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How to install NetWare 6.5 SP7 / Open Enterprise Server SP7 overlay with eDirectory 8.7.3

Many people still use eDirectoy 8.7.3 in their environment and are not ready to upgrade to eDirectory 8.8.x.

Since NetWare 6.5 SP7, the default installation when installing a new server is to install eDirectory 8.8.x. For many environments, this is not an option yet. A workaround is to install a new NetWare server using the SP6 overlay CD and then performing the upgrade to SP7, but this also is not an ideal solution.

There is however an undocumented and unsupported switch that can be used to install the latest NetWare 6.5 SP7 overlay with eDirectory 8.7.3.

Section 2.3 "Starting the Installation Program" of the OES / Netware documentation describes how to use startup switches.

See http://www.novell.com/documentation/oes/install-nw/data/hz8pck9v.html#hz8pck9v for details.

If you want to specify additional installation parameters, press any key before the installation program begins, press P, and then enter the parameters using this syntax:

[INST: parameter1 parameter2 parameter3 ...]

To install a new NetWare 6.5 SP7 server with eDirectory 8.7.3, use the following switch:

[INST: spedir]

This switch should also work fine with the upcoming SP8.

Please note that this solution is unsupported, use it at your own risk.