Sorry if I gave the impression I was angry with you. As I said I am just trying to understand Installshield Express with VFP 8 and what the limitations are. I did look at the documentation as I was using and some of it was not clear to me. After yours and others who were kind enough to post answers I understand it bit more.

So again thanks for taking the time to respond to what may appear to be dumb questions.

>Claude-
>
>>I do have SDT, but that does not address the question I asked. It appears that Microsoft is distributing a very limited and old version of Installshield. I am trying to understand what those limits are. I did not think what I am try to do was that unsual.
>
>I'm not a very effective person to be angry about this with. I'm only giving you the information you asked for. The version of IS that comes with VFP out of the box doesn't include this feature. If you run IS and look through the product, you'll see pretty clearly what is and is not included in the version of the product you have. If you need other features, such as incremental updates, then you'll need to upgrade to another installer. You're not limited to IS, of course.
>
>>They are one or more of the following (users can have anything for Windows 98 on up for an operating system):
>>
>>1. distribute original versions to a
>> a. local folder
>> b. network folder
>
>I didn't have a problem with the free version in this regard. I installed to network folders. IIRC, though, you have an issue where you want to allow users to change the drive, but not the folder. I didn't respond to that issue since I've never had a similar need. It's better, IMO, to use relative pathing so you don't have to rely the applications's folder's name.
>
>>2. distribute only changed files when making upgrades to the applications (normally program fixes). As I stated the MOST thing is NOT not overwrite existing tables once the applicatin is installed.
>
>As I said, that's feature of the upgraded copy of IS. It works well, I find. FWIW.
>
>>This is now an issue becuase some system files are reqiured in addition to VFP 8 runtime library files.
>
>I don't understand what this regarding, exactly. There have always been a number of supporting files necessary for installations of VFP apps. However, elsewhere you ask if you can just copy out the EXE. Yes, you don't have to reinstall the system and runtime files every time you change the EXE. I don't. My clients use a front loader program on the work stations that checks for updated EXEs on the server, if they are available, they're copied to the workstation and the front loader runs those.