"Problem Ascertaining Version Information" error when installing or upgrading Microsoft Dynamics GP

A frequent error seen when attempting to install Microsoft Dynamics GP, install a new feature to an existing Microsoft Dynamics GP environment, or run an upgrade of an existing Microsoft Dynamics GP environment, is the following error in Utilities:

From this message, we go into the 'Data' folder located within our Microsoft Dynamics GP directory (i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Dynamics\GP####\Data) and find the duinstall.log referenced in the error message. Looking at the duisntall.log, it shows something like this example at the end of the log file:

"Product 0 does not support upgrading from version 18.0.1596"

"Product 1045 does not support from version 18.0.1392"

 These type of version error messages, when we see them, usually means that one of two things is happening to cause the error or both:

1. If doing an install of a new feature to an existing Microsoft Dynamics GP environment, there is remnants of a prior install of that feature, and it is at a version to low to install/upgrade to your current version/build of Microsoft Dynamics GP.

2. If doing an upgrade of Microsoft Dynamics GP, these types of errors are indicative of either not being at a high enough version/build on your current Microsoft Dynamics GP environment to upgrade to the version/build of Microsoft Dynamics GP that you're attempting to upgrade to and/or you're not upgrading to a high enough version/build of Microsoft Dynamics GP based on the current version/build of Microsoft Dynamics GP that you're starting from.

For the upgrade version errors, it is important to look at the Upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics GP Hot Topic, that we have for all versions of Microsoft Dynamics GP, so you can verify that you're currently on a required version/build of Microsoft Dynamics GP that can upgrade directly to the version of Dynamics GP that you're looking to upgrade to, and what the minimum version/build of Microsoft Dynamics GP is that you must be upgrading to, based on your current version/build.

For the install version errors, we usually have a couple different options, depending on the version error.

For example, let's say I'm getting the "Product 1045 does not support from version 18.0.1392" version error when attempting to install the Revenue/Expense Deferrals feature for Microsoft Dynamics GP .

In this example, because there is no direct upgrade path, I wouldn't have the option of upgrading this feature, the only option we would have is to re-initialize this feature via the system tables, so that instead of attempting to upgrade this feature, GP Utilities would install it like a brand, new feature, thus getting past the version error.

To re-initialize a feature so that GP Utilities will install it at the current version that you're launching GP Utilities from, we would use these steps and scripts:

A. First, we would need to remove the feature from the system tables, using these script examples:

     1. Delete DB_Upgrade where PRODID = 1045

     2. Delete DU000020 where PRODID = 1045

     3. Delete DU000030 where PRODID = 1045

B. Next, along with removing the feature records from the three system tables, we would also need to remove that feature's sub-feature tables, which is what Dynamics GP Utilities also looks at to determine whether a feature has been installed or not, when it doesn't find the records in the system tables, but the feature is mentioned installed (existing in the Dynamics.set and DynUtils.set files).

    The list of sub-feature tables are as follows and I'll also attach the New-SubFeature-Guide.docx, so you can download that as well to have readily available as needed. Some features have sub-feature tables in the system database and company databases, but some only have them in the company databases:

Using the sub-feature table information above, in our example with the Revenue/Expense Deferrals feature (product 1045), there isn't any tables I would need to drop from the Dynamics GP system database, but I do need to drop the PP000001 table from all company databases that exist. (You can use the SY01500 system table for a list of company databases you need to drop the tables from.)

***NOTE: This re-initialization process can also be done on a per company database basis as well, by adding a 'where db_name = 'xxxx'' clause to the DB_Upgrade table, a 'where companyID = #' clause to the DU000020 and DU000030 scripts, and only dropping the sub-feature table(s) from that specific company database, not the system or any other company databases.

Once the product 1045 records have been removed from the DB_Upgrade, DU000020 and DU000030 tables, as well as the PP000001table dropped from all GP company databases, I would then be able to launch Microsoft Dynamics GP Utilities with Revenue/Expense Deferrals installed (i.e. present in the .set files) and install this feature anew at the current version/build of the GP application.

***NOTE: When the re-initialization of a feature is performed, all SQL objects in the databases are dropped and re-created for that feature, which means the tables are also dropped and re-created, so when deciding whether or not to perform this process, you'll want to make sure that the feature was never used or there isn't any data for the feature that needs to be kept in Dynamics GP before moving forward with this process.

We've seen this type of error enough so that we wanted to put this information out where it's easy to find, as we've had bits and pieces of this information in other documents and pages, but not so much by itself where it can be bookmarked and kept for future usage. Hopefully this will help when you run into these type of version errors. Thanks.