>Hi Don.
>
>>This all means I will have to rewrite every app I have out there and reinstall every user because I have some still using XP and others moving to Vista and Win7. If I build the exe to look in \ProgramData for the file pointers, the XP users won't have those folders. I suppose the other option would be to have 2 versions of the exe but that will be a pain also.
>
>No need for two versions; if you read the resources I mentioned, you'll see that it's pretty easy to create code that references writable locations in both XP and later versions. Also, the rewrite shouldn't be too difficult unless you hard-coded paths everywhere. Assuming you didn't use paths (for example, you used something like USE MyTable), then a simple SET PATH TO (lcDataDir) (where lcDataDir is an OS-specific writable location) would find the tables. If you use the DataEnvironment of forms, you can put code into Load that changes the location of the cursor objects in the DE. I spent about a day going through all file references in my main app and it wasn't too hard to do.
>
>Doug

Thanks Doug. I agree, 2 versions are not necessary, but that leaves the first option which is to reinstall everyone. This would be necessary to cause the XP users to look to a new location for the userdata.dbf which is basically a config file that tells the program where to look on the network for the main data files. Plus the XP users will have to have their userdata file moved to a new location which is consistent with Win7 standards. I might be able to write a routine that would do this as part of the main EXE launch. I'll think on that a bit.

I have been using a version update technique that uses a small EXE to launch the main EXE. This launcher program compares the file date of the main EXE against the file date of the newest version which is located somewhere on the network. If it finds a newer version is available, it copies the newer version on top of the installed version. This has worked well on both XP and Vista although with Vista I had to create a second launcher to run the first with Admin rights. You helped me with that a couple of years ago. Do you see any changes that would be necessary with Win7?

- Don