Prerequisites

Before you start installing ABB Ability™ History, make sure that you have a supported Windows operating system version installed on your computer. You can see your operating system version in "Control Panel" > "System", for example. Supported Windows versions are Windows Server 2025, 2022, or 2019, Windows 11 or 10 (64-bit), and the respective Windows embedded systems. In Windows 2025, the wmic tool must be manually installed beforehand (for example with command DISM /Online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:WMIC~~~~) . Windows 2016 has partial support. See more details on the release notes of the version Release notes .

Log in as a user that has administrator privileges. If you have the User Account Control (UAC) setting enabled, you must run the installations with "run as administrator". If you have a newer operating system version than the ones listed above, ABB Ability™ History may not support it yet.

First, you must decide the following:

The target directory for the database files (for example C:\RTDBData). It is recommended that a separate drive be used for the operating system, database, and backup in the production environment.
The ODBC Data Source Name for the database (for example, "my_rtdb"). The "Project CPIMS" style installation requires that the name has the format "computername-RTDB" or "nlbname-RTDB".
Should a high availability/redundant configuration have two or more consistency-controlled copies of the database in separate RTDB server computers?

If you have an existing ABB Ability™ History version, the version can be upgraded by following these same instructions.

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Installation of a multiple History databases or multiple ABB Ability™ History versions (different) on a single computer is not supported.

Installation

The ABB Ability™ History installation kits are available for download here (ABB intranet only).

The installation kit that comes from the development team only contains the tools for creating an upper-level setup program to install ABB Ability™ History. In integrated installation packages, the ABB Ability™ History installation package resides in some subdirectory that is called by the main installer. For example, 800xA History product contains a system installer that installs RTDB as one part of the installation.

After downloading the installation kit, extract its contents into location you choose. The command line installer is the only recommended way to install ABB Ability™ History. If the distribution media includes the folder Project CPIMS, the installation can be executed from that folder. For more detailed installation instructions, you can read through Project CPIMS RTDB Setup Instructions.txt file inside the Project CPIMS folder.

Here is an example for installing a single RTDB server, a detailed installation steps for single installation is available here. All the available installation parameters are listed below. If you are doing non-production installation, it might be easier options to use the demo installation.

cmdkey /generic:CPIMS/ADMIN /user:testmainadmin /pass
Enter the password for 'testmainadmin' to connect to 'CPIMS/ADMIN':
cmdkey /generic:CPIMS/DBADMIN /user:testmaindbadmin /pass
Enter the password for 'testmaindbadmin' to connect to 'CPIMS/DBADMIN':
Cmd /s /c ""\Project CPIMS\Install_Server.bat" /INSTALLATIONTYPE 1 /DBSIZE high /NODETYPE 1 /ADMINUSER "*CPIMS/ADMIN" /ADMINPASSWORD "*" /DBADMINUSER "*CPIMS/DBADMIN" /DBADMINPASSWORD "*""

Previous example stores the username and password to Windows vault to value passing them in clear text in command line.

The installation creates a local user group with name "RTDB-Direct" and adds the installer user to that group (version info 5.3_25.06). This user group grants write access to database and application directories (except bin) without activating the administrator privileges (re-logon is needed after installing the first time so that the group membership takes effect).

Demo installation

First, navigate inside the Project CPIMS folder. There you should find executable called DEMO Installation for Main Node. Now, that file should be executed and follow the instructions. Executable will generate two new users "testmainadmin" and "testmaindbadmin". You can accept the password that the executable auto-generates for you. You do not need to save the password unless you are planning to install a High Availability system.

