>I think it depends on what you are taking away. I won't argue that some useful functionality is no longer available with the VS Installer. However, the whole idea of Windows Installer/VS Installer is very good. They are bound to make improvements.

Craig,

I didn't want to come of as harsh, is all.

I'm wrapping up all my points in this. Hope you don't mind.

You can have the absolute killer, of killer apps, but if you can't get it installed, it ain't worth didley squat. Further, it is becoming increasingly more and more difficult to get this job done. The fact that the Fox team is working on other things is fine. However, if we can't get those things properly installed, what good is it? None, zero, nada.

What I believe we need is an installation package that is more flexible and more responsive to the needs of the installation. This isn't necessary something that's confined to VFP, but the whole VS as well.

As you know, I'm a corportate developer. Right now, even with the Setup Wizard, I can't do the things that I should do to make sure that the installation works as intended.

For example, right now I can't prohibit a user from changing the installation directory. Outside of the corporate world, this isn't a big deal, and is something you'd want to give the user the freedom to do. Inside, however, is another story. Without a standardized directory location for the installation, the cost of maintenance goes up, since support becomes more difficult. Further, since I provide the support, it takes up more of my time than it should, thus preventing me from doing what I should be doing: writing software. For example, there's nothing to prevent a user from indicating a directory (say in their user directory) on one of our servers as the installation location. The problem here is that my stuff is written so that it must be run on a local drive.

What I need, for my users is as simple as possible installation. Double click the setup.exe and maybe respond to the question "Do you want an icon on your desktop?" and that's it. What I don't need is to have to have them trained to run it. With the addition of a quiet mode switch, at least when installing a new service pack, I've got something reasonably close to that.

As it is right now, we're running (well most people, your's truly excluded) Win 95B. No DCOM95, which means that somehow I've got to get it installed. No WSH either, if I want to use that, I've got to make sure that it gets installed. While working only the language proper should be a priority, making sure that we can take advantage of all the tools available to should be one as well.

Craig, you know me well enough to know that, even though I don't currently know all the ins and outs of writing my own setup program, it's something that's well within the bounds of my skill set. I would rather, however, spend the time researching and writing software for the company I work for rather than a setup program.

So this isn't just about a simple switch. It really goes far beyond that, and far beyond VFP as well.