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How to reinstall Installation Manager without removing installed IBM products

Question & Answer


Question

How do you reinstall IBM® Installation Manager (IM) without removing installed IBM products?

Cause

You want to reinstall Installation Manager due to following reasons:
  1. IBM Installation Manager failed during the installation or update process.
  2. Files or folders in the IBM Installation Manager installation directory were accidentally removed.
  3. You need to switch from 32-bit to 64-bit Installation Manager with removing installed products.
  4. You want to move the installation to a different location.

Answer

For reason 1 or 2, you can use the  'imcl -reinstallIM' option to install the same version or a later version of Installation Manager. Use this option when you have issues with the current installation of Installation Manager.

See: imcl command reference
Reinstalling IBM Installation Manager without uninstalling the point products usually resolves most issues.

For reason 3 or 4, proceed with the method below.

For UNIX users, the instruction below can be applied on UNIX platforms; however, you must use the UNIX paths that are listed in this table.
Windows UNIX
C:\ProgramData\IBM\Installation Manager /var/ibm/InstallationManager
C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager
/opt/IBM/InstallationManager
1. Make a copy of 'C:\ProgramData\IBM\Installation Manager' folder. (This folder is also known as agentDataLocation).

Note: agentData contains important information for IBM Installation Manager such as a list of products that have been installed, troubleshooting logs, and more. Having a copy of Installation Manager folder is good idea in case the IM install.exe fails to restore. 
2. Rename the IBM Installation Manager <installation_folder> (default location: C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager) to <installation_folder>.bak
3. Download the latest version of IBM Installation Manager:
4. Extract the latest version of IBM Installation Manager and execute install.exe (Windows) or install (UNIX)
5. Follow the instruction in the install wizard and verify that installed packages are still there at the end of installation.

Note: The <installation_folder>.bak and the copied agentData in steps 1-2 can be removed once Installation Manager is fully functional.

If this does not resolve the issue, collect the agentData folder and contact IBM Support.

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Product Synonym

IM

Document Information

Modified date:
24 September 2025

UID

swg21290142

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