Windows 8 and the Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client Series - Part 2a

Windows 8 and the Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client Series
Part 2a

This series narrate my personal experiences of installing Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Beta and the Web Client in an unsupported environment. The following installation steps are for testing purposes only and were done on a test box. If you are to test, please make sure your machine is not a production box.

"While it's not supported, it doesn't mean it won't work. It only means we haven't tested it"...
                                                                                                      Microsoft Dynamics GP Support

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Yesterday, we walked through a few pre-requisites needed for the installation of the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 Web client on single Windows 8 machine - from now on, the road warrior laptop. It is worth noting that I also made some of the Silverlight registry changes to allow the Web Client to access local resources (printers, SmartLists, and access to temp folders) from within the browser. You can read more about these changes and download the registry entry for Silverlight in Aaron Donat's new article over at Developing for Dynamics GP.

Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Client and Silverlight Security Requirements

Today, I will cover some of the issues I experienced through attempts at running the Web Client without having ASP.NET 4.5 running on IIS 8.0 - as mentioned before, at first, it was not quite obvious ASP.NET 4.5 was not installed on IIS.8

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Installing Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013

Prior to installing the Web Client, the installation process takes us through Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and the Web Client Runtime service installation.

The main setup window (launched with Setup.exe) allows you to install Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013, along with some of the traditional products, plus the Web Client, Tenant Services, and the Web Services Management Tools, three new components for GP 2013.

You can find more information about the Web Client architecture in Aaron Donat's article over at Developing for Dynamics GP:

Dynamics GP 2013 Web Client Infrastructure Overview

The first things you will notice during the installation process is the Bootstrapper Setup window, which will automatically install Dexterity Shared Components 12.0.



Bootstrapper Setup window

At the features level, you will have a choice of installing the Web Client Runtime service. This feature is a MUST prior to installing the Web Client itself. More information about the Web Client Runtime can be found in Aaron's infrastructure article above.


Select Features window.

New for GP 2013 is the ability to name the system database. For those of us "old timers", you also have a choice of continuing to use the DYNAMICS system database name as a default choice. For more information on the named system database feature, take a look at my article Microsoft Dynamics GP "12" Named System Database Architecture.

Named System Database

Once the application is installed, you should now be able to return to the Windows 8 start screen and see the launch icons there.

A peek into the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 installation folder, confirms we now have a WebClient folder with all the assemblies, extensions, and providers that in conjunction form the Web Client Runtime service.

Web Client Runtime files

Following this first part, the rest is just running Microsoft Dynamics GP Utilities and let the program take care of creating the system database and adding the Fabrikam company. Practically nothing has changed in the Utilities process.

Next, I will cover the Web Client installation.
Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
IntellPartners, LLC
http://www.IntellPartners.com/