Installing Visual FoxPro

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You can install Visual FoxPro from a CD-ROM or a network to a local hard drive. You must install Visual FoxPro on a local drive, not a mapped drive.

Requirements for Installation

Visual FoxPro has the following minimum system requirements:

  • Computer: An IBM-compatible computer with a Pentium class processor

  • Peripherals: Mouse or pointing device

  • Memory: 64 MB RAM (128 MB or higher recommended)

  • Hard disk space:

    • Visual FoxPro Prerequisites: 20 MB
    • Visual FoxPro Typical Install: 165 MB
    • Visual FoxPro Maximum Install: 165 MB

  • Video: 800 x 600 resolution, 256 colors (High color 16-bit recommended)

  • Operating system: Developing applications with Visual FoxPro 8.0 is supported only on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 or later, and Windows XP. You can create and distribute run-time applications for Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 or later, and Windows XP.

    Note Installation on Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition is not supported.

Installing Visual FoxPro

There is no preparation required before installing Visual FoxPro. You must be an administrator on the local computer to install and use all the provided tools effectively.

You can safely install or uninstall using Visual FoxPro 8.0 Setup. If you are upgrading to Visual FoxPro 8.0, you must first uninstall Visual FoxPro 7.0. Though Visual FoxPro 8.0 and Visual FoxPro 7.0 can exist on the same computer, you cannot install Visual FoxPro 8.0 in the same directory as Visual FoxPro 7.0.

If you plan to publish XML Web services using Visual FoxPro, you might want to set up Internet Information Services (IIS) on a Windows 2000 or Windows XP computer. Refer to your operating system documentation for instructions on how to set up and configure IIS.

Note   Visual FoxPro setup no longer installs any Windows operating system Service Packs or versions of Internet Explorer. It is highly recommended that you install the latest versions of these components before installing Visual FoxPro 8.0. Additionally, Visual FoxPro 8.0 is supported only on Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 or later. For details about installing the lastest Service Pack, visit the following Microsoft Web page at https://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/.

Full installation includes all Visual FoxPro program files, online help, and samples files.

To install Visual FoxPro

  1. Quit all open applications.

    **Note   **If you use a virus protection program on your computer, override it or turn it off before running the Installation wizard. The Installation wizard might not run properly with virus protection turned on. After installation, be sure to restart your virus protection program.

  2. Insert the Visual FoxPro CD.

    The Visual FoxPro 8.0 Setup start page appears automatically.

  3. Click Install Visual FoxPro to launch Visual FoxPro Setup.

  4. To determine if you need additional components, click Prerequisites to display any necessary components.

  5. Click Install Now! to install any new components. If Visual FoxPro Prerequisites needs to only update components, click Update Now!

  6. You might need to restart your computer. When finished, click Done.

    Visual FoxPro Setup reappears.

  7. To continue installation, click Visual FoxPro.

  8. After accepting the End User License Agreement and entering the Product Key and your name, click Continue.

    Note   Visual FoxPro cannot be installed on a mapped drive. You must install Visual FoxPro on a local drive. Do not attempt to use the Map Network Drive functionality in Setup.

  9. On the Options page, select the features you want to install and click Install Now! to continue.

  10. When finished, click Done to return to Visual FoxPro Setup. Click Exit to return to the Visual FoxPro 8.0 Setup start page.

If you uninstall Visual FoxPro 8.0 while Visual FoxPro 7.0 exists on your computer, certain shared registry keys used by Visual FoxPro 7.0 are removed. You must reinstall these critical shared registry keys.

If you run Visual FoxPro 7.0 from the Start menu, Visual FoxPro 7.0 Setup automatically reinstalls these keys. If you start Visual FoxPro 7.0 using other means, such as running the application executable directly, the setup program does not start automatically. You should use Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel and the following steps to reinstall the registry keys manually:

To manually reinstall Visual FoxPro 7.0 registry keys

  1. From the Start menu, click Control Panel.
  2. Click Add/Remove Programs.
  3. Click Change/Remove for Microsoft Visual FoxPro 7.0.
  4. Click Visual FoxPro and Repair/Reinstall.

Installation Troubleshooting

You might encounter the following when installing Visual FoxPro:

  • If you cannot run Visual FoxPro and do not see error messages telling you what is wrong, the problem might be in your computer's ROM BIOS or the video driver you are using.
  • If you are using an extended keyboard, be sure it is compatible with the ROM BIOS. In addition, make sure that you are using a standard VGA or Super VGA Windows video driver.
  • If you get a "stack overflow" error message, your video driver is out of date or not designed for your video card. To correct this problem, update the video driver.
  • For additional information, see the Visual FoxPro Readme at the root of the Visual FoxPro installation CD.

