Install of BDE hangs up on Win10 (Delphi4 Pro)

[P E Schoen]

I have an application written in Delphi 4 Pro, that uses the Borland
Database Engine (BDE). When I installed Delphi on my Win10 machine, it hung
up during the BDE install. I unchecked the option and it installed OK.
However, the BDE seemed to have been installed, and my application was able
to build and run OK with the database functions.

The setup file I created using Inno Setup includes a section where it uses
"minireg.exe" to install the BDE by running "bdeinst.dll" which was
extracted from the bdeinst.cab file and included in the setup. It also hangs
up, but apparently completes the installation in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Borland Shared\BDE

On the Inno Setup website I found a suggestion to use a newer install
"bde511en.exe", which I found and downloaded on the Softonics website. It
runs OK on Win10 (and Win8) but it is only for updating a previous BDE
install. So I have kept the original bdeinst.dll in my setup, and informed
customers that it will hang up on Win10, but clicking on the dialog box
allows Windows to close it and proceed.

I don't know just what is involved in the BDE install. I could easily copy
the files that I find in the BDE folder to the new installation, but there
seem to be some registry entries as well, and it's difficult to find all the
instances (a search also finds hex BDE). I don't know why Win10 is having
problems - I have checked folder permissions and they seem identical for
Win8 and Win10. I have done a search and found a few ideas, but nothing that
solves the problem.

TIA,

Paul

[Marco van de Voort]

On 2017-12-09, P E Schoen <pa...@pstech-inc.com> wrote:
> I have an application written in Delphi 4 Pro, that uses the Borland

If you try to install an old version of Delphi on Windows Vista or later,
install it outside of the program files directory. Then inventorize
remaining problems.

Old versions of Delphi write to the program files directory, which is
frowned upon by Vista and later.

[JJ]

Try download BDE v5.2.0.2 from here:

http://www.all2ezy.com/pages/developer_downloads.php

I've checked that it installed fine. BDE Administrators seems to work fine
too. But I haven't actually tested the BDE functionality.

[P E Schoen]

That seems to work just fine. It installs in a new directory C:\BDE32
but my application runs with no apparent problems and no changes were
needed.

Now I just need to figure out how to incorporate this in my Inno Setup
script. It might be as simple as copying the zip file to the {tmp}
directory and then running the setup file within the zip file. I have
tried various ways to do this, but so far I've been unable to get Inno
Setup to extract the files from the zip file. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Paul

[P E Schoen]

On 12/10/2017 8:41 PM, P E Schoen wrote:

> That seems to work just fine. It installs in a new directory C:\BDE32
> but my application runs with no apparent problems and no changes were
> needed.
>
> Now I just need to figure out how to incorporate this in my Inno Setup
> script. It might be as simple as copying the zip file to the {tmp}
> directory and then running the setup file within the zip file. I have
> tried various ways to do this, but so far I've been unable to get Inno
> Setup to extract the files from the zip file. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks!
>

I found it necessary (or at least expedient) to copy the entire unzipped
directory (including subdirectories) to the {tmp} folder, as follows:

[Files]
Source: "C:\Users\paul\Downloads\Borland\BDE_with_SQL_Links\*"; DestDir:
"{tmp}\BDE"; Flags: recursesubdirs
[Run]
Filename: "{tmp}\BDE\setup.exe"

The help for Inno Setup was a bit deceptive with the functions:

function ExtractTemporaryFiles(const Pattern: String): Integer;

procedure ExtractTemporaryFile(const FileName: String);

They are apparently not used for zipfiles, but rather for extracting
files that have been compressed in the setup file itself.

Now it seems that my setup (install) file does what I need for Win10.
The only problem remaining is that the script sometimes hangs up when
processing the setupiconfile with "Resource Update Error:
EndUpdateResource failed (5)"

Thanks - it's good to know that some people are still using this
newsgroup. :)

Paul