This article applies as of PRTG 22

Updating from PRTG 7, 8, 9, or PRTG 12

Read the following sections carefully before you update from PRTG 7, 8, 9, or 12 to the latest version.

Direct updates from versions prior to PRTG 16.1.21.1691/1692 to the latest version do not work. You must perform intermediate updates first.

For details, see PRTG Manual: Update From Previous Versions.

If you have 10,000 sensors or more

If you have 10,000 or more sensors and your PRTG core server service process already consumes more than 2 GB of RAM (you can use PRTG to find out), consider reducing the intervals and time frames of the cached graph data.

You can change this setting on the Memory tab of the PRTG Server Administrator. For all three graphs, choose the setting that uses least RAM memory. For details, see the manual section PRTG Server Administrator in your PRTG installation with version 8 or 9.

Why? For an optimal support of international languages, PRTG (as of PRTG 12) internally works with UTF strings that use 2 bytes per string character instead of 1 byte in PRTG 9. This causes about 15% more memory usage for the PRTG core server.

Discontinued sensors

Existing instances of the following sensor types will stop working as of PRTG 13 and must be replaced with their successor sensor types.

• VMware Host Server (SOAP)
• VMware Virtual Machine (SOAP)
• Xen Virtual Machine

If your configuration contains these sensor types, they will stop monitoring after upgrading to the latest PRTG. We recommend that you pause them to keep their historic data. To continue monitoring, add the sensors again (for example, via auto-discovery).

Install .NET 4.0

We strongly recommend that you install .NET 4.0 on PRTG core server systems (and remote probe systems, if you use these). Otherwise, the following features will not work:

• VMware auto-discovery and monitoring
• Citrix XenServer auto-discovery and monitoring
• Windows Last Update sensor (Now deprecated. May apply to its follower, the Windows Updates Status (PowerShell) sensor, as well.)
• Several other sensor types

Changed Geo Maps provider

When you update to the latest PRTG version, the provider for geographical maps will automatically be switched to HERE Maps. You can switch back later any time.

Windows 2000 and 2003 not supported

Systems running Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 are not supported anymore. This means that

• you cannot install PRTG on systems running Windows 2000,
• you cannot officially monitor Windows 2000 systems (for example via WMI), and
• you cannot install PRTG on Windows 2003 systems.

Especially the WMI Service sensor will show an error message when monitoring Windows 2000 systems under the latest PRTG version. The message is as follows: Unknown Error in: "Win32_Process"

For a workaround, see How can I monitor a Windows service on Windows 2000?.

When updating from PRTG 8

There may be an extended downtime while updating

When you update from PRTG 8, the update process might take longer than usual due to database and configuration file conversions. This might cause a downtime of your monitoring of 30 minutes or longer.

Note: To update from PRTG 8 to the current PRTG version, you must update to PRTG 9 first as an intermediate step.

When updating from PRTG 7

Update to the latest version 8 and then to PRTG 9 first. Then run PRTG for a short while and install the latest version afterward.

Fixing corrupt updates

The issue that affects most upgraded installations is that the services and executables are not properly replaced. To fix an upgraded PRTG installation that does not start again, proceed with the following steps:

1. Uninstall PRTG completely.
2. Open a PowerShell with administrative privileges and run the following command that will remove all PRTG services:
   Get-Service -Name PRTG | ForEach-Object { sc.exe delete $_.Name }
3. Reinstall PRTG with the new setup.

Monitoring data and configuration will be preserved. Note that PRTG might restart without further notice. After that, PRTG starts with no further problems.

More

• For more information when updating from a version earlier than PRTG 9, see PRTG Manual: Update From Previous Versions.