>Thanks to Evan, Ed, and Bruce for your informative and useful answers.
>
>Evan, you mention the need for DCOM to be installed properly.
>Could you expand on that need on both the developer PC and the
>target PC.
>

VFP relies on some code contained in the shared components distribured as a part of DCOM. As a result, any computer that going to run VFP6, whether it's the full developer environment or the runtime, needs to have the DCOM support files properly installed to be able to run VFP6 reliably. It's easy enough to check for (I posted a FAQ entry describing the registry key that will tell you if it's been installed here, and there has been a subsequent MSKB entry that contains the same information) and the means for adding it to a system as well. Adding DCOM can be accomplished easily:

Win95 - apply the self-installing DCOM95.EXE, which can be downloaded from Microsoft's web site, and is freely redistributable. there have been problems installing DCOM on some foreign-language original retail versions of Win95; these require a commercial upgrade to the equivalent OSR2 (Win95b) or Win98. The problem systems apparently can't install many things, including IE. I don't recommend trying to incorporate a DCOM95 install as a part of a product install based solely on Setup Wizard, since installing DCOM for the first time on a Win95 system will require a reboot. Products that are capable of significantly more sophisiticated scripting that would allow for split installs like InstallShield Pro can do this, but even then, you're better off telling the user to do the install of DCOM95 and then reattempting the application install.

Win98 - by default has the DCOM components installed. Not finding it is a clear sign that the Win98 install is not correct, and at least a partial reinstall of the operating system is needed. There will be lots of problems, not just an inability to run VFP6 reliably, on such systems.

WinNT 4.0 - requires at least NT SP3 to be applied (current is SP5, and there are hotfixes subsequentr to SP5) to the NT system. The Service Packs can be downloaded from Microsoft (they're huge) and freely redistributed. I strongly recommend against trying to make installation of NT Service Packs a part of any install, because of the considerable effects adding a particular SP would have, and because of the need to intelligently deal with driver update issues and to control the install environment when an SP is applied. Installing an NT Service Pack is probably outside the realm of what I'd expect an inexperienced end-user (and even many experienced end-users) and requires detailed RTFM to perform safe3ly and correcty.

Win2K - by default has the DCOM components installed. Even more than Win98, not finding DCOM is a clear sign of a screwed-up install.

In any case, installing IE4 or later on a system will install DCOM components for the system if it allows the install to proceed at all. There are licensing considerations if you want to redistribute IE4 or IE5 with your application

>Thanks.
>Michel.
>
>
>>>I've been away from The Universal Thread for a while.
>>
>>Welcome back.
>>
>>>What is the situation nowadays ? Have Visual FoxPro 6 specific
>>>support packs been released ? Or Visual Studio 6 support packs
>>>which address some of the VFP problems ?
>>
>>Yes. Service pack3.
>>Download it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/sp/default.asp
>>List of fixes: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/sp/vfpfixes.asp
>>
>>There also some new features and some long time annoyances that were fixed:
>>- indexes are recreated in one pass
>>- forms can be modified on a netware volume
>>
>>>And if the answer is YES, do those who use it now feel that
>>>Visual FoxPro 6 is more stable ?
>>
>>Yes. But I found VFP6 before the SP3 to be stable also since I avoided SCREEN=OFF . For me it is much more stable that VFP3 ever was. I never used VFP5. Still you should ensure that DCOM is properly installed on each machine.
>>
>>>I am keen to move to VFP 6, but only if it is more stable
>>>than the originally released product, hence all the above
>>>questions.
>>
>>I am sure others will have opinions too. Testing at your site(s) is the final test though.