# Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9.0 Readme

This document contains the most recent notes from the Microsoft Visual FoxPro product team and has more updated information than the online help documentation. For information about new features since previous versions of Visual FoxPro, see "What's New in Visual FoxPro" in the Visual FoxPro Help. It is also very important that you read the "Changes in Functionality for the Current Release" topic so that you are aware of product changes that might impact you when migrating your existing applications to Visual FoxPro 9.0.

For the latest information about Visual FoxPro, please visit the Visual FoxPro home page at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro.

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# 1. Getting Started with Microsoft Visual FoxPro

This section contains system requirements and installation information.

## 1.1. System Requirements

Visual FoxPro has the following minimum system requirements:

· Processor: Pentium class

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

· Available Hard Disk Space:

· Visual FoxPro Prerequisites - 20 MB

· Visual FoxPro Minimum Install - 115 MB

· Visual FoxPro Maximum Install - 155 MB

Note You must install Visual FoxPro on a local hard drive, not a mapped drive.

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

· Operating System: Developing applications with Visual FoxPro 9.0 is only supported on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and later, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. You can create and distribute run-time applications for Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 or later, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003.

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

## 1.2. Installation

Visual FoxPro requires you to be an administrator on the local computer to install and use all the provided tools effectively.

### 1.2.1. Installing Visual FoxPro

You can safely install or uninstall using Visual FoxPro 9.0 Setup. If you are upgrading to Visual FoxPro 9.0, you must first uninstall Visual FoxPro 8.0. Though Visual FoxPro 9.0 and Visual FoxPro 7.0/8.0 can exist on the same computer, you cannot install Visual FoxPro 9.0 in the same directory as Visual FoxPro 7.0/8.0.

If you plan to publish Web services using Visual FoxPro, you might want to set up Internet Information Server (IIS) on a Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003 computer. Refer to your operating system documentation for instructions on how to set up and configure IIS.

Important It is highly recommended that you install the latest Windows System components before installing Visual FoxPro 9.0. Additionally, Visual FoxPro 9.0 is only supported on Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 or later. For details about installing the latest Service Pack, visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/.

To install Visual FoxPro

1. Quit all open applications.

It is recommended that you temporarily turn off any virus detection software that you might have running (see note below regarding Norton AntiVirus).

2. Insert the Visual FoxPro CD. The Visual FoxPro 9.0 Setup start page appears automatically. Click Install Visual FoxPro to launch Visual FoxPro Setup.

3. To determine if you need additional components, click Visual FoxPro Prerequisites. Visual FoxPro Prerequisites displays any necessary components that must be installed prior to installing Visual FoxPro.

4. Click Install Now! to install any new components. If Visual FoxPro Prerequisites needs to only update components, click Update Now!. You might need to restart your computer. Click Done when finished.

5. Visual FoxPro Setup reappears. Click Visual FoxPro to continue installation. 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 hard drive. Do not attempt to use the Map Network Drive functionality in setup.

6. On the Options page, select the features you want to install and click Install Now! to continue. When finished, click Done to return to Visual FoxPro Setup. Click Exit to return to the Visual FoxPro 9.0 Setup Start page.

If you uninstall Visual FoxPro 9.0 while Visual FoxPro 7.0/8.0 exists on your computer, certain shared registry keys used by Visual FoxPro 7.0/8.0 are removed. You must reinstall these critical shared registry keys.

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 7.0/8.0 registry keys

1. From the Start menu, click Control Panel.

2. Double-click Add or Remove Programs.

3. Click Change/Remove for Microsoft Visual FoxPro 7.0/8.0.

4. Click Visual FoxPro and Repair/Reinstall.

### 1.2.2. Possible Error with Norton AntiVirus

Users with Norton AntiVirus installed might receive a warning dialog box after clicking one of the links on the Visual FoxPro 9.0 Setup page. The dialog box contains text similar to the following:

------------------------

Norton AntiVirus has detected a potential threat in the displayed Activity.

For your protection, Norton AntiVirus halted the script so you can choose an appropriate Action from the list below.

File: CD-ROM Drive Letter>\vfpstart.hta

Object: Windows Script Host Shell Object

Action: Run

Norton AntiVirus recommends that you prevent the script from running unless you know and trust the source of the script.

Action: Stop this script (recommended)

Choose "Stop this script" if you do not trust the script source or the current script activity.

----------------------

This occurs because Norton AntiVirus has detected that a script is trying to run from the Visual FoxPro 9.0 startup page. To allow setup to complete, select Allow the entire script once from the Action menu and then click OK in the dialog box. The setup page uses Windows Scripting to start