“Unable to Find Valid Target Platform” when installing IBM Connections Plug-ins for IBM Notes

How frustrating is this? Notes 9.0.1 FP7 on Windows 10 refuses to install the Connections Plugins. Keep getting the following error message in a dialog box that only has an OK button.

"Unable To Find Valid Target Platform"

You are then offered the chance to finish the install routine.

This appears to be down to a bunch of missing registry entries that get wiped out by who knows what.

To make this work again you need to add back in the registry keys. That's all well and good, so long as you know what they are. Well here they are.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\IBM]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\IBM\Lotus]
@=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\IBM\Lotus\Expeditor]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\IBM\Lotus\Expeditor\Notes]
"launcher"="<<<YourNotesPathHERE>>>\\framework\\rcp\\rcplauncher.exe"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\IBM\Lotus\Expeditor\{D8641E4B-77AF-4EAC-9137-8D4DCB1478E2}]
"xpdInstallLocation"="<<<YourNotesPathHERE>>>\\framework\\"
"xpdHotfixVersion"="FP7"

Notes

• <<<YourNotesPathHERE>>>(two of them) amend them to whatever your path is to your Notes program directory. Be sure to follow the double backslash convention too.
  g. if you Notes.exe is in C:\IBM\Notes\ then you would replace <<<YourNotesPathHERE>>> with C:\\IBM\\Notes
• "xpdHotfixVersion"="FP7" will need to match your current level of FixPack install.

Now to use it

• Close down your Notes client and any other IBM client you might have open (e.g. Sametime).
• Once you have customised your reg file, double click on it and allow it to update your registry.
• Run the installer again and it should work this time.

Your Mileage May Vary ;o)

So having thought about this a bit more. It would be great for an administrator to be able to automate this process so that you can cater for all the different places that Notes might be installed.

Roll up ClientGenie! With its automation for client process you can automate the whole thing. See this useful 'ClientGenie - How it works' article for more information.

Here's the process flow that we are going to implement internally for this.

• Create a ClientGenie Agent (in LotusScript) to:
• Find the user in the ClientGenie Inventory database
• Get their install path information
• Write a notes9fix.reg to the file system

• Next shutdown the Notes client but in the shutdown routine fire of the command line below
• regedit /s notes9fix.reg
• We can also kick off the setup.exe from the install package.

ClientGenie information can be found at the links above and a FREE ClientGenie Analyser version is available here. Free for a whole year.

http://www.bcchub.com/clientgenie/

Interest in ClientGenie but need to know more?