The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

April 2000

SETUP WEIRDNESS RESOLVED

by Mike Copeland and Matt Galloway

The Visual Foxpro 6.0 Setup wizard has some undocumented

behaviorthat you should be aware of. While this behavior is not

wrong, if you aren’t aware of it, you might gettripped up.

-Problem-

After running SETUP on an end-user PC, you may notice that

some files were not copied from your Setup discs to their hard

drive. Specifically, this pertains to the EXE, DLL, and FLL file

types.

-Why-

Windows-style internal version numbers are not stored in I 6-bit

program files, including program files generated by Visual

Foxpro 3 and any executabtes that are compatible with Win-

dows 3.1 . On the other hand, when 32-bit application files that

adhere to the Windows standard are compiled, they always

have internal space created forversion numbers. The Setup

application thatVisual Foxpro 6 creates, (via TOOLS I WIZARD

I SETUP in Visual Foxpro), checks for these internal version

numbers when your end user runs Setup from your installation

disk(s). While not documented anywhere we could find, it

seems that the version numbers for both existing and to-be-

installed files are collected during Setup. These version num-

bers are matched according to file names, compared, and the

highest version number wins; that file is either retained or copied

to the destination disk. Note that the file date and time stamp

and the file size do not seem to be considered. lfthe file does

not exist, the new file will always be installed. If a 32-bit file

does not have a version number, it appears that Visual Foxpro

considers it as having a version value equivalentto 0 and

compares values accordingly.

-Fix-

Since there is no way to instruct Setup to delete or ignore a file

you intend that Setup should replace, the only solution is to

always increment your application’s version number to a higher

value. Failure to do this will cause SETUP to skip overwriting

the old file that already exists on your end-user’s hard drive with

the new one you sent them on disk (and that you probably

intended to have serve as an update.) You’ll notice that the

version number, entered from within Visual Foxpro via the

PROJECT I BUILD I VERSION menu options, is numeric only.

This non-alpha restriction for the version number reinforces the

above understanding ofthe way Setup works.

-Other Observations-

This also means that your end user will have to manually delete

a corrupted EXE, OLL, or FLL file before running Setup. A

corrupted file might still have enough information in the header

to provide a version number, but not execute properly. And,

while the Reinstall feature is promising, we have found that

Setup’s -Reinstall/Remove-functionality is sometimes hit-or-

miss. Sometimes when you run Setup (and the application is

already installed), it may or may not offer the Reinstall option.

Something as simple as hitting escape during the Reinstall

routine will cause the Reinstall option to not be offered the next

time you run Setup. I’m sure there is a perfectly good explana-

tion for this behavior, but it is hard to explain to end users.

Sending update discs containing your Visual Foxpro 6 applica-

tion is still the easiest and least expensive way to distribute

your programs. But, making sure you use, and increment, the

version number of your application is more than just a good

idea, it’s required...or you may not get what you expect.

<mike.copeland@genesis-group.net>

Mike Copeland is an independent FoxPro developer (Genesis

Group Software) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. His Fox credentials

go back to being Technical Editor for Y. A. Griver’s “The

FoxPro Code Book”, which preceded the Codebook framework.

<matt.galloway@oden-ins.com>

Matt Galloway is Directory of Technology at ODEN Insurance

Services, Inc. They are in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and market

FoxPro applications to the insurance industry.

From Dan “The Man”...

Some Cool Tips

by Dan Covill

DEPENDENCY WALKER

Found this gem in one of the newsletters I get.

<>Dependency Walker v2.0b5 [409k] W9x/NT FREE

http://www.dependencywalker.com/

http://www.dependencywalker.com/depens20beta5_x86.zip

“Dependency Walker is a free Microsoft utility that scans any

32-bit or 64-bit Windows module (exe, dll, ocx, sys, etc.) and

builds a hierarchical tree diagram of all dependent modules. For

each module found, it lists all the functions that are exported by

that module, and which of those functions are actually being

called by other modules. Another view displays the minimum

set of required files, along with detailed information about each

file including a full path to the file, base address, version num-

bers, machine type, debug information, and more.”

[It’s a 420k download. YOU NEED THIS PROGRAM!! DC)

TOOLTIPS FOR FOLDERS

I remember that a few months ago we were discussing the

problems of keeping track of what’s in all those directories on

the hard drive, and I said “What I’d like to see is ToolTips on the

Folders.” If the folder name is IBX3I, you could hold the mouse

over it and see that it was “Ibex Corp’s software for 31-bit mouse

reversers” or something like that. Well guess what, you can do

it!

The following technique works in Windows 98 and Windows

2000; it doesn’t work on NT 4.0 or Win 95.

(Con’t, page 9)

Page 8