Are you interested in evaluating new versions of Lumira desktop without losing the existing installed edition? You may be interested in playing with the latest features of Lumira but your Lumira server requires you to be on an earlier desktop edition. If so then this article offers you tips on how you can accomplish this.
WARNING: This article is not recommended for shared environments such as Citrix or workstations that are shared by multiple users (system with multiple active user profiles).
First let's get some understanding where Lumira is deployed and what are the key directories to be familiar with for things like binaries, user's preferences and documents. Here is what I see on my workstation:
- Lumira's binaries
C:\Program Files\SAP Lumira
- Preferences (server, network, Geo server settings, etc...)
C:\Users\mike\.sapvi
- Documents (local Lums files)
C:\Users\mike\Documents\SAP Lumira Documents
- Cache and Logs
C:\Users\mike\AppData\Local\Temp\sapvi
- Extensions (viz and data acquisition extensions such as BW and UNX connectors)
C:\Users\mike\.sapvi\extensions
SAPLumira.ini allows you to modify Lumira's directories and it is located here:
C:\Program Files\SAP Lumira\Desktop\SAPLumira.ini
By default this is how the configuration of these directories would look:
-Dhilo.shared.dir.name=sapvi
-Dosgi.instance.area=@user.home/.sapvi/workspace
-Dosgi.configuration.area=@user.home/.sapvi/configuration
-Dhilo.user.dir=@user.home/.sapvi
In my workstation "@user.home" is set to <<C:\Users\mike\>>.
Steps to install 1.27 & 1.28 side by side
Now let's assume that you have Lumira desktop 1.27 currently installed on your system and you would like to install 1.28 side by side with 1.27. Here are the steps to achieve this:
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1. Copy the “Desktop” directory from <<C:\Program Files\SAP Lumira>> to the folder of your choice. For example I copied the Desktop folder to <C:\1.27>>
2. Edit the SAPLumira.ini file in <<C:\1.27\Desktop>> with the following settings
-Dosgi.instance.area=C:/1.27/sapvi/workspace
-Dosgi.configuration.area=C:/1.27/sapvi/configuration
-Dhilo.user.dir=C:/1.27/sapvi
-Dhilo.extensions.dir=C:/1.27/sapvi/extensions
-Dhilo.document.dir=C:/1.27/SAP Lumira Documents
-Djava.io.tmpdir=C:/1.27
-Dhilo.temp.dir.name=temp
Some of these -D options are not configured by default but you can add them manually.
3. The folder where the Lums are stored must exist beforehand so let's create this folder now. In my example the folder is "SAP Lumira Documents" (<<C:\1.27\SAP Lumira Documents>>)
4. Now you can uninstall 1.27 using Windows Control Panel > Programs and Features or Add/Remove Programs and install 1.28.
From here on, you can run this desktop directly from <<C:\1.27\Desktop\SAPLumira.exe>>. Using Lumira's shortcut on the workstation will run the 1.28 desktop.
You can follow the same steps described above once 1.29 is available.
Every instance will have its own binaries, osgi cache, preferences and local documents. Each version of the Desktop will be runnable from wherever the copy is placed.
WARNING: Although the latest Lumira edition can open up documents created in earlier version, the reverse is not true. Therefore there is no guarantee that the documents created in 1.28 will open in 1.27. It is important to not share your local documents across several editions and keep them stored in separate folders. -Dhilo.document.dir as used above allows you to control the location of this folder.