Gen Toolset "The Licensing subsystem is either not present ..."

Products

• Gen
• Gen - Workstation Toolset

Issue/Introduction

On some Gen 8.6 Developer machines, these fatal License error messages have suddenly started to appear when trying to start the toolset:

1.  

The Licensing subsystem is either not present or not installed correctly.
Reinstalling the application should correct this.

2.

Incompatible version of Licensing detected. Version 1.57.0 or 
better is required, version NONE was detected.

After uninstalling and reinstalling the Gen 8.6 application, some machines started to work but others did not. What can we do?
Also is there a way to fix the problem without reinstalling the Gen 8.6 application?

Environment

Release : 8.6

Cause

In this particular scenario, it was found that some of the required CA ALP License software registry settings "InstallPath" and "InstallPathNew" under key "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ComputerAssociates\License" had been lost.
The software itself was still present in the directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\CA\SharedComponents\CA_LIC".

Resolution

On a working maachine the registry key "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ComputerAssociates\License" should be visible as follows when using a utility like regedit.exe:







The values for "InstallPath" and "InstallPathNew" were added back to resolve the problem.
"InstallPath"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\CA\\SharedComponents\\CA_LIC\\"
"InstallPathNew"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\CA\\SharedComponents\\CA_LIC\\"

Additional Information

Gen Support was also able to recreate the same Gen 8.6 Toolset showing Licensing error dialog box errors by deliberately uninstalling the CA ALP License software while retaining the Gen 8.6 software.
It was then found that repairing the Gen 8.6 installation restored the license software and its registry key settings. However, to use this option these steps are required:

1. IMPORTANT: First make a backup copy of the "%Gen86%" installation directory (default location "C:\Program Files (x86)\CA\Gen86").
   This is required because the Repair option is only designed to be run on a clean Gen 8.6 GA installation with no PTFs installed.
   
   
2. Under "Control Panel/Programs and Features" use the right mouse button on "CA Gen 8.6" and choose option "Repair".
   
   
3. After the Repair completes delete the "%Gen86%" directory and restore the backup copy.
   
   
4. Copy the ca.olf license file into the directory "C:\Program Files (x86)\CA\SharedComponents\CA_LIC".
   
   
5. The Gen Toolset should start without the fatal dialog box errors. 
   
   

Therefore if these symptoms reoccur and the License software has also been lost the above steps can be used to resolve the problem without having to do a complete Gen 8.6 uninstall/install plus PTF installs.