Installation parameters

Parameter	Mandatory	Default	Description
/TZ	Yes		CSCommon style time zone string (same as in many UNIX systems). This is the relative file name under the directory %CSCommon_TZDIR% (available in computers where RTDB has already been installed) and uses forward slash as the subfolder separator. For example, "Europe/Helsinki".
/DSN	Yes		The ODBC data source name. There max length is 32 and it should not contain spaces or special characters. NOTE: in cPIMS installation this parameter is agreed to have the format computername + "-RTDB". This naming is assumed by the automatic configuration programs that configure the hierarchical cPIMS system. NOTE: when installing a redundant Main server node, the "computername" must be the common network name of the Main servers (configured with Microsoft NLB configuration). For example, "800XA-CN1-RTDB".
/DATAPATH	No	D:\RTDBData or C:\RTDB\RTDBData	Database path. This directory contains the RTDB table files.
/APP_ROOT	No	D:\Application or C:\RTDB\Application	Application software path.
/BACKUP_ROOT	No	"E:", "D:", "C:\RTDB Backup" or "C:\RTDB Backup"	Backup root directory. The folder or disk where the cyclic online backups are created (by the scheduled task of RTDB that uses the TimedTasks mechanism).
/ADMINUSER	Yes		The user account name that will have administrator privileges and that will be used as the logon account for certain RTDB services. The user account must already exist and it must belong to the local administrators group. The RTDB setup will add this user also to the RTDB-Admin group.
/ADMINPASSWORD	Yes		The password for the admin user. It is recommended to use Windows Vault to avoid passing cleartext passwords.
/DBADMINUSER	Yes		User name that can be used to connect to the local database by using Vtrin connection and has admin rights to the RTDB database. The user account must already exist. This user account does not need to have any permissions for using Windows, except that the network logon must be possible. The RTDB setup will add this user to the RTDB-Admin group. Note: the same user account and password must be used for all replicas of the redundant main system.
/DBADMINPASSWORD	Yes		The password for the database admin user. It is recommended to use Windows Vault to avoid passing cleartext passwords.
/NODETYPE	No		The type of the cPIMS node. Possible values are 1 for "Main" and 0 for "Data_Collector" (also possible to have value 99 which means a standalone node without hierarchical cPIMS system support). This is what effects the parameter has in the current version (5.0 beta): Setup: The history len is only 8 days in DCN Setup: The OPC event log format is not splitted in DCN Setup: The set of perfmon variables is different (Main has variables for TCC etc) Setup: CurrentValueQueueLength is 200000 in DCN and 1000000 in Main Setup: Disable online backup in DCN Setup: TableFlushInterval is 15 min in DCN Setup: CollectSecondaryLogs only in Main Setup: Install UA server only in Main RTDBDriver: Tag class assigns collectornode automatically in DCN RTDBDriver: Tag class verifies SourceNode is given only in Main RTDBDriver: Tag class verifies that SourceNode type is Main
/DBSIZE	Yes		The disk utilization of RTDB database from the free space. Possible values "Low", "Medium" and "High" correspond to percentages 10%, 40% and 75%. The free space is determined during the installation time, and the actual amount of gigabytes is calculated.
/INSTALLATIONTYPE	Yes		1 : For DCN and Standalone Main Server Installation -2 : For High Availability (First Node) -3: For High Availability (Second Node)

Installing hotfixes

Starting from the ABB Ability™ History version 5.1 (product version 510), separate hotfix packages are no longer prepared due to the continuous delivery model of the software. Instead, the upgrade must be done by running the full upgrade instead (i.e., executing the Setup.Cmd from the root of the distribution media, which will then activate Install_Server.bat from the appropriate directory).

For ABB Ability™ History versions up to 5.0 hotfix packages are prepared. However, if a correction is available in a newer release, it is recommended that the system is upgraded to the new release.

Small updates can also be installed from a hotfix or update package that are regularly provided starting from ABB Ability™ History version 4.5 (and ending in 5.0). After an ABB Ability™ History version has been released, the daily build of ABB Ability™ History also produces an update package that can be used to update the binaries and other product files by running a hotfix installation package.

The hotfix installation package consists of a single executable file that installs the hotfix or update. The difference between hotfix and update is that the update contains all changes to the product after a release. A hotfix contains only some specific parts of the product. The updates and hotfixes can be installed in any order. The version and modification date comparison is used in the Windows Installer technology to make sure that older files are not copied over newer versions. The hotfix packages can only be installed to the correct binary-compatible ABB Ability™ History version. The package contains verification code for checking this. The installation will fail to an error if the hotfix package is not compatible.

Some details on versioning and hotfixes are presented below with core database RTDB of the ABB Ability™ History.

Error: hotfix and installed version not compatible

For example, the following kind of error is displayed if the hotfix and installed version are not binary-compatible.

Hotfix version is 4.5.3309, currently installed RTDB version is 4.6.630, the M and N must match in version M.Nx.*

Error: Old hotfix package

The following kind of error message is displayed if the hotfix package is old.

Hotfix version is 4.5.3309, currently installed RTDB version is 4.5.3310, this hotfix is not needed because the installed version already contains the fix

If it has been a long time since the release of a product version, and the size of the update package has grown large, a separate smaller update package may be available, but it requires a later service release (or update) version of the product. If your installed product is older than this, the installer displays an error message such as

Hotfix version is 4.5.3309, currently installed RTDB version is 4.5.202, this hotfix is not applicable to versions older than 4.5.2209. Install that first, or obtain a different hotfix that targets your installed RTDB version

Feature release

The ABB Ability™ History also has the concept of a "Feature release". Feature release versions are new versions to released versions that also contain new features and not only hotfixes. For example, 4.5-1 is a feature release of 4.5. The internal version number of the feature release is 4.51. and the original release version number is 4.50.. The hotfix and update versions of feature releases are binary-compatible with the older version (except in some cases when there has really been a need to break binary incompatibility).

The name of the installation package reveals the oldest target version of the hotfix. For example, the following hotfix package can have the name.

Setup ABB RTDB 4.50.2720 Hotfix r 4.50.3309.exe

This targets RTDB 4.50.2720 version and later. The hotfix version itself is 4.5.3309. The letter “r” in the package name tells that this package only contains the runtime files. A separate package is always available that has the letter “p” in the name, which means that the package also contains programming support (the include files, the import libraries, the debug versions etc.).

