This document covers the following topics:
The person performing the installation must have administrator rights.
Install the latest version (14.12.25810.0 or later) of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017.
Note:
If you have an older version installed and did not shut down all
applications that use it, you will have to reboot your machine and restart the
installation process, which will then install this package for you.
During the installation of Natural, the WMI command-line (WMIC) utility in your Windows environment must be available.
During the installation, you are asked to specify an installation directory in which you want to install your Software AG products. In general, any directory can be used.
We recommend that you use a sub-directory of the SoftwareAG directory as the location for Natural and its add-on products, for example SoftwareA\suiteyyyy, whereby yyyy stands for the current year. This allows future side-by-side installations. An installation in C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) is not allowed.
You can only install Natural on a local hard drive on a Windows system. You cannot install Natural on a network-mounted drive or a SUBST drive.
Important:
It is recommended that you do not install into a directory
which is a subdirectory of a previous installation. Such a previous
installation may have been created either with the Software AG Installer or by
an installation tool that was used in the past.
If you install multiple products from a suite using one installation directory, Software AG guarantees that these products are compatible. But most Software AG products cannot be installed in a directory which already contains an older version of the same product (called “over-install”). New versions of a product must therefore be installed in another directory (called “side-by-side installation”).
For a new Natural version, it is in general recommended to use the side-by-side installation as described in Side-by-Side Installations.
In addition to the side-by-side installation, Natural offers procedures which allow replacing an installed Natural version and reusing the same installation directory. For a new major or minor version, the old version must be de-installed before the new version can be installed. A new Service Pack can be installed over the old version. The procedures are described in Replacing an Installed Natural Version. Options are available which preserve most configuration settings.
Notes:
If you are using a new directory for the installation rather than an existing installation directory, the installation is named “side-by-side installation”. Side-by-side installation is the default procedure for Software AG products, and it is also the recommend procedure for installing a new Natural version.
A side-by-side installation enables you to install several different versions of Natural on the same machine. This may be necessary for testing a new Natural version before it is taken over into a production environment. The following should be considered:
If the previous version was installed with the Software AG Installer in a sub-directory of the SoftwareAG directory, use another sub-directory as the location for Natural and its add-on products, for example SoftwareAG\<new suite name>.
In the Installer page concerning the Natural configuration data, you may select “Copy configuration data from another installation directory” if you want to transfer configuration settings from a previous version. This is described in the section Installing Natural.
If necessary, adjust the settings for the FUSER because the default system files (99,100 and 99,101) are adapted to the new installation directory.
You can also install the same Natural version more than once on the same machine.
Since Empower only offers the latest version of Natural and other products, it is recommended that you create and keep an image of installed Natural versions for possible later use. Installing from an image rather than downloading it from Empower will usually be faster, too. For further information, see Using the Software AG Installer.
There is one exception: the plug-ins and the terminal emulation which are installed together with the development environment can only be installed once on one machine. Therefore, they are installed into a common Natural directory outside of the above-mentioned installation directory. You can find them in \Program Files\Common Files\Software AG\Natural (32-bit machines) or \Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Software AG\Natural (64-bit machines). When you install a second instance of Natural, the installer checks whether the plug-ins and the terminal emulation in the common Natural directory are older than the ones to be installed. If they are older, they will be replaced with the new version.
While Natural is being installed, it is not possible for another user to install Natural on the same machine. A message with the following information will then be shown: the name of the user who is currently installing Natural, when this installation has been started, and into which directory Natural is currently being installed.
A side-by-side installation of the Natural development environment is only possible if Natural is currently not being used. This is to ensure that the plug-in and terminal emulation files in the common Natural directory can be replaced, if required. A message will be shown with the information that any active Natural sessions need to be closed first. In addition, it is not possible to do a side-by-side installation of Natural if the content of the common Natural directory is currently shown in the Windows Explorer.
With the following steps you can replace an installed Natural version with a new major or minor version and reuse the same installation directory:
Deinstall Natural (but do not delete the installation folder manually).
Install the new Natural version using the same installation directory as before.
In the Installer page concerning the Natural configuration data, select “Reuse configuration data from the current installation directory” which will preserve most configuration settings from the previous version as described in the section Installing Natural.
If you install a new Natural Service Pack and specify the same installation directory and select the same items as before, the Software AG Installer does not prompt again for license files, configuration data, and port numbers. The existing license files, configuration data, and port numbers will be used.
To be able to install Natural fixes with the Update Manager on Windows, you must start the Update Manager with the Run As Administrator option. Because the Update Manager will then start Natural there are some restrictions to take care of:
Running Natural processes should be stopped before starting the installation of Natural fixes with the Update Manager.
With the Run As Administrator option, it is not possible to use mapped drives (drive letters). Only the UNC notation can be used: \\<server>\<sharedfolder>\...
Using drive letters to external drives in the path entries (e.g. NATURAL.INI or NATCONF.CFG) is not possible.
Using user environment variables in the path entries (e.g. NATURAL.INI or NATCONF.CFG) is not possible. Only system environment variables can be used.
By default, a new FNAT is created in the installation
directory during the installation of Natural
(<install-dir>/Natural/fnat).
This FNAT must always exist, and the global configuration file
must have an entry which defines this FNAT.
The Natural add-ons (such as Predict or Natural Business Services)
can only be installed into this FNAT.
Note:
If you want to check or edit the settings in the global
configuration file, use the Configuration Utility.
The Software AG Installer maintains an internal list of installed
products, which must coincide with the add-ons that are currently installed in
the FNAT. This is important for updates and uninstallations to
work correctly.
For this reason:
Do not install products into the FNAT without the
use of the Software AG Installer.
Do not replace the default FNAT
(<install-dir>/Natural/fnat)
with another FNAT.
Make sure to complete the installation of an add-on by using the SYSPCI utility.
If an error occurs due to the above-mentioned scenarios, the only way to solve the problem is a new installation. In some situations, one of the following workarounds may help:
Workaround 1: Complete the previous installation by using the SYSPCI utility.
Workaround 2: Uninstall the product and then start the installation once more.
By default, a new FUSER is created in the installation
directory during the installation. If you want to use an existing
FUSER of Natural Version 6.3, you have to adjust the system file
settings in the global configuration file after the installation. See also
Overview of Configuration
File Parameters in the Configuration
Utility documentation.
You can install both Natural and Natural Security at the same time, or you can install Natural Security after having installed Natural.
To become operable, Natural Security requires a post-installation configuration and initialization step. This includes:
setting or loading the Natural Security log file,
setting or loading the Natural Security file
FSEC,
adjusting the Natural parameter files,
adjusting the global configuration file.
See also Setting Up Your Products Using the SYSPCI Utility in the section Completing the Installation. This step is not necessary after an update installation.
The following restrictions apply if you install Natural Security together with Natural Runtime:
It is only possible to use an existing Natural Security
FSEC file.
Once you have installed Natural Security, it is not possible
to access the SYSSEC application, even if you are a Natural
Security administrator.
Important:
Once you have installed and configured Natural Security,
Natural on the assigned system file (FNAT) can only be accessed
under the control of Natural Security. Natural Security cannot be removed once
it has been installed. It can only be removed if you uninstall the whole
Natural environment in which Natural Security has been installed.