Adobe RoboHelp Server 8 – Installation

Adobe RoboHelp Server 8 is completely rewritten in Java and is much more stable and robust than previous versions. Installation is very simplified now.

One major difference from earlier versions is now RoboHelp Server 8 does not need IIS Server. Instead it uses Tomcat server.

You can download RoboHelp Server 8 trial version here.

Prerequisite for installing RoboHelp Server 8

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.5 or higher (http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp).
• Tomcat 6.0.14 (or higher) (http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi). Download the Windows Service Installer which is listed in the “Binary Distributions”.

Steps to install Tomcat

1. Make sure JRE is installed.
2. Double click the Windows Service Installer to start the installation process.
3. In the “Choose Components” window, leave the “Type of install” as default option which is “Normal”.
4. Click next and select destination path for Tomcat.
5. Click next and specify the Tomcat Port. The default value is 8080. If you have some other process running on this port like IIS or something else, then you can change this port value to any other value like 8181 etc.
6. Default user name is provided as admin. You can use the same.
7. Click next and the Tomcat installer will automatically detect the JRE path for you. If you want you can change this value.
8. Click on install and then installation process will begin.
9. After installation is complete, Tomcat service will be started. A tomcat icon will be created in your taskbar.
10. Verify that tomcat is up and running by opening the page http://localhost: in browser.
11. This should open the Tomcat Home Page if your tomcat is successfully running.
12. If you are unable to see the tomcat home page, see the tomcat log which are located at /logs.

How to start/stop Tomcat Service

There are a number of ways in which you can start/stop tomcat service

1. Double click the tomcat icon in the taskbar and that will launch the Tomcat Properties dialog and using that Tomcat service can be started/stopped.
2. In the Run prompt, enter services.msc. That will launch the Windows Service dialog. From the Windows services dialog box, you can start, stop, or restart Tomcat 6.0 service
3. Open the /bin folder and double-click tomcat6w.exe to launch Tomcat Configuration dialog box. You can start, stop, or restart from this dialog box.

Basic steps to install RoboHelp Server 8

1. Install JRE and Tomcat.
2. Verify Tomcat is up and running by visiting URL: http://localhost:
3. Launch setup.exe of RoboHelp Server 8
4. Just proceed through the installed, accept the license agreement and choose the destination path for RoboHelp Server 8 installation.
5. RoboHelp Server 8 should get installed.
6. Now open RoboHelp Server web admin URL in browser: http://localhost:/robohelp/admin
7. Web Admin login page should get opened up.
8. Use default user name “admin” and password ”admin” to log in.
9. RoboHelp Server 8 web admin should get launched.

Tomcat can be configured to run with Apache or Microsoft IIS web servers. Details can be found in Getting Started Guide and Help documentation.