Handling Interdependencies

The uninstaller might behave differently depending on which product components you installed and how they are interrelated.

• The uninstaller recognizes dependencies among products that are installed on the same host. If you attempt to uninstall a product component that has dependent products installed on the local host, the uninstaller issues a warning.

  For example, if you attempt to uninstall Access Manager from the host where Portal Server is also installed, the uninstaller warns you that Portal Server cannot function without Access Manager.

• In most cases, you can uninstall a product component if no other product component depends on it.

  For example, Portal Server depends on Access Manager but Access Manager does not depend on Portal Server. If you attempt to uninstall Portal Server, the uninstaller does not issue a warning because Access Manager can function without Portal Server.

When uninstalling a product component, you must identify which products are configured for that product component (some additional configuration might be required). Otherwise, you might have product components on your system that are configured to support products that are no longer present.

The uninstaller does not recognize the following interdependencies:

• Dependencies from remote hosts

• Dependencies resulting from configuration

Product Component Dependencies from Remote Hosts

Some product component dependencies can be satisfied with product components deployed on remote hosts. The uninstaller does not recognize these dependency relationships.

For example, if you uninstall Directory Server, the uninstaller does not warn you that Access Manager depends on Directory Server, even if both products are deployed on the same host. This is because another Directory Server instance on another host could support Access Manager.

Product Component Dependencies Resulting from Configuration

The uninstaller does not recognize a product component dependency that is the result of postinstallation configuration.

For example, suppose you install both Portal Server and Calendar Server on the same host, and then configure Portal Server to use Calendar Server for the Portal Server calendar channel. After this configuration, Portal Server depends on Calendar Server. However, if you then uninstall Calendar Server, the uninstaller does not warn you that Portal Server depends on Calendar Server because the uninstaller does not know about the postinstallation configuration.