The name of the “Update” package, which contains all changes to the product, has a name such as

Setup ABB RTDB 4.50.2720 Update p 4.50.3309.exe

The setup package is organized as an InstallShield suite installation that installs both the 32-bit and 64-bit software of the product (as separate .msi files). If a newer build of the same update or hotfix is installed, the installer performs an upgrade, which means that the version in "Programs and Features" will update. The "View Installed Updates" function of the "Programs and Features" control panel can be used to list the installed RTDB updates. The uninstallation of the updates is possible, but the process actually does not revert any changes to the installed files, but just keeps the current files in the product directories.

The files in the setup package have been compressed to the .exe file by using InstallShield technology. If you need to extract the files as separate files, you need to first run the package with the qualifier /Stage_Only. This extracts the individual setup packages as subdirectories of the given target directory. You can also run this silently with a command such as (all in one line):

start /wait "" "Setup ABB RTDB 4.50.2720 Hotfix r 4.50.3309.exe" /silent /stage_only ISRootStagePath="G:\s"

The stage subdirectories contain files with the name setup.exe, and you can run these files with the qualifier /a. You can also run it silently with a command such as:

start /wait setup.exe /a /v"TARGETDIR=G:\s1\ /qn"

However, the resulting .msi file is not the same as is embedded in the setup.exe, because the /a installation also uncompresses the files as separate files. If you want to directly get the (digitally signed) embedded .msi file, you can start the setup.exe interactively, and look for the uncompressed files from a subdirectory of the temp folder.

Before installing the hotfix, you should stop the running of RTDB. If the hotfix contains some files that are used by the running programs, the installer displays a message that displays the list of programs that need to be stopped. You should not try to let the installer automatically restart the programs, because some programs are services that have dependencies and cannot be stopped automatically. As a result of this, the system would need to be restarted after installing the hotfix.

Silent Installation

To run the hotfix installation silently, use the /silent qualifier in the command line. You should stop RTDB first to avoid the need for rebooting the computer.

The hotfix is not an upgrade to the installed RTDB, so the RTDB version number does not change in the "Programs and Features" list. Instead, it is an "update" and it shows in "installed updates".

The installation reports the success/failure with the process exit status. Zero means success, and nonzero means failure, except 3010 means that the installation was successful but a reboot is still needed (to avoid the reboot, stop RTDB before running the hotfix installation). 3010 is returned if the setup is run silently and a reboot is needed, or when run with the UI and the user did not allow the reboot to occur at the end of the installation. (If the user chooses to reboot, the setup appears to return exit code 1641, according to some experiments. However, because Windows shuts down, one possible explanation is that the waiting process is just terminated before it can get the exit code.)

Log files

The main level log of the installation or upgrade goes to directory "%USERPROFILE%\ABB Oy\Log" as file with name "APP_Install_RTDB_Project_yyyy-mm-dd.log" where "yyyy-mm-dd" is the current date and "%USERPROFILE%" is the home directory of the installer uiser (you can just write "%USERPROFILE%\ABB Oy\Log" (without quotes) to the address bar of Windows Explorer or use CD /D "%USERPROFILE%\ABB Oy\Log" in Cmd console. If multiple installations are done on the same day, the log is appended to the existing log file.

The other log files are written to the Diag folder of the database (e.g. D:\RTDBData\Diag). If something goes wrong during the installation, the main level log file, or the console messages of the installation usually indicate what log file contains additional diagnostic information.

History information about installed versions is written to the Diag folder with name: Installation_History_Log.txt.

Some log files are written to the Diag folder in such way that the latest log is in one file, and cumulative log is appended to the file that has a date in its name (this also contains the latest log). For example: "APP_FeatureInstaller_SelectedFeatures.log" and "APP_FeatureInstaller_SelectedFeatures_2025-09-20.log". If a main level log file refers to a log file with name such as "APP_RtdbServiceInstaller.log", you should actually see also the file "APP_RtdbServiceInstaller_yyyy-mm-dd.log" instead, where "yyyy-mm-dd" is the date when the installation was done.

Installing History Servers

Single Node System

If you wish to install a Windows environment with no redundancy support, please find detailed guide here Installing History Server – Single Node System.

High Availability System

If you wish to install a High Availability environment to Windows, please find detailed guide here Installing History Server – High Availability System. ABB Ability™ History supports high availability configurations where two history nodes replicate data between each others and form one high availability database.

DCN of a Hierarchical System

If you wish to install a data collector node (DCN) of a hierarchical system on a Windows environment, please find detailed guide here Installing DCN (Data Collector Node) of a Hierarchical System.

Upgrading History Software

If you wish to upgrade your ABB Ability™ History Server on Windows environment, please find further guide here Upgrading History software.

Uninstalling History Software

If you wish to uninstall your ABB Ability™ History Server on a Windows environment, please find detailed guide here Uninstalling History software.