Installing Microsoft Loopback Adapter on Windows 7 machine.

Note:

Almost 75% of the OBIEE installation failures are because of IP related issues. So, while installing OBIEE, I simply advice you to disconnect your machine from network or just disable all the adapters installed on your machine except this "Microsoft Loopback Adapter". 

The Microsoft Loopback adapter is a testing tool for a virtual network environment where network access is not available. Use this drivers to assign the static address to your machine where network access is not available.

Following are the steps to install Microsoft Loopback Adapter on Windows 7 machine.

1. Click the Start menu.
2. Search for “cmd".
3. Right-click on “cmd” and select “Run as Administrator”
4. Enter “hdwwiz.exe”
5. In the "Welcome to the Add Hardware Wizard", click Next.
6. Select "Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced)" and click Next.
7. Scroll down and select "Network adapters" and click Next.
8. Select under Manufacturer "Microsoft" and then under Network Adapter "Microsoft Loopback Adapter" and click Next.
9. Click Finish.
10. Go to Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change Adapter Setting.
11. Double click on the Microsoft Loopback Adapter you have installed.
12. You can use the following figures as for example.

Now refer the following fig. to configure your IP.
1. Go to the path, C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc where the host file is located. Edit this hosts file as below.

(If you got the error saying, Please check if this file is opened in another program.
Change the file permissions. Allow read, write, execute access to the your you are currently logged in.)

2. Finally, test that these new network settings work as expected by selecting Start > Command Prompt, then typing ping [machine name], so that the output looks like this:

You are done..!! :-)