Installation methods for Windows
When you install IBM MQ on Windows, there are several different installation types to choose from.
If we 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. Alternatively, you 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, we 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.
Installation type Server Features installed Client Features installed Comments Typical
- Server
- IBM MQ Explorer
- Development Toolkit
- Extended Messaging APIs
- Web Administration
- MQI Client
- Development Toolkit
- Extended Messaging APIs
The default option. Features are installed to default locations with a default installation name. Extended Messaging APIs (known as Java and .NET Messaging and Web Services before Version 9.1) includes IBM MQ classes for .NET, support for the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) for use with Microsoft.NET 3.
Compact
- Server only
- 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
- 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
- MQI Client
By default, the following features are preselected:
- MQI Client
- Development Toolkit
- Extended Messaging APIs
A server custom installation can be used if we 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 we want to specify that the installation is primary.
Extended Messaging APIs (known as Java and .NET Messaging and Web Services before Version 9.1) 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:
IBM MQ function .NET version required IBM MQ classes for .NET. For more information, see: Getting 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 Installing IBM MQ Server on Windows systems and Installing an IBM MQ client on Windows.
Non-interactive installation
If you choose a non-interactive installation the system on which we want to install must be able to access the IBM MQ image, or a copy of the files, and we must be able to access the system.
If we are running IBM WebSphere MQ Version 7.5 or later, with User Account Control (UAC) enabled, we 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 Installing 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 Installing the server using the MQParms command.
Special domain ID
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 we want to:
- Move the data directory
- Pick up the default data directory for the new release that we want to install. For more information, see Program and data directory locations on Windows.
- 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: We should use this script with caution. The command, even without specifying the optional parameter LOSEDATA, can irrecoverably remove queue manager configuration. Parent topic: Plan to install IBM MQ on Windows
Related concepts