MTS System Requirements

This section describes the hardware and software requirements for installing MTS, discusses other setup considerations, and describes MTS support on Alpha platforms.

You can install MTS on your computer by:

• Using the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack to install MTS with Internet Information Server (IIS) or other Option Pack components.
• Using the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack to install MTS without any other Option Pack components.

MTS runs on Windows NT and Windows 95 with DCOM support.

To install MTS without other Option Pack components:

1. Run the Option Pack Setup program. Choose Custom install.
2. Uncheck all Option Pack components.
3. Select, but do not click the check box, for Transaction Server.
4. Click Show Subcomponents.
5. Check Transaction Server Core Components. This will also check Microsoft Management Console.

Note that choosing the Development Option also installs the Data Access components.

1. Click OK and continue the setup program.

Hardware Requirements

Before you install Microsoft Transaction Server, make sure that your computer meets the following minimum requirements:

• Any Windows NT or Windows 95 with DCOM support i386-compatible computer or Alpha AXP™ computer. See the MTS Release Notes for the latest information on hardware requirements.
• A hard disk with a minimum of 30 megabytes available space for a full installation.
• A CD drive.
• Any display supported by Windows NT version 4.0 or Windows 95.
• At least 32 megabytes of memory.
• A mouse or other suitable pointing device.

You can run MTS setup unattended using the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack setup. Before you run setup unattended, modify the setup file with your setup selections. The unattended setup file (unattend.txt) is located in your \MTS directory.

To run setup unattended, click the Start button, select Run and type the following:

setup /u:unattend.txt.

Software Requirements

MTS software requirements include:

• Before you install MTS, you must install Microsoft Windows NT version 4.0 or later, or Windows 95 with DCOM support on your computer. Failure to install DCOM support for Windows 95 before setting up MTS will result in the following error message:

  Setup library mtssetup.dll could not be loaded or the function MTSSetupProc could not be found.

You can install DCOM support for Windows 95 from http://www.microsoft.com/oledev. Note that DCOM support for Windows 95 is installed by Internet Explorer 4.0.

If you uninstall MTS on a Windows 95 computer, do not uninstall DCOM support for Windows 95. The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC), which is installed but not removed by the MTS setup program, requires DCOM support on Windows 95.

• If you want to remotely administer a Windows NT computer from a Windows 95 computer, you must install the Remote Registry service for Windows 95. The Remote Registry service allows you to change registry entries for a remote Windows NT computer (given the appropriate permissions). To obtain the Remote Registry service, go to the \Admin\Nettols\RemoteReg subdirectory on the Windows 95 CD. Read the Regserv.txt file for instructions on installing the Remote Registry service.
• If you want to use a Microsoft Windows 95 client with MTS, install DCOM for Windows 95. For the latest information on DCOM support for Windows 95, see http://www.microsoft.com/oledev/.
• If you are using Windows NT Server, you must install Windows NT Service Pack 3. You can download Windows NT Service Pack 3 from http://www.microsoft.com/support.
• If you want your components to access databases, use Microsoft SQL Server, version 6.5 or later, or another Microsoft Transaction Server-compatible database. Note that SQL Server requires the Windows NT operating system.
• It is strongly recommended that you install the SQL Server Service Pack 3 on computers running MTS software. This Service Pack resolves several known problems. You can install SQL Server Service Pack 3 from http://www.microsoft.com/support/.
• If you plan to create components with Microsoft Visual Basic, use Microsoft Visual Basic, Enterprise Edition, version 4.0 or later. It is strongly recommended that you use Visual Basic version 5.0 to build your MTS components.
• If you plan to create components with Microsoft Visual C++®, use version 4.1 or later with the Active Template Libraries (ATL), version 1.1 or later. If you use Visual C++ version 4.1, you must have the Win32 SDK.
• If you plan to create and run Java components with MTS, use the Microsoft Virtual Machine for Java installed with IE 4.0 or later. You can download Internet Explorer from http://www.microsoft.com/ie/.
• If you plan to create Internet applications, you must use Microsoft Internet Information Server version 4.0 or later and Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later.
• To use MTS with an Oracle 7.3.3 or an Oracle 8 database, install Oracle patch 7.3.3.2.0 or later from Oracle. To obtain this patch your must contact the Oracle support organization. In addition, please see the Setting Up MTS to Access Oracle topic, which provides essential information for making Oracle work with Microsoft Transaction Server.

Use the Advanced Data Connector 1.1 Client

Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack installs Advanced Data Connector (ADC) version 1.5. The ADC 1.5 client only works with the Internet Explorer (IE) 4.0. The ADC 1.5 client will not work with any version of Internet Explorer before IE 4.0.

For users of the MTS Adventure Works sample application, check http://www.microsoft.com/adc for an updated ADC 1.1 client that will work with Internet Explorer version 3.0 or later. You will need to recompile the MTS Adventure Works sample to set a reference to the new ADC 1.5 recordset library (Msador15.dll).

Installing SQL Server with MTS

If you install both SQL Server and MTS, you must install SQL Server first. If you later reinstall SQL Server, you must then reinstall MTS. This limitation will be eliminated in a future release of SQL Server.

Installing MTS 1.0 over MTS 2.0

To install MTS 1.0 on a computer with MTS 2.0 installed, you must remove the following files from your system directory before running MTS 1.0 setup:

%WINDIR%\system32\adme.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\dac.exe

%WINDIR%\system32\dacdll.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\dtccm.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\dtctrace.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\dtctrace.exe

%WINDIR%\system32\dtcuic.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\dtcuis.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\dtcutil.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\dtcxatm.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\enudtc.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\logmgr.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\msdtc.exe

%WINDIR%\system32\msdtc.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\msdtcprx.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\msdtctm.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\dtccfg.cpl

%WINDIR%\system32\svcsrvl.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\xolehlp.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\mmc.exe

%WINDIR%\system32\mmc.ini

%WINDIR%\system32\mmclv.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\mmcndmgr.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\mtxinfr1.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\mtxinfr2.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\mtxclu.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\mtxrn.dll

%WINDIR%\system32\mtxdm.dll

Uninstall Option Removes User-Defined Packages

If you are using a previous version of MTS and would like to retain your user-defined packages, do not use the Uninstall option in the setup program or the Add/Remove Programs service icon in the Control Panel. Uninstalling MTS results in the removal of all user-defined packages. To preserve user-defined packages when upgrading, install MTS over your existing version of MTS.

Incorrect System Package Identity Passwords

If you incorrectly specify a password for the System Package Identity on setup, the Microsoft Transaction Server Explorer will not run. You will get a 80008005 error (server exec failure) back from the catalog server (System package). To fix a bad system password, reinstall Microsoft Transaction Server.

In addition, if you incorrectly specify the password on a System Package Identity, the package won’t run. You will get the same 80008005 error. But this time, the client will see this failure HRESULT on a CoCreateInstance or equivalent. To fix this, go back to the Explorer and adjust the package's identity (through the package's Identity tab). User IDs are verified, but passwords are not because of security restrictions in Windows NT.

Alpha Platforms

MTS is supported on Alpha AXP™ computers. However, this release of Microsoft Transaction Server for Alpha platforms does not include the following:

• Microsoft Visual J++ components and samples
• Support for accessing Oracle databases

You can find sample Microsoft Visual C++ and Visual Basic components as well as the administrative sample scripts in the \Samples folder.

For the latest information on Alpha platform support, see http://www.microsoft.com/transaction.

To validate your MTS installation on Alpha platforms, you can run the Sample Bank application using two computers, an Alpha computer (as a server), and an X86 computer (as a client). See the Setting Up the MTS Sample Bank Application topic for more details.