PDA

View Full Version : Weird XP



NewsArchive
05-03-2011, 01:00 AM
I've got an install that installs demo data to only one spot:
C:\ProgramData\RADFusion\<product>\data. The live data could go there as well,
which is fine since the files names are unique. Vista and newer work fine, XP
does not create these folders.

In fact, if they want to install the live data on the network, the first 3
characters returned are E\\ instead of E: or \\.

Any ideas?
--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-03-2011, 01:00 AM
Did I stump the band? <g>

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-03-2011, 01:01 AM
I'm not with the band :-(

You are creating that folder on the C: drive by name? (Including the
C:\ProgramData folder?)

Works on my XP machine.

(Now I'll never get into the band.....)

jf

NewsArchive
05-03-2011, 04:12 AM
Hi Russ,

I think you are talking about CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA, correct?

This CSIDL points to the following location on XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data

and to this on Vista+:

C:\ProgramData

The C:\ProgramData location is a hidden folder by default, so you need to
change the directory property to make it visible. See attached screenshots.

Friedrich

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:29 AM
That is on one customer site. On our test machine, the demo data is never
installed as only half the folders ever get created. Vista and better work 100%
in all aspects.

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:30 AM
> On our test machine, the demo data is never
> installed as only half the folders ever get created. Vista and better work 100%
> in all aspects.

Russ,

Forget trying to do it from your installer and use our ProPath "First
Deploy" technology to drop it into the correct CSIDL location.

It works EVERY time on EVERY machine and the data goes into the proper
location for that OS...


:-)

Charles

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Edmonds
www.clarionproseries.com - "Get ProPath, make your Clarion programs ready
for Windows 7 and Vista!"
www.ezchangelog.com - "Free ChangeLog software to manage your projects!"
www.setupcast.com - "A revolutionary new publishing system for software
developers - enhanced for SetupBuilder users!"
www.pagesnip.com - "Print and Save the Web, just the way you want it!"
www.clarionproseries.com - "Serious tools for Clarion Developers"
www.ezround.com - "Round Corner HTML tables with matching Banners, Buttons
and Forms - Now with PNG support!
www.lansrad.com - "Intelligent Solutions for Universal Problems"
www.fotokiss.com - "World's Best Auction Photo Editor"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:30 AM
> Forget trying to do it from your installer and use our ProPath "First
> Deploy" technology to drop it into the correct CSIDL location.
>
> It works EVERY time on EVERY machine and the data goes into the proper
> location for that OS...

BTW - the support for multiple data sets also makes it easy for your
customers to switch back and forth between the demo data and live data.

:-)

Charles

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Edmonds
www.clarionproseries.com - "Get ProPath, make your Clarion programs ready
for Windows 7 and Vista!"
www.ezchangelog.com - "Free ChangeLog software to manage your projects!"
www.setupcast.com - "A revolutionary new publishing system for software
developers - enhanced for SetupBuilder users!"
www.pagesnip.com - "Print and Save the Web, just the way you want it!"
www.clarionproseries.com - "Serious tools for Clarion Developers"
www.ezround.com - "Round Corner HTML tables with matching Banners, Buttons
and Forms - Now with PNG support!
www.lansrad.com - "Intelligent Solutions for Universal Problems"
www.fotokiss.com - "World's Best Auction Photo Editor"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:31 AM
Already solved it <g>. Thanks for the offer. Kinda curious though, how does that
work with SB? You and Friedrich make a backroom deal or something? <g>

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:31 AM
> Already solved it <g>. Thanks for the offer. Kinda curious though, how does that
> work with SB? You and Friedrich make a backroom deal or something? <g>

No, just a compliment of technologies<g>.

ProPath has a utility app that ships with it that allows you to drag and
drop to package any number of files into one or more container files as
distribution sets.

Next you use SetupBuilder to drop those container files into your
application directory.

Then at runtime (either on a "First Run" detection or "on demand" you can
deploy files from the distribution sets into one or more folder locations
set by CSIDL values or user selection.

This solves the problems that you encounter with CSIDL locations changing
when your installer is running elevated and the application has to run
non-elevated (as on Vista/Windows 7).

Another really cool thing about using ProPath with SetupBuilder is that you
can deploy additional files when you do a SetupBuilder web update (or
replace files as needed) and then have ProPath distribute those files into
the correct per-user CSIDL locations the next time the program runs. This
is very useful for updating data stored in lookup tables, etc that may have
changed since the program was first installed.

It is really a nice blend of technologies - SetupBuilder delivering the
files to the application folder and then ProPath pushing then into the user
data locations.

:-)

Charles


--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Edmonds
www.clarionproseries.com - "Get ProPath, make your Clarion programs ready
for Windows 7 and Vista!"
www.ezchangelog.com - "Free ChangeLog software to manage your projects!"
www.setupcast.com - "A revolutionary new publishing system for software
developers - enhanced for SetupBuilder users!"
www.pagesnip.com - "Print and Save the Web, just the way you want it!"
www.clarionproseries.com - "Serious tools for Clarion Developers"
www.ezround.com - "Round Corner HTML tables with matching Banners, Buttons
and Forms - Now with PNG support!
www.lansrad.com - "Intelligent Solutions for Universal Problems"
www.fotokiss.com - "World's Best Auction Photo Editor"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:32 AM
Sounds like a good webinar.