Installing Additional Applications

This release includes copies of additional software that you can install and use with Visual FoxPro. These include:

  • InstallShield Express Limited Edition

    Provides the capability to package and deploy the applications that you create using Visual FoxPro. Visual FoxPro includes the updated and limited edition of InstallShield Express 3.54.

    Note   The limited and full editions of InstallShield Express 3.54 are considered two versions of the same product and cannot coexist. If you install one version on a computer where another already exists, the original is uninstalled automatically. Because the limited edition contains fewer features than the full edition, you should keep the full edition on your computer.

  • Microsoft SOAP Toolkit 3.0 Samples

    Provides samples for demonstrating how to consume and publish XML Web services. Visual FoxPro Prerequisites installs the core SOAP Toolkit 3.0 components needed to access and publish XML Web services in Visual FoxPro.

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE)

    Provides a personal version of SQL Server.

To install InstallShield Express Limited Edition

  1. Insert the Visual FoxPro CD.

    The Visual FoxPro 8.0 Setup start page opens automatically.

  2. Click Install InstallShield Express.

  3. Follow the instructions in the InstallShield Express installation wizard.

You can also locate the Setup.exe file for InstallShield Express in the InstallShield folder on the Visual FoxPro CD.

Note   Visual FoxPro 8.0 installs its redistributable merge modules in a location different from Visual FoxPro 7.0.

The following are the locations of the redistributable merge modules for Visual FoxPro 7.0 and 8.0:

Visual FoxPro 7.0: \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Merge Modules\

Visual FoxPro 8.0: \Program Files\Common Files\Merge Modules\

The version of InstallShield Express included with Visual FoxPro 8.0 automatically uses the new Visual FoxPro 8.0 merge module location.

Note   Visual FoxPro 8.0 requires certain merge modules when creating a Visual FoxPro 8.0 redistributable custom application setup program using InstallShield Express.

You need to include the following merge modules when creating your custom setup program:

  • Microsoft Visual FoxPro 8 Runtime Libraries
  • Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library 7.0
  • GDI Plus Redist
  • XML 4.0

To install SOAP Toolkit 3.0 Samples

  1. Insert the Visual FoxPro CD.

    The Visual FoxPro 8.0 Setup start page opens automatically.

  2. Click Install SOAP Toolkit 3.0 Samples.

  3. Follow the instructions in the SOAP Toolkit 3.0 Samples Setup Wizard..

You can also locate the Soapsdk.msi and Soapsamp.msi files for the SOAP Toolkit in the SOAPToolkit folder on the Visual FoxPro CD.

To install MSDE

  1. Insert the Visual FoxPro CD.

    The Visual FoxPro 8.0 Setup start page opens automatically.

  2. Click Install Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE) to install MSDE without an installation wizard. Click Yes to verify that you want to install MSDE.

You can also locate the Setup.exe file for MSDE in the SQLMSDE folder on the Visual FoxPro CD.

**Note   **Visual FoxPro 8.0 includes Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine Service Pack 2.0. To make sure you have the most recent version and Service Pack installed, visit the Microsoft SQL Server Web page at https://www.microsoft.com/sql/default.asp. In addition, if you are distributing custom Visual FoxPro applications that require MSDE, you can obtain the redistributable merge modules from the Microsoft SQL Server Web page for use with Windows Installer-based setup programs.

Reinstalling Visual FoxPro

If you want to reinstall Visual FoxPro or install to another location, you might want to clean your user settings and other files installed by Visual FoxPro before reinstalling.

You can remove these files by deleting the contents of the ...\Application Data\Microsoft\Visual FoxPro folder inside your user settings folder. You can determine the location of the Application Data folder by typing ? HOME(7) in the Command window. These files include your FoxUser.* resource files, which contain user settings, and folders for the Toolbox and Task Pane.

However, it is possible that your resource files are in another location. You can determine their location by typing the following in the Command window:

? SYS(2005)

You should delete old Code Reference files that might be associated with projects in the project directories. These are labeled as projectname_ref.* files. You might also need to to restore the default Visual FoxPro 8.0 registry settings.

Visual FoxPro includes the VFPClean.app tool so you can make sure all core Xbase and other files are set appropriately.

To run VFPClean.app

  • Type the following line of code in the Command window:

    DO HOME()+"VFPCLEAN.APP"

See Also

Customizing the Visual FoxPro Environment | Upgrading from Earlier Versions