You must have system administrator privileges to perform an upgrade.
If your server has replicated databases, consult Upgrading Servers with Replicated Databases, before starting the preupgrade tasks.
Also, if you are upgrading from Adaptive Server 12.5.4 or earlier, execute the upgrade sequence from the same node on which the database resides.
The preupgrade and upgrade utilities are internally called by syconfig.exe or sybatch.exe. Only sybatch.exe supports an upgrade from a 32-bit server to a 64-bit server. syconfig.exe does not support an upgrade from a 32-bit server to a 64-bit server.
Each new server version contains features that introduce new parameters, commands, reserved words, and so on. preupgrade prepares the old server for upgrade by checking to make sure all necessary directories and settings are correct for the upgrade. When running preupgrade, manually stop and start the server. It is not necessary to start the server before running sqlupgrade. sqlupgrade starts the server when needed.