Issue: Engagement won't install on Windows 7

Issue: When trying to install Engagement on Windows 7 RC (32 or 64-bit) you receive an error similar to "You do not have administrative rights on this computer."

Cause: The possible cause of this error message is the installer files for Engagement may not be compatible with Windows 7 (I have not verified this).

Resolution: After many attempts and different steps, I settled on the following. At least one other person on a completely different system used these steps to successfully install Engagement.

1. 1. Using the Engagement install media, I installed the prerequisites. One prerequisite, SQL 2005 Express (SP2 is included on the install media), is of particular note. During its install, a message will pop up stating that the version being installed has known compatibility issues with Windows 7 and must be upgraded to SP3. I have never tested Engagement with SQL 2005 Express SP3 with Engagement so I clicked through the message.
   
   
2. 2. I then right-clicked on the .msi file and selected "Determine compatibility." I defaulted to using Windows XP SP2 settings to install which seemed to work. After the install finished, I was able to connect to our office server and successfully login.

NOTE: There is another possibility which I haven't had time to explore called Windows XP Mode. Essentially it's a virtual machine (using Microsoft's Virtual PC of course) of Windows XP through which Windows 7 can run applications. Here's the main site and here's the support information (install requirements). If any of you successfully install Engagement using XP Mode I'd love to here back about your experience.

NEWS: Engagement and Windows 7

I recently downloaded Windows 7 RC (64-bit) and started testing Engagement's (version 5.0.1026) compatibility with Windows 7. There were some issues with the install but I finally got it to work. I contacted Engagement support and was told that they expect Engagement to be compatible with Windows 7 when it's finalized and said the general time line for Windows 7 compatibility is sometime in 2010.

However, they did not state whether a 64-bit version of Engagement was in the works or that SQL 64-bit would be supported for the 2010 release. Here's to hoping CCH develops a true 64-bit option and not just one that runs on a 64-bit OS.