Oracle workflow developer for Oracle Applications (EBS) R12 version 2.6.3.x has total 33k downloads. That gives us an idea how scarcely this software is used. Oracle sucks at one place the most, that is fixing their legacy software for new operating systems. For example, Oracle EBS R12 release 12.2 is expected to be supported until 2031, while the development tools for the same were supported till Windows XP OS. Then once in a while they boast about releasing another version of legacy tool, expected to work on later operating systems.

Oracle Workflow builder is not different. Their documentation misses one of the vital point about why one should install the software in a brand new Oracle home! Yes, if you have multiple Oracle products already installed on your computer, Workflow builder installer will pickup the first Oracle home it could read from the Windows registry and default it for the installation, which is the core of all problems you will face while & after the installation.

So, let us do a proper installation of Oracle workflow builder 2.6.3 this time.

Download the installer, which might need a valid Oracle support (Please note, this particular post might only satisfy this particular version of Oracle workflow builder). Extract the archive, go to Disk1 folder and change the property of Setup.exe as seen in the below image.

Setup the compatibility and Running this program as administrator are mandatory for a successful installation.

Now, before starting the software installation, take a backup of your PATH environment variable. Please read my other post explaining how to make a backup for the PATH and later restoring it after the Workflow builder installation.

This is not mandatory, however advisable based on the number of software that you have already installed on your computer.

Once the setup starts make sure you will setup a fresh home for “Workflow builder”

If you made a correct decision for a fresh home, then installation must complete without issues. Please check the below images for additional details. If you try to install the workflow builder in one of the existing Oracle homes, you will comes across installation error(s)

If you ignored the errors and continued with the installation, you will not be presented with net configuration wizard or other post installation steps & you will not able to start Workflow builder, throwing a run-time error.

Leave the prompts to their defaults unless necessary.

At the last phase of the installation, Net configuration assistant starts.

Well, there is no guarantee that the network configuration setup will complete successfully. My development machine has many Oracle products installed and has multiple JAVA runtimes, I think that should be one of the reasons why the configuration tool always failed to complete the setup successfully. Your case may differ.

Please note, you can Oracle XML Gateway Message Designer is also a part of the installation package, you can proceed to install the product if you want at this stage.

Once the installation(s) over, open Oracle Workflow Builder as administrator always, without which the software cannot read Windows Registry keys.

That’s all. Please note, you are installing a software that was made for Windows XP and hardly received much love from Oracle afterwards. Oracle is keeping it only to support legacy software like Oracle E-Business Suite, which Oracle dearly wants to the pull the plugs off, so that they could force the half cooked cloud based Fusion software & squeeze the customers further through subscriptions. Hence don’t expect Oracle fixing these installation ever, EVER!