Open Text VCM8.0 installation and upgrade on Windows XP

Open Text VCM8.0 installation on Windows XP:

VCM 7.6 supports to be installed on Windows XP for design and development purpose, but V8 remove Windows XP from its support matrix. Author did a test installing VCM8.0 on Windows XP, there is no any problem, in VCM document, VCM8.0 requires Open Text Common Search installed as a pre-condition, however, you still be able to install VCM8.0 without Open Text Common Search, and do development on it, the restriction is your content is not searchable, and can not be published. Jump to conclusion, following is the personal experience:

1 There is no problem you can install VCM8.0 on Windows XP with Open Text Common Search or Not.

2 Without Open Text Common Search, VCM8.0 works, but content is not searchable and can not be published.

3 If you like install Open Text Common Search to have a full functionality, Open Text Common Search requires you have Oracle client installed on your computer, and run netca to have a Oracle server conneted, it's safe to let Open Text Common Search take a seperate schema.

4 VCM8.0 and VCM7.6 could be installed on same computer without any problem, if you open the VPD.properties, you could find 7.6 and 8.0 configuration are all in there, without conflicts, sure you have to use different name for vgnadmin/node/cfgagent service, otherwise the service registeration is going to overides in windows registery.

 

Open Text provides Vignette Content 8.0 Installation Guide.pdf as an installation guide, actually it is not good neough if you never work with Open Text Search, you need another document -- KB10792:Database Prerequisites for Open Text Common Search.

 

Open Text VCM8.0 upgrade from 7.6 on Windows XP:

To upgrade VCM7.6 to 8.0, Open text document requires same user doing VCM7.6 installation to do the upgrade, don't know the reason, guess it might related with VPD.properties or foler/file owner permission, however, author did test installing 7.6 with a user id and upgrade to 8.0 with another user id on Windows XP, both two id are in administrator group, there is no problem, maybe because Windows XP put VPD.properties in folder Windows and has less permission restriction as long as id in administrator group. Following is the experience author get from upgrade:

1 You need to uninstall Workflow modeler and autonomy before upgrade.

2 You need to put DA in to offline mode and stop all VCM services before upgrade.

3 After upgrade, you need install Open Text Common Search, create index, then go to configconsole to configure Open Text Common Search as your search engine.

4 You need re-index all the existed content instances after search engine configured, however, you have DPM for WebSphere Portal, you are not able to re-index all content instance, presentation template won't work, DPM for WebSphere Portal 8.0 is not available at the moment, you have to re-index content by specific content type name.

 

Open Text provides Vignette Content 8.0 Upgrade Guide.pdf as an upgrade guide, actually it is not good neough if you never work with Open Text Search, you need another document -- KB10792:Database Prerequisites for Open Text Common Search. After finish upgrade, you need go to configconsole to configure search engine, it is almost same as you configure Autonomy IDOL, but it is goog to have a step by step video -- Search_Configuration.mp4 .  It is a video guide you to configure VCM8 to use Open Text Common Search, and run vgncontentindex to re-index all the existed content instances.

 

Compatible mode and V7 widgets:

From V7 to V8, there is a significant changes on management GUI, widget switch from struts framework to spring framework. Customize widget and VPS widget works on compatible mode, without re-compile, but have to update vgn-appsvcs-cma.jar, vgn-appsvcs-cce.jar, thirdparty-combined.jar etc, and not available on content workspace.