Good morning,
For my first blog post, I will outline the general ways to locally install Microsoft Dynamics Ax 4.01 on Windows XP. Emphasizing with the second method trying to workaround the "Windows Server 2003 Domain controller" requirement.
Installing when a Domain Controller already exists
The first and simplest way is to install DAX on a computer already registered on a Domain, and to install it using a Domain User Account. This way you will only need to install an SQL Server 2005 (if you have a license), and the four main DAX components (application, DB, OAS and client) the usual way.
The DAX installer checks wether the user running the install is member of a domain. This can be a pain for developpers wanting to setup a Dev box at home. The only way around this check that I know of is to be part of a Domain at install only, and to use a ‘disposable Domain’.
Installing when no Domain Controllers exist
The second way, which is the most interesting but also the most complicated is to install a Domain Controller Role on a local VM using bridged networking, and to install DAX locally after having authenticated your user against the VM’s Domain (Run As ‘your Domain User’):
- Install VMWare Workstation 6 on your machine (if you have a license)
- Create a new empty VM and configure its WM network use ‘bridged networking’.
- Install Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (if you have a license) on the new virtual machine.
- After Server 2003 setup is completed, disable automatic updates since this server is only temporary.
- Use the 2003 Server’s ‘add roles wizard’ to add the ‘Domain controller’ role (As well as ‘DNS server’ role and ‘DHCP server’ role which should be added automatically along with ‘Domain controller’).
- Restart your Server 2003, go to the administration screen for the ‘Domain controller’ role, under users, create a new Domain user with Domain admin rights;
- and under Domain computers, add the name of the computer you’re going to install DAX locally on.
- Configure your Server 2003 ‘s networking to be compatible with your LAN, if you need to assign it a static IP address go ahead.
At this point it’s a good idea to test your setup: Share a folder on your Server 2003 install and attempt to access it from your local machine using usual windows folder sharing (when prompted for credentials, use your new Domain user). This will test that your Server 2003 has access to the network and that you have successfully created a Domain user.
- On your local machine, configure its network card to use your Server 2003’s IP as preferred DNS server.
- Join your local machine to the new Domain you created on the VM, using the credentials from the Domain user created previously.
- Restart your local machine.
- Upon reboot, do not log on to the domain (since your VM is probably shut down), log on locally to your machine.
- Use Run As on DAX ‘s ‘setup.exe’, Run As your Domain user.
- Your local user, when starting DAX will be recognized as the DAX Admin and saved as such in the DB. Your Domain user will never be needed again.
The rest of the installation will continue as usual, once it’s completed you can remove your machine from the domain and delete the folder created for your Domain user under Documents and Setting.
The VM can be installed either on the machine receiving the DAX install, or on another machine on your network, the steps will be the same. This second install method has worked twice out of two times, for myself and a customer.
Installing using trial software (when you have no valid licenses)
If you don’t have licenses, you might be able to get all of this working using a "VMWare workstation evaluation version" + "the free VMWare player" + "the 180-day Windows Server 2003 Trial .iso".
Links
VMWare workstation (has trial version): http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/
Free VMWare player (runs existing VMs): http://www.vmware.com/download/player/
Windows Server 2003 (trial information): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb430832.aspx
Alternative solution by editing the registry
This third alternative was confimed to work by a collegue (+5 to Don). It was suggested by an AxForum.info member as a comment on this blog:
"There’s another method to cheat installer’s check for domain described here. The DAX installer compares current user’s domain with the local machine netbios name. If they match the installer thinks that it has been run under a local user and throws an error «You are logged on with a local computer account. You must be logged on with a domain account to run Microsoft Dynamics AX Setup». To avoid this check change local machine netbios name in the registry (HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName\ActiveComputerName) AND after that change UserDnsDomain environment variable to the same value prior to running the setup. You can run cmd.exe, set the environment variable and run the setup from the command line so that it can "see" the changed value. After installation change ActiveComputerName in the registry back to its original value." –AxForum.info member
Gates as bait ... 