Issue with RSA/RAD 6.0.0.1 in XP

I was given licenses of both RSA and RAD version 6.0.0.1 from my customer. well, if the version numbers sound prehistoric, so be it. I cant help it. Neither could anybody help me when i ran into multiple issues one after another with these. I will discuss one issue here because i did not find a single reference on internet about this.

When i install RSA/RAD on Win XP, i have the option to choose the installation of integrated websphere runtime environment. This helps in local development by providing hot deployment, local test server and other debugging features. At the end of installation i get a message that my RSA/RAD installation was successful but installation of integrated test environment failed, of course without any meaningful error message (not that i expected one). A bit of googling did provide a couple of references all asking me to apply patches and upgrade the version to 6.0.1.2. Apparently it was a known limitation of XP and hence an upgrade was required, as per a link provided by IBM. I followed this link to download the patch and for installation instructions.

The patch download size is 3.2 GB only. [Can you believe it? A patch size in GBs for a mere java IDE?]. Anyways, i had no option but to download. So i did. But even the patch installation failed. I didnt get any favorable google hits this time and all roads seemed blocked. Only option was to contact support and wait. I raised a discussion about this with one of my friend and an idea occurred to us. I had the RSA/RAD installable copied into a network share drive so that everyone could install it easily[it is an enterprise lic, so no isses with that ]. I was trying to install directly from there. Instead, i mapped the network share as a local drive and tried installing from there. Surprisingly it worked and installation was successful.

No idea why, but it worked. Now i am busy with other gifts of this tool.

IBM Thinkpad with strange bugs

Recently i have been having problems with my IBM Thinkpad. It has slowly become full of bugs. well…bugs of a different (& strange) kind. My lappy is still fully functional and i am able to work normally without any interruptions for long hours. These bugs seem to have no effect on it but i know they are there. And being a IT professional i cant sit idle till i make my lappy clean of all foreigners.

To be very frank i have no clue how to resolve them. I have done enough research on different forums, asked prof. Google etc but no help. I was feeling a little embarrassed to mention this to my friends. However, when all doors were shut, i gathered some courage and revealed this to one of my very good friends. He was head over his heels laughing on me. He had never imagined this either. Obviously he too didn’t have any solution for me.

Let me know if you have encountered such problems and how you resolved them? I will be obliged.

oh..sorry.. didn’t i explain the problem in detail? The laptop has lots of holes here n there for various reasons and the cockroaches have taken advantage of it to explore the e-jungle inside. Guess they have liked it too much and decided to make it their habitat.

Now what do i do? I can’t use those sprays’ available in market. i cant open it completely myself. Dont have enough tools, cant risk damaging it since the warranty is expired and the IBM support costs are way beyond individuals reach (2k INR for just opening the laptop. ). Cant take it to a local computer service store – what do i ask him to do? How will he charge me? Let alone the round of embarrassment i will have to go thru again!!!