I spent about one week to install Sneak Preview SAP NetWeaver 04 on my PC. I encountered a timezone problem during installation and login failure problem after installation. Finally, I found a perfect procedure to avoid all possible problems.

System Environment

1. Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1
2. Physical Memory 1 GB
3. Free Space in C: 50 GB
4. This machine is just a part of workgroup. It is not a member of domain.

Installation Steps

1. Make sure that you have installed main memory at least 512 MB. Otherwise, increase virtual memory to 1 GB
2. Apply all critical patches at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
3. Install WinRAR (if you don’t have it yet). The latest trial version as of Today is available at http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar351.exe
4. Download J2SE SDK 1.4.2_10 and install it now if you don’t have it. By default, it will be installed at c:\j2sdk1.4.2_10
   
5. Download the Sneak Preview
6. Extract the archives using WinRAR by right clicking on file NW04SneakPrevJavaSP11.part1.rar and choose Extract here. At this point , you should see a new directory NW04SneakPrevJavaSP11
    
7. Change regional setting in Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options as follows:
   
   
   • Regional Options
     • Standards and formats: German (Germany)
     • Location: Germany
     
   • Advanced
     • Language for non-Unicode programs: German (Germany)
     
8. Accept to reboot
    
9. Change timezone in Control Panel -> Date and Time to GMT+01:00 at Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna with Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes turned on
   
10. Run SAPinst.bat in directory NW04SneakPrevJavaSP11\NWSneakPreviewSP11
    
11. Log off if necessary
    
12. Accept the license agreement
    
13. Specify J2SDK path
    
14. Leave database parameters as default but adjust I/O Buffer Cache to 128 MB
    
15. Enter Log size by 1500 MB or more
    
16. Enter Database volume by 1500 MB or more
    
17. Verify summary and start the execution
    
18. Congratulations! The software should be successfully installed on your machine. Do not test it immediately. Please follow the next step
    
19. Start SAP Management Console on the desktop
20. At this point, you might see 3 instances here: a database and two SAP (instance number 0 and 1)
21. You might see the instance 0 is currently offline (grey). If yes, you need to start it now. The color will turn to yellow. It might take a while. Please wait until it is completely started (green).
    
22. Add en-us to Internet Explorer
    
23. Now you are ready to test NW’04 by opening http://localhost:50000/irj<
    
24. Try to login with user admin and password admin
    

For timezone problem, you might try to change your timezone to any timezone with dayling saving enabled.