>My V.F.P. 3.0b MULTI-USER approved PROJECT, developed on a Windows 3.11 system. . .
>The Problem: I was told that I could COPY the VFP300.ESL from the C:\Windows\System to the Network location (V:\VFPAPPS\TOOLS) and each new user could directly use the PROJECT. Not True!
>I have seen that it is possible to place a PROJECT (like the V-FoxPro-App ABRA) executable on the network and any PC allowed network access can run it - furthermore - the user should not be required an identical network mapping path of V:\VFPAPPS\TOOLS! (We might want to Map them F: or G:)! Some PC’s are WINDOWS’95 and some are WINDOWS 3.11 Workgroups; therefore, TWO sets of setup diskettes are created. Currently, when a new user is assigned duty to the PROJECT, I must use the setup diskettes on the user’s PC (later I delete the PC - TOOL subdirectory). We call this “FOXING the PC” machine. I do not want to “FOX” 100 PC’s. WHAT IS THE PROPER WAY TO “SETUP” MY NEW USERS TO THE PROJECT?

Here's what I did to solve the problem of network installations in general. I first created a setup program (I called it Install.EXE) that did the following: It deleted itself from the group that it was in, and added the application into that group. Naturally, it first looked at F:, but if it could not find the path, searched the other networked drives until it found it. I made sure that the users had access to the directory prior to having them install. I next created a project containing all the necessary components ESL, OCXs etc. and built the EXE.

The key here is to indicate in the Setup Wizard that the install program is to be run when the base installation is complete. Finally, I placed the installation disks on the network as a children of the main application directory. This way, if they had access to the child directories, they had to have access to the parent. Also, it allowed installation without disk swapping or distribution.

One last note, I had the install program installed on the user's C: drive, and used that directory for the CONFIG.FPW and temp files.

HTH,

George