Installing Primavera 5.0 with Windows Vista OS

me, with vista ultimate and enterprise editions.
didn’t work at all.

yet another reason to upgrade to p6 ( when it’s available)

I hope that someone with IT background would comment on the problem. Probably it has to do something with SQL server installation in Windows Vista. Anyone?

As far as I know, Primavera Ver. 5 does not work under vista. But they announced a service pack.

Thanks Dieter. Vista SP1 is not going to be available until second half of 2007. So, a long wait ahead.

This SP is from Primavera, right?

Regards.

Yes, it is

Thanks for clarifying Dieter. That’s good news.

I was confused by this confusion about such a pertinent topic and so I checked the Primavera website knowledgebase. According to Primavera, don’t try to use P5 on a Windows Vista computer. Primavera is pledging to have the next version (P6) be compatible with Vista but that is not slated to occur until late summer 2007. Only later will Primavera consider making the service patch to enable P5 users to use Vista.

(Think about it, if you have a maintenance agreement with Primavera, then you will want the P6 for free instead of the patch for P5. If you don’t have a current maintenance agreement, then you won’t be able to obtain the P5 patch anyhow.)

The reason for the problem took more digging. Currently P5 supports MS SQL 2000 and MSDE (the free version of MS SQL 2000.) If you have a stand-alone computer, then you use MSDE by default.

Vista does not and will not support MS SQL 2000 or MSDE. It generates errors when you try to use it. This is because Microsoft has released MS SQL 2005 and MS SQL 2000 Express (Express being the free version much like MSDE was.) Vista is designed to run using MS SQL 2005.

Until Primavera makes a version of software that installs and runs on MS SQL 2000 Express, you cannot run P5 or any other of the enterprise versions. Ergo, P6 will be using MS SQL 2000 Express as its default database server.

This does leave the question of whether Oracle users of P5 can run Vista, but that was not mentioned anywhere.

I did some testing earlier today and it’s indeed not possible (neither officially supported) to install Primavera PM-client 5.0 on a Vista installation.

However. The problem is not directly caused by the Primavera software itself, but the Borland DBExpress engine which Primavera uses. I personally got Primavera 5.0 to work on Vista.

It could be that Primavera Systems, Inc. will release a Service Pack for version 5.0 enabling Vista support, however this is unlikely. The reason behind this is that companies who use larger network installation of Primavera (against for instance Oracle), would not upgrade to Vista within the next 2 years (in general).

Within these 2 years, version 6.0 will be the new standard and 5.0 would be forgotten.

PS : For the people who are going to ask questions regarding the installation I did: I am not going to answer any questions, since it is not officially supported by Primavera Systems, Inc. Thus, should not be done.

Best regards.

Thank you Ronald and Michel for discussing the issue. That clarified a lot of things for many users of P5.
Michel, if you were able to install P5 on a Vista OS, prabably someone from Primavera should try to do the same and give the users a recognized solution.

Thank God I didn’t upgrade to Vista although doing so wouldn’t have entailed any additional cost for me since I bought the notebook last OCT06.

It’s just not worth the trade off being able to use Vista but not Primavera.

Jorge

I understand Jorge. I am so happy myself that I have a desktop with XP and a laptop with Vista...

Dear Jorge,

I believe Primavera Systems, Inc. has currently been far to busy with it’s upcoming release (Version 6.0) to start the support for version 5.0 on Vista.

Since the problem is caused by the database-driver used by Primavera it would mean that the entire application has to be retested on Vista (this is really timeconsuming). Hence that’s why it’s currently not supported.

Best regards

Dear Michel,

I totally agree with you. By far, I’m happy with XP. Although I haven’t tried Vista, it’s priority level is on "wishlist". But I can’t do without Primavera. So I don’t mind sticking with XP.


Jorge