version conflict between EV client and EV admin console

[Al_Dunbar]

we are currently running Enterprise Vault for Exchange Server version 8.0.5.1048 on our EV servers, but have upgraded our clients to version 9.0 (9.0.2.1061.0.dcom). Our client systems are XPSP3, and running Microsoft Office Outlook  2007 (12.0.6607.1000) SP3 MSO (12.0.6662.5000).

We now have a need to install the Administration Console on a number of client systems, but are having problems that appear to be related to the differences in versions.

When I tried to install the console, a message indicated that we cannot install an older version over a newer one. De-installing the client got us past this issue, and the install went OK, with the console functioning perfectly.

Of course, without the EV client installed, users of these systems are unable to view archived messages from Outlook. I was able to re-install the EV client and get Outlook working properly with it. But this caused the administration console to fail.

I tried installing the admin console to a different folder, but the EV client recognized where EV was located and installed to that location instead of its usual default folder.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we could get these two things coexisting on our XP systems without doing any version upgrades?

We will not be able to upgrade the servers to version 9 or 10 as originally planned, which I expect would resolve this issue. I suspect that installing version 9.0 on these XP clients would likely resolve the client-side issue, but would that be a problem if the EV servers were still at version 8? Note that these installs are for individuals that have been authorized only to export archives to PST files, so that is basically all they will see in the console.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions...

/ Al Dunbar

[AndrewB · Accepted solution]

can you go back to the v8 client just for these users?

[Al_Dunbar]

Thanks, Andrew. Reverting to the EV8 client might be possible, however:

• there were a number of issues of significance for us that the upgrade to EV9 fixed.
• we have an in-house-developed system that applies approved updates (and our view is that we support a single client image), so we would need to be sure that these EV8 clients were not suddenly updated on us.

I'm not sure about the licensing, but I did find a copy of EV9.2, so I might try installing that. The only issues I can think of are:

• which order to do the installs in, ev9 client first or ev9 console?
• will running the EV9.2 console will create any problems for our EV8 back end?

Any comments here, anyone?

[JesusWept3]

my suggestion would be to uninstall the client, then install the console and then the client
The real issue is that they both share some of the same files and thats where the conflict arises, there may simply be no getting around it

[Al_Dunbar]

Understood,

If we stay with v8 console and revert to v8 client, I expect that would work, and I'd follow your suggested installation order.

But we might have the option to install the v9 console (I'd have to look to see about licensing, for example). But we will not be updating the servers to EV9, so the question is: Can the EV9 console be used to administer an EV8 environment without causing problems?

[Rob_Wilcox1]

Very much doubt that it would be supported, and probably wouldn't work.

[Chau_Tran]

I have been testing this very recently and I was not able to get it working on the client machine even with the service pack being mismatch. So if the server is 9.0.3 the EV client needs to be the same version 9.0.3 otherwise it will not work. e.g. I was trying to get EV10.0.1 EV client to work with Outlook 2010 but my server is EV9.0.3 with hotfix etc. Tried installing client first, server first, installed in different locations and all sort of installations methods that I can think of, can't get it to work unless server and client versions are the same on the client machine.

I did not report this to Symantec Support is because as Rob said it wouldn't be supproted and I can almost guarantee that it would not work.

Hope that helps, even!!!

[AndrewB]

i still think your best bet is going to be to stick with the v8 client for the specific users that need to have the admin console installed on their machines.

[Al_Dunbar]

Thanks for all of the comments. We have resolved the problem by doing it completely differently. For the small number of individuals that need to export archives to PST files we will just allow them to logon to a w2k3 server we use for EV administration. This gets us out of having to support a console configuration that we otherwise have no need for.