.1 is not supported on Windows Vista or the Mac OS. See the release notes for specific instructions for installing TDI on the OS of your choice.]
A quick note on the complexity of the installation… Imagine your complexity scale goes from Notes/Domino on the simple end, to something like WebSphere Portal Server, or WAS, on the “abandon hope, all ye who enter” side. With Notes/Domino, you get a wizard that prompts you for some key information, and everything pretty much sets up from there. With just a little bit of knowledge, you can get the install working nearly every time. TDI does have its own method for installing fixpacks – using the GMI installer which is installed with TDI.
Where does TDI fall in this scale? It actually makes the Notes/Domino installation look complex. But is really that easy…
After downloading the software (you did do that already, right?), you go into the tdi_installer folder and launch the install_tdiv611_windows.exe file:
This will start a FLEXNet installer window that will run for a few seconds…
Once this is completed (again, only a few seconds), you’ll get what looks like a more traditional install splash screen for TDI:
Of course, you accept the license because we ALWAYS accept the license:
And then the package starts to check and make sure it can complete the installation process (yes, it really is this easy):
Your first real decision comes when you choose to take custom or typical installation. Go ahead and select Custom, so you can see exactly what’s about to be installed:
Decide where you want to install the software. In this case, we just took the default choice:
Next, you’ll be given the choice of which components to install. Since we selected Custom earlier, all the options are selected by default. We’re going to leave it that way. One of the most important options to keep selected are the examples, as they will help you when we get to the development part of this series. [Marie – if you’re only installing TDI on a workstation to do development work – there is no need to install the AMC and embedded version of Websphere Application Server. ]
Finally, you’ll be asked for a location for your Solutions Directory. This is where TDI will store your agents and assemblylines that you create. In this case, we’re choosing to just use the install directory on our machine to keep things simple. [Marie – I usually put this in the TDI subdirectory under my TDI home directory – administrators versus developers…what can I say?!]
Again, the installer will check to make sure all is still good to proceed:
The rest is all auto-pilot after you click install:
Congratulations! You’ve installed TDI:
Now, before we close, let’s make sure you can start TDI with no problems…
Somewhere in your start menus, you should see the following:
Click on the Start Config Editor option, and you’ll temporarily get what looks like a command line interface:
Not to worry… just let this sit for a few seconds, and you’ll be rewarded with the TDI workspace:
See — we said it would be easy…
Go ahead and get TDI installed on your workstation or server. Our next article will start to explain some of the terminology you’ll encounter in the TDI world.
[Marie -- if you do run into install issues -- check out this technote for some troubleshooting tips. Reference 7013120]
