Blown away by this issue and am feeling great to cross a mysterious hurdle.

I was trying to install GP Web Services 10.0 SP4 Hot Fix NOV2009 on the following environment:

1. Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit
2. GP 10.0 SP4
3. CRM 4.0 Rollup 9
4. SQL Server 2008 SP1 64 Bit

One of the pre-requisite for Web Services is AD LDS (Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services). This needs to be installed on Windows Server 2008 and no configuration required post installation. GP Web Services will take care of creating an Instance on AD LDS and use it for it’s Data Storage on this AD LDS instance.

I crossed all those steps and started installing GP Web Services and got this message without any delay after double clicking the installer:

The Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services role must be installed on the computer before installing the Microsoft Dynamics GP Web Service.

Nothing other than the above message and I was quite blown away by it’s vagueness. After much exploration, I got the following link from Sivakumar:

Description of the 64-bit operating systems that are supported together with Microsoft Dynamics GP

In that article there is a section called Web Services Runtime Workaround under which there is a subsection called Windows Server 2008 x64 or x86 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 only, which explains the workaround.

To Summarize the Workaround: With Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit, the GP Web Services installation does not identify the AD LDS being installed. It requires a Registry Entry called ADAM_Shared with a registry value, that needs to be created under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion.

We must be carefully following the steps to avoid any consequences.

For those who do not have access to CustomerSource / PartnerSource and are struggling with this issue, comment on this article or email me to my ID: vaidy.dyngp@gmail.com.

Thanks to Sivakumar & Prem (Elcome’s Sys Admin), who were instrumental in sending this link to me on time and clearly saved my day.

VAIDY