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:33 AM
Speaking of which, we need to get ol' Freddie boy to do one on SetupBuilder!

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:33 AM
> Sounds like a good webinar.

Indeed.

We're working on a new demo app that illustrates just that, so it could be
a possibility.

Charles


--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Edmonds
www.clarionproseries.com - "Get ProPath, make your Clarion programs ready
for Windows 7 and Vista!"
www.ezchangelog.com - "Free ChangeLog software to manage your projects!"
www.setupcast.com - "A revolutionary new publishing system for software
developers - enhanced for SetupBuilder users!"
www.pagesnip.com - "Print and Save the Web, just the way you want it!"
www.clarionproseries.com - "Serious tools for Clarion Developers"
www.ezround.com - "Round Corner HTML tables with matching Banners, Buttons
and Forms - Now with PNG support!
www.lansrad.com - "Intelligent Solutions for Universal Problems"
www.fotokiss.com - "World's Best Auction Photo Editor"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:34 AM
Jane,

You are one of the groupies, so you are off the hook <g>

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:34 AM
Awww.... you noticed ;-)

Jane Fleming

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:35 AM
Hubboy. :(

I was afraid of that. The ProgramData being hidden is not a problem on Vista or
better. I don't believe it even exists on XP. However, I am using
CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA. Should have seen that that one coming. I think end of this
year, I'm officially dropping XP support too <g>

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:35 AM
Well, if'n you'da said CSIDL... I'da said sutthin else...

As developers (particularly prior to UAC awareness), I think we mostly
worked on our machines as administrators.

I'm wondering whether your XP problem-user is using an administrator
account.

XP has some different permissions on various CSIDLs than do Vista/Win7.

While my posts in this thread
http://www.lindersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11410
were about Common Documents on XP, the COMMON_APPDATA folder seems to have
similar permissions.

So you'd need to adjust them yourself... Preferably using SID, as
explained in that thread.

Jane Fleming

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:36 AM
I actually solved the problem (at least it works perfectly on my XP VM). I just
detect the major version, and if its 5, then its XP. Our demo data is hard wired
into our app ( we did that because customers found out clever ways of somehow
injecting demo data into their live data <g>) and under XP, its never installed
(until now).

Everything works, even the mapped drive issue (the weird E\\ path thingie). Sent
to customer and I shall soon know if it works on her machine.

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:37 AM
Hi Russ,

> I was afraid of that. The ProgramData being hidden is not a problem on Vista or
> better. I don't believe it even exists on XP. However, I am using
> CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA. Should have seen that that one coming. I think end of this
> year, I'm officially dropping XP support too <g>

CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA resolves to C:\ProgramData on Vista which is marked
hidden, same as C:\...wahtever under XP, so there is no change there.
C:\ProgramData under XP is just a folder in the root and has nothing to do
with CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA or any other CSIDL folder. You say you are using
the CSIDL folder so that means the folder it points to is going to be
different on XP and Vista/Win7. That's all:)

Best regards

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com
Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:38 AM
Yup and I have set those paths depending if the major Windows version is 5 or not.
It was that simple.

I'm still gonna drop support for XP though <g>

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:38 AM
Hi Russ,

> Yup and I have set those paths depending if the major Windows version is 5 or not.
> It was that simple.
>
> I'm still gonna drop support for XP though <g>

CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA is supported in shell32.dll version 5.0 which was
released with Windows 2000 and WindowsME, see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776779(v=VS.85).aspx The shell in
XP is version 6.0 and 6.1 in Win7.

Best regards,

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com
Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:39 AM
The installer returns major version 5 for XP, 6 for anything newer (Vista and
Win7).

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:40 AM
You can also use the equates in the Common Definitions.sbi include file.

Viz

NewsArchive
05-04-2011, 01:40 AM
Next build <g>

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com

NewsArchive
05-05-2011, 12:36 AM
Hi Russ,

> The installer returns major version 5 for XP, 6 for anything newer (Vista and
> Win7).

No. That is the OS version, not the shell version. Two different things:)
See the page I posted:

Shell32.dll
Version Distribution Platform
4.0 Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
4.71 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. See note 1.
4.72 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 and Windows 98. See note 1.
5.0 Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me). See note 2.
6.0 Windows XP
6.0.1 Windows Vista
6.1 Windows 7

The CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA is supported in version 5.0, Windows 2000 and ME.

Best regards,

--
Arnór Baldvinsson - Icetips Alta LLC
Port Angeles, Washington
www.icetips.com - www.buildautomator.com - www.altawebworks.com
Icetips product subscriptions at http://www.icetips.com/subscribe.php

NewsArchive
05-06-2011, 01:00 AM
That is what I want. I need to know "Is this XP?" Yes or no. Don't care about
minor, Home, Pro, SP1 to SP99 <g>. Had to be handled within SB, and it is.

Confirmed that this fixes the issue reported on 3 different XP machines, 2 of
those machine belonged to clients.

I've not yet found the function, but I know there is a kitchen sink in SB7, I've
seen the picture! <g>

--
Russell B. Eggen
www.radfusion.com