Finding and installing product updates

Use Rational® Product Updater to locate and install product updates and optional new features for installed Rational software development products.

Prerequisites:
  • By default, Internet access is required but you can change the preferences for Product Updater to retrieve updates from a local update site instead. See Changing the update sites preference for more information.
  • If you are in an environment where a proxy server is used to filter HTTP requests, you may need to configure Product Updater to use your proxy server to connect to the Internet. See Configuring Rational Product Updater to use a proxy server for more information.
  • If you disabled any product features in the Rational Software Development Platform by using the configuration manager (Help > Software Updates > Manage Configuration), or by modifying feature.xml files, you must re-enable them before installing product updates.

To find and install product updates:

  1. Log on to your system with the same user account used to install your Rational software development product.

    Restriction: On Windows® operating systems, this account requires Administrator privileges. On Linux® operating systems, you must use the root user account.

  2. Start Rational Product Updater:
    • On Windows operating systems, click Start > Programs > IBM Rational > Rational Product Updater.
    • On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0, open the main menu and click Programming > Rational Product Updater.
    • On SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0 (GNOME desktop environment), open the main menu and click Applications > Programming > Rational Product Updater.
    • On SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0 (K Desktop Environment), open the main menu and click IBM Rational > Rational Product Updater.
    An inventory of installed products is displayed.
  3. To search for available updates, click the Find Updates button. To search for new optional features, click the Find Optional Features button. (The same results are achieved when you first click the Updates tab or the Optional Features tab, respectively.) A progress indicator tells shows update sites are being searched.
  4. If updates are found for the Product Updater itself, you are prompted to confirm that you want to proceed with installing the updates. Click OK to proceed. The tool automatically stops, restarts, and resumes the requested search. If you click Cancel, the tool cannot search for new updates or optional new features.
  5. For product updates:
    1. The Updates page shows the type and number of available updates for each installed product or feature. You can click on each update to display its description and detailed information. Review the detailed information before installing the update.
    2. Recommended updates are selected by default. Corequisite updates are automatically selected and deselected together. If you change any selections, you can restore the default by clicking the Set Recommended button.
    3. Click Install Updates to install the selected list of updates.
  6. For optional features:
    1. The Optional Features page shows the name and version of any new optional features that are available.
    2. Before installing any new feature, click on its name to review the detailed information.
    3. Select the list of features you want to install. You will receive a warning message if there are product updates that must be installed prior to installing a feature.
    4. Click Install Features to install the optional features you have selected.
  7. If there is special information for any items that you have selected, a Notices dialog box opens. (For example, for a very large update there may be a notice recommending that you download a ZIP file of the update and use Rational Product Updater to install the update from the ZIP file.) Review the notice information and click Continue to close the dialog box and proceed.

    If you have selected multiple items to install, you may need to review multiple notices. Click each update listed in the top pane of the dialog box to display its notice in the lower pane. After you have reviewed all of the notices, click Continue to close the dialog box and proceed.

  8. If the Rational Software Development Platform is running, you may be prompted to stop it. After stopping the Rational Software Development Platform, return to the Product Updater tool and again click Install Updates or Install Features.

    You may be prompted to stop the Rational Software Development Platform when it is not running.  This can happen if it was stopped abnormally. If this happens, restart the Rational Software Development Platform and stop it normally. See Handling messages to stop the Rational Software Development Platform when it is not running for more information.

  9. A dialog box shows the license agreement for the product updates or optional features that you have selected. Once you have read and accepted the license agreement, click OK to begin the installation.

    If you selected more than one item to install, you may need to accept more than one license agreement before the installation begins.

    Depending on the speed of your computer processor, the amount of RAM, and the speed of your Internet connection, the update might take an extended period of time to download and install.
When the installation is finished, the progress indicator closes and a message confirming the success of the operation appears in the top pane of Product Updater. The product updates or optional features that you installed are removed from their respective pages and are added to the Installed Products page. Because fix packs are cumulative, only the highest fix pack level is shown. Interim fixes, if any, are listed below the product or feature to which they apply.
Related concepts
Rational Product Updater overview
Fix packs and other types of updates
Related tasks
Changing the update sites preference
Configuring Rational Product Updater to use a proxy server
Exporting a list of installed Rational software development products
Removing outdated files
Rolling back product updates
Running Rational Product Updater from a command line
Handling messages to stop the Rational Software Development Platform when it is not running
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