Installing Lotus SmartSuite on ArcaOS

Wikis > ArcaOS > Post-install Tips & Hints > Installing Lotus SmartSuite on ArcaOS

Despite having been discontinued by IBM/Lotus for a number of years, the Lotus SmartSuite office suite is still favored by many users for its polish and power. While Arca Noae has been unable to obtain new SmartSuite licenses, it is quite possible to install an existing Lotus SmartSuite package on ArcaOS, with a few manual tweaks along the way.

This wiki deals only with how to install SmartSuite, not how to obtain it or unpack non-standard archives. Arca Noae does not condone nor provide support for software which has not legally been obtained. The following assumes that you have a legitimate, available license for SmartSuite prior to beginning the installation.

  1. Start by installing from real distribution media or a downloaded installation package. It is not recommended to attempt to copy an installed SmartSuite from one system to another.
  2. Ensure that you have a backup of your current configuration. The easiest way is to enable archiving from the Archives tab of the Desktop properties notebook, checking the box to Archive Desktop at next Desktop startup only, then reboot the system.
  3. Review CONFIG.SYS, ensuring that it ends with a CR LF (blank line in the editor). This should ensure that the venerable IBM installer does not attempt to concatenate the first SmartSuite statement and the last existing statement.
  4. Install by clicking on the INSTALL.CMD or INSTALL.EXE on the SmartSuite media or the directory from which SmartSuite is to be installed, or from a command prompt under CMD.EXE.
    If installing under a different shell, be sure to set the following variable before running the installer:

    SET SSI_VERCHECK=0

    to disable OS version & revision checking (without this, the install will fail under 4OS2 and likely other shells, complaining that the OS is not up to the correct FixPak level).

  5. Optional: To enable more detailed logging of the installation, set the following variable before running INSTALL.EXE (or INSTALL.CMD):
    SET SSI_DEBUG=path-to-debug-log
  6. Allow the installer to edit CONFIG.SYS. (You will need to edit some of these changes, later, before rebooting.)
  7. Skip the product registration (Java utility). IBM/Lotus is not doing anything with this information anymore, as far as we know. Whether the registration actually connects to a legitimate server on the other end is also unknown.
  8. After the installation completes, review CONFIG.SYS. Check the following:
    1. Last lines, as the SmartSuite-specific statements will be appended here (look for concatenated lines).
    2. Edit LIBPATH to move the X:\LOTUSW4\COMPNENT, X:\LOTUSW4\ORGANIZE, X:\LOTUSW4\APPROACH, and X:\LOTUSW4\123 directories to the end of the list, but ahead of X:\LOTUSW4\FLG (and the rest), instead of just after the dot at the beginning.
    3. Remove any added TEMP and TMP settings, as these will undoubtedly come after the “real” paths and will thus overwrite the intended locations with X:\LOTUSW4\TMP.
  9. After installing and editing CONFIG.SYS, reboot.
  10. Install the SmartSuite 1.7.3 package (Fixpack 3) after the SmartSuite 1.7 main install, following a reboot (i.e., install 1.7, reboot, install 1.7.3), which should address the major issues with 1.7 as originally delivered by IBM/Lotus.
  11. After applying the 1.7.3 fixes, reboot before using the SmartSuite apps.

Eventually, and depending upon demand, Arca Noae may provide a wrapper script for the installation to automate some of the above steps.

This entry last updated: by Lewis Rosenthal