DB2 Setup Launchpad is not showing "Work with Existing" option.

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Let's say you are installing DB2 9.7 FP11 on a Windows server which has existing DB2 copy and you might encounter a situation where DB2 Setup Lauchpad doesn't show "Work with Existing" option.

As example :

In above screenshot you can see "Work with Existing" option is not shown despite having DB2 9.7 FP2 installed on the server.

DB2 Setup launchpad uses db2lp.js file to determine displaying of "Work with Existing" option.
So need to check the contents of db2lp.js (which resides in %TEMP%).
 

  cat db2lp.js  11+en_us ++D:\EDC\DBA\UNIVERSAL_special_35740_ntx64_universal_fixpack\+  aese:0;  ese:0;  wse:0;  pe:0;  exp:0;  expc:0;  consv:0;  client:0;  rtcl:0;  gse:5;  lsdc:5;  rcon:5;  qp:5;  doce:0;  dsdriver:0;  vsai:0;  dsdwb:0;  dsac:0;  +  aese:1;  ese:1;  wse:1;  pe:1;  exp:1;  expc:0;  consv:1;  client:1;  rtcl:0;  gse:1;  lsdc:1;  rcon:1;  qp:0;  doce:0;  dsdriver:0;  vsai:1;  dsdwb:0;  dsac:0;    

The entry "ese:0" in db2lp.js file shows that there is no ese copy already installed which could be updated thus the "Work with existing" option is missing here.
This happens when there was DB2 V8.x installed on the problem machine before or some stale entry for v8 on that machine.
Please note the DB2 related registry values were good (not corrupted) for such issue.
 

So the workaround here is to use the silent installation (i.e response file installation) instead of the GUI-installer.
But you must do all changes required in the response file like instance name, userid password used etc.

Some related links for workaround :

Response file installation of DB2 overview (Windows)
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEPGG_9.7.0/com.ibm.db2.luw.qb.server.doc/doc/t0007299.html

Editing a response file (Windows)
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEPGG_9.7.0/com.ibm.db2.luw.qb.server.doc/doc/t0007294.html

Thanks,
Shashank Kharche

IBM DB2 LUW Lab