Shedding Some Light

Please note, there has been some confusion in the community about the VFP 9 SP2 release announced by Microsoft this week. It is a Community Technology Preview (CTP), which is another way of saying pre-release, alpha testing. Do not load this over your production copy of VFP 9 SP1 (or no service pack) without reading this post and understanding the advice it offers.

Before you install this service pack, back up your original files in case you need to go back to the original version. This tip also allows you to run both the release version of SP1 (build 3504) or the original release of VFP9 (build 2412), and the beta of SP2 on the same computer. I have done this for the service pack testing of VFP 7, VFP 8, and VFP 9 and it worked well. Here is what I do before installing:

1. Go to the following folder: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VFP
2. Create a subfolder called VFP9SP1
3. Copy all the VFP9 Runtime files including VFP9r.dll, VFP9t.dll, VFP9rXXX.dll (resource files, especially the ones you deploy), the three Report*.app files, the FoxHHelp9.exe, and the FoxHHelpPs9.dll to this new subfolder.
4. Go to the following folder: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Merge Modules
5. Create a subfolder called VFP9SP1
6. Copy all the VFP 9 merge modules to the new subfolder
7. Copy the main VFP 9 folder to another folder. I call mine: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9 SP1

You have to worry about those three folders.

Craig Boyd and Bo Durban have also heading into the waters and provided some sage advise on the SP2 install.

If you want to be extra careful you can also export the registry settings for VFP 9. I have not done this in the past and have not had any problems skipping this precaution. You also might want to back up your FoxUser files and the HOME(7) folder where files for the Data Explorer, Environment Manager, ObjectBrowser, Task List, Task Pane, and Toolbox save their metadata.

Now you have backups of the VFP 9 SP1 files and it is safe to install both the Sedna and VFP 9 SP2 files.

I take these precautions for two reasons. The first is so I can double check things in the released version to see if something works differently with the second SP installed. I can verify bugs which are suppose to be fixed, and validate problems found in SP2 to see if they are newly broken since the released version.

The second and more important reason is I might have to release new versions of my current VFP 9 apps and I do not want to do this with the beta runtimes. I can build the apps using the VFP9.exe in the SP2 folder. Before doing so I swap in the VFP 9 runtimes and merge modules. If I need to do this I create subfolders with the corresponding SP2 files just like I did with the original files. After I am satisfied with the testing I build my installs with the released version files. Once I ship the product I swap in the SP2 files and proceed with the testing.

I install the SP2 beta over the original folder (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9). Note, this will automatically overwrite the merge modules and runtime files too. I create two shortcuts to VFP 9. One for the SP2 folder and one for the SP1 folder. I use the appropriate shortcut for the type of work I am doing, but I can tell you I use the beta version for most of the time. The Fox Team has been very good about shipping stable betas over the last few years.

This is the first of hopefully many releases between today and the time Microsoft ships VFP 9 SP2. This is also very early in the testing cycle, so your results can be interesting. Especially when Microsoft has not posted the changes in the Service Pack (hopefully an oversight soon to be corrected).

Happy testing! I will watch for feedback on the release, especially where the Data Explorer is involved {g}.