Preparing for Installation 2-11
Creating Multiple Home Directories Although in most situations, a single Middleware home directory is sufficient, it is
possible to create more than one Middleware home directory. For example, you need to maintain multiple Middleware home directories in the following situations:
■
You prefer to maintain separate development and production environments, with a separate product stack for each. With two directories, you can update your
development environment without modifying the production environment until you are ready to do so.
■
You want to maintain two different versions of WebLogic Server at the same time. For example, you may want to install a new version of WebLogic Server while
keeping your existing version of WebLogic Server intact. In this case, you must install each WebLogic Server version in its own Middleware home directory.
■
The registry.xml file in your WebLogic Server installation is corrupted.
■
After installation, the shared modules directory would contain multiple versions of one or more of the same third-party products.
2.4.2 Choosing Product Installation Directories
On the Choose Product Installation Directories screen of the installation program, you are prompted to enter the home directories for the following products:
■
Oracle WebLogic Server
■
Oracle Coherence only if you selected this component for installation
■
Enterprise Pack for Eclipse only if you are using an installer that includes this product
The WebLogic Server home directory contains all the WebLogic Server components that you choose to install on your system, including program files and examples.The
Notes: Once you create WebLogic domains and applications, the
Middleware home directory also contains a directory in which they are stored the default location is user_projects. This directory
contains applications and domains sub-directories. The applications directory contains a sub-directory for each
application you create, and the domains directory contains a sub-directory for each domain you create.
You may want to create all domains for your environment outside of the Middleware home directory. This makes it easier for you to
remove an existing installation, or upgrade to a newer version of WebLogic Server, without having to recreate your domains and
applications.
Note: You do not have to create a second Middleware home
directory when using an Upgrade installer to upgrade an existing WebLogic Server installation to the current patch release. For example,
if you are upgrading from WebLogic Server 10.3.1 to WebLogic Server 10.3.5 using an Upgrade installer, when running the WebLogic Server
10.3.5 Upgrade installer, you must select the Middleware home directory in which WebLogic Server 10.3.1 resides.
2-12 Oracle Fusion Middleware Installation Guide for Oracle WebLogic Server
default installation directory for WebLogic Server 10.3.5 is C:\MW_HOME\wlserver_ 10.3. This directory path is referenced as the WL_HOME directory in Fusion
Middleware documentation.
The default installation directory for Coherence is C:\MW_HOME\coherence_ version
. The default installation directory for Enterprise Pack for Eclipse is C:\MW_
HOME \oepe_10.3.
2.5 Installation Modes
