Symptom

We have SAP NetWeaver 7.01 SP<06 and can see /sap/bc/nwbc, but it does not work.

Solution

In older versions of SAP NetWeaver, the NWBC runtime was already partially developed. However, this development was not completed, not released and not documented. Thus, it could be quite possible that the ICF node /sap/bc/nwbc does indeed exist, and even partially work. However, the final and completed runtime is only available with those SAP NetWeaver releases as stated in FAQ question INSTALL.03 On which SAP NetWeaver Versions is NWBC v3.0 supported?.

You can check the specific service pack number by logging on to the system and then starting the menu  System Status... . From there look at the version number for the SAP_BASIS component. It must be at a minimum 700.21, 701.06 or 702.02.

(System -> Status)