New Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable Package (x86, x64) (14.16.27027.1)

[NewsArchive]

Hi Wolfgang,

> this Redistributable is a requirement for Setupbuilder.

No, VC++ 2017 is *NOT* a requirement for SetupBuilder :-) SetupBuilder
itself or installations compiled with SetupBuilder do not need any specific
redistributable! But it's very well possible that your own application
needs the new VC++ 2017 redist (or VC++2013, VC++2015) or the .NET Core
Runtime, etc. BTW, the Clarion 11 IDE itself needs the VC++ 2013 (x86)
redistributable.

See attached screenshot. These are the provided Core PreRequisites in
SetupBuilder 2019.2.

> What, if our programs possibly needs that Redistributable?
>
> 1) How do we know?
>
> If we write a Clarion-program, that needs this Redistributable, and we
> have SB installed on this machine, then we do not run into missing it.
> We might discover it, when we would run an installer-test on a new
> machine, which does not have anything like that. If you have several
> computers, all similar equipped, because we work on every machine, then
> this Redistributable is to be expected on all of them. That would likely
> lead to missing that fact, that we have to add it into our own installer.
>
> Right?

It's a bit more complex today. Let us assume, you are using "SSL/TSL" in
your own Clarion application. To do this, you have to ship "ssleay32.dll"
and "libeay32.dll" (3rd-party runtime files). Your own Clarion application
might not need any VC++ redistributable, but when using SSL/TLS you need a
specific VC++ runtime (depends on the version of your SSL/TLS component)
pre-installed on the target machine. You'll find this information in the
3rd-party documentation.

Or another example: the SoftVelocity Clarion 11 installation itself. The
Clarion 11 IDE requires VC++ 2013 pre-installed. So SoftVelocity just
marked [X] the "Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable Package (x86)" in
the SetupBuilder project. As a result, the Clarion 11 installer has the
required VC++ 2013 included. If the target system does not have a C11
compatible VC++ installed, the installer will automatically install it. If
the target system already has VC++ 2013 installed, the installer will skip
the redist setup.

BTW, the new "remote deploy" enabled redistributables provide even more
functionality. You can use them to "push" redistributables in your LAN to
remote machines. Let us assume, you have 50 machines in your LAN. Your app
uses a specific runtime and Microsoft found a critical security
vulnerabilities so you have to update the redistributables. You can now
compile a remote deploy package that pushes just the redistributables to the
remote machines.

And of course, you can build your own redistributable packages in
SetupBuilder. For example, create a "Clarion 11" redistributable to deploy
ClaRUN.dll, ClaTPS.dll, etc.

Does this help?

Friedrich