Installation methods for Windows

If you install IBM MQ on Windows, there are several different installation types to choose from.

If you are migrating from an earlier version of IBM MQ, see Migration planning before moving to the latest version of IBM MQ. To modify an existing installation, see Modifying a server installation.

Interactive or Non-Interactive installation

IBM MQ for Windows is installed using the Microsoft Installer (MSI). We can use the Installation Launchpad to invoke MSI, this process is called an attended or interactive installation. Or, we can invoke MSI directly for a silent installation, without using the IBM MQ Installation Launchpad. This means that we can install IBM MQ on a system without interaction. This process is called unattended, silent, or non-interactive installation, and is useful for installing IBM MQ over a network on a remote system.

For a list of interactive and non-interactive features, see IBM MQ features for Windows systems.

Interactive installation

If you choose an interactive installation, before you install, you must decide what type of installation you require. Table 1 shows the installation types available, and the features that are installed with each option. For the prerequisites required for each feature, see System Requirements for IBM MQ.

The installation types are:

• Typical installation
• Compact installation
• Custom Installation

We can also:

• Specify the installation location, name, and description.
• Have multiple installations on the same computer.

See Primary installation on UNIX, Linux, and Windows for important information about these features, including whether to designate your installation as the primary installation.

Table 1. Features installed with each type of interactive installation

Installation type	Server Features installed	Client Features installed	Comments
Typical	Server IBM MQ Explorer Development Toolkit Java and .NET Messaging and Web Services Extended Messaging APIs Web Administration	Windows Client MQI Client Development Toolkit Java and .NET Messaging and Web Services Extended Messaging APIs	The default option. Features are installed to default locations with a default installation name. Java and .NET Messaging and Web Services (known as Extended Messaging APIs from Version 9.0.1) includes IBM MQ classes for .NET, support for the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) for use with Microsoft.NET 3.
Compact	Server only	Windows Client MQI Client only	The feature is installed to the default location with a default installation name.
Custom	By default, the following features are preselected: Server IBM MQ Explorer Development Toolkit Java and .NET Messaging and Web Services Extended Messaging APIs Web Administration A custom installation can also install: Telemetry Service Advanced Message Security Managed File Transfer Service Managed File Transfer Logger Managed File Transfer Agent Managed File Transfer Tools Windows Client MQI Client	By default, the following features are preselected: Windows Client MQI Client Development Toolkit Java and .NET Messaging and Web Services Extended Messaging APIs	A server custom installation can be used if you want to install the Windows client from within the server image. All the available features are listed and we can select which ones to install, and where to install them. We can also name and provide a description for the installation. Use a custom installation when you want to specify that the installation is primary. Java and .NET Messaging and Web Services (known as Extended Messaging APIs from Version 9.0.1) includes IBM MQ classes for .NET, support for the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) for use with Microsoft.NET 3 or later.

If Microsoft.NET is not installed before IBM MQ and you add it, rerun setmqinst -i -n Installationname if this is a primary installation.

The following table describes which level of .NET is required for which function:

Table 2. Required levels of Microsoft.NET

IBM MQ function	.NET version required
IBM MQ classes for .NET. For more information, see: Get started with IBM MQ classes for .NET 2	.NET 2
The IBM MQ custom channel for WCF. For more information, see Developing WCF applications with IBM MQ. To build the sample solution files, either the Microsoft.NET 3.5 SDK, or Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is needed. For more information, see: Software requirements for the WCF custom channel for IBM MQ	.NET framework 3.5 or later

For instructions on how to install IBM MQ on Windows systems, see Install IBM MQ Server on Windows systems and Install an IBM MQ client on Windows.

Non-interactive installation

If you choose a non-interactive installation the system on which you want to install must be able to access the IBM MQ image, or a copy of the files, and you must be able to access the system.

If you are running IBM WebSphere MQ Version 7.5 or later, with User Account Control (UAC) enabled, you must invoke the non-interactive installation from an elevated command prompt. Elevate a command prompt by using a right-click to start the command prompt and choose Run as administrator. If you try to silently install from a non-elevated command prompt, the installation fails with an error of AMQ4353 in the installation log.

There are several ways to invoke MSI:

• Use the msiexec command with command-line parameters.
• Use the msiexec command with a parameter that specifies a response file. The response file contains the parameters that you normally supply during an interactive installation. See Install the server using msiexec.
• Use the MQParms command with command-line parameters, a parameter file, or both. The parameter file can contain many more parameters than a response file. See Install the server using the MQParms command.

If the system belongs to a Windows domain you may need a special domain ID for the IBM MQ service, see Considerations when installing IBM MQ server on Windows for more information.

Clearing IBM MQ installation settings

When you install IBM MQ on Windows, various values, such as the location of the data directory for IBM MQ, are stored in the registry.

In addition, the data directory contains configuration files that are read at installation time. To provide a trouble free re-installation experience, these values and files persist even after the last IBM MQ installation has been removed from the machine.

This is designed to assist you, and

• Allows you to easily uninstall and reinstall
• Ensures that we do not lose any previously defined queue managers in the process.

However in some cases this feature can be an annoyance. For example, if you want to:

• Move the data directory
• Pick up the default data directory for IBM MQ Version 9.0. See Windows: changes for IBM MQ Version 8.0 for further information.
• Install as if installing on a new machine, for example, for test purposes.
• Remove IBM MQ permanently.

To assist you in these situations, IBM MQ Version 8.0 onwards supplies a Windows command file, on the root directory of the installation media, called ResetMQ.cmd.

To run the command, enter the following:

ResetMQ.cmd [LOSEDATA] [NOPROMPT] 

Attention: The parameters LOSEDATA and NOPROMPT are optional. If you supply either, or both, of these parameters, the following action results:

LOSEDATA

Existing queue managers become unusable. However, the data remains on disk.

NOPROMPT

Configuration information is permanently removed without further prompting.

We can run this command only after the last IBM MQ installation has been removed.Important: You should use this script with caution. The command, even without specifying the optional parameter LOSEDATA, can irrecoverably remove queue manager configuration.