Planning to Install Personal Communications

This chapter describes the companion products provided with Personal Communications and topics that should be considered before installing Personal Communications Version 12.0.

Considerations Before Installing

Java Runtime Environment

Personal Communications provides a Java™ Runtime Environment (JRE) to support its Java APIs and applications. For all supported Windows operating systems, JRE 1.6.0 is installed.

Disk Space Requirements

Installation of Personal Communications to a drive other than the Windows volume (the drive containing the Windows folder) may still require as much as 180 MBs of available free space on the Windows volume. This is due to the installation of files to the Windows and system folders, as well as the caching of the Installer database by the Windows Installer service, and the use of temporary disk space by the Windows Installer service during the installation.

Migration Considerations

Personal Communications offers several migration options. To ensure that your session profiles, batch files, and other configuration information are migrated so you can use them with Version 12.0, see Custom Installation and the details on automatic migration options at .

When migrating, you might be prompted to close all active Personal Communications sessions and actions.

Multi-Boot Environment Installation

If you want to install Personal Communications into a Personal Communications subdirectory that was originally installed under another operating system, you must remove the previous version first. Failure to do this may cause unpredictable results, including not being able to run Personal Communications from either operating system.

Coexistence support

iSeries Access

Co-existence is restricted for other Emulators like IBM Personal Communications. IBM Personal Communications cannot be installed on a system where IBM Personal Communications is installed and vice versa

Coexistence support for iSeries Access PC5250 component is not provided. The iSeries Access PC5250 component must be removed prior to installing Personal Communications.

Errors Messages in various Coexistence scenarios

Following are some of the coexistence scenarios for which the Users get appropriate notification messages:

  1. From version 1205 onwards, installation of 32-bit version IBM Personal Communications on top of 64-bit IBM Personal Communications displays the following message: "Uninstall 64-bit IBM Personal Communications before proceeding with the installation of the 32-bit version."
  2. Installation of IBM Personal Communications on top of similar product displays the following message: "Installation of IBM Personal Communications cannot continue as a similar version of the product is installed on the system."
  3. From version 1205 onwards, installation of IBM Personal Communications on top of a refresh pack update installer displays the following message: "Installation of IBM Personal Communications cannot continue as a similar version of the product is installed on the system."

Windows x64 Platform Support

The x64-based versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows server 2008, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows 8, Microsoft Windows 10 and Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition are optimized to run native 64-bit programs, but do not support 32-bit drivers or 16-bit applications.

For these platforms, Personal Communications does not install the following features and libraries.