NAV 2016 installation overwrites NAV 2015 Administration Tool

If you are like me, than you might have installed NAV 2016 right away after it was released during Directions EMEA in Mannheim this week.

Dynamics NAV 2016 installs nicely side-by-side with Dynamics NAV 2015. (By the way, the items in the menu are now called ‘Dynamics NAV 2016’ instead of ‘Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016’. So look at the ‘D’ in your menu and not at the ‘M’).

There is one small issue with installing NAV 2016 along NAV 2015: the NAV Administration Tool of NAV 2015 doesn’t work anymore. If you start it, you will notice that the NAV 2015 Administration Tool is actually the NAV 2016 version. And you can’t administer the NAV 2015 servers using the NAV 2016 Administration Tool. You will see this kind of error:

The real and rock solid solution to manage your existing NAV 2015 services is simple: go use PowerShell.

If you are not a PowerShell hero right now, and don’t want to take this opportunity to become one, then read on for a solution to repair the NAV 2015 Administration Tool.

[UPDATE 14-10-2015] Waldo doesn’t want to call himself a PowerShel guru, but if he is not, who else is? He couldn’t resist and wrote a PowerShell script to fix the NAV 2015 Administration tool. I was only thinking about using PowerShell to administer NAV servers. However, look at the script Waldo wrote, and see that PowerShell can do a lot more!

Reason

The reason that NAV 2015 Administration Tool is actually starting NAV 2016 is because of a registry entry. There is just one registry entry that is used for both versions which points to the assemblies that must be loaded.

The NAV Administration Tool is a Microsoft Management Console snap-in. This snap-in is started by the file “Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server.msc” which is in your RoleTailored Client folder.

The “Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server.msc” file is basically an XML file with an entry that points to and registry key.

The NAV 2015 and NAV 2016 Administration Tool both point to this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MMC\SnapIns\FX:{BA484C42-ED9A-4bc1-925F-23E64E686FCE}

Manual steps to fix

The solution to fix the NAV 2015 Administration Tool is as follows.

You can also download the registry file here and skip to step 3.

Step 1

Open the registry editor, find the key and export it to a file.

Step 2

Edit the exported file:

Search for all occurences of  C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\\90 and change it to C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\\80

Search for Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.ManagementUI, Version=9.0.0.0 and change it to Microsoft.Dynamics.Nav.ManagementUI, Version=8.0.0.0

Change all occurences of BA484C42-ED9A-4bc1-925F-23E64E686FCE to BA484C41-ED9A-4bc1-925F-23E64E686FCE. (Only changed 8th character here, you can even choose to replace the complete GUID).

Step 3

Import the file into the registry by double clicking on it. Answer yes to the security warning (only if you are sure you can trust me, otherwise let it go…).

Step 4

Open your favorite text editor (run as Administrator) and open C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\80\RoleTailored Client\Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server.msc

Step 5

Change all occurences of BA484C42-ED9A-4bc1-925F-23E64E686FCE to BA484C41-ED9A-4bc1-925F-23E64E686FCE
Notice this is the same GUID as changed in step 2. There are 4 occurences.

Save the file and close it.

Now both NAV 2015 and NAV 2016 Administration Tool run nicely side-by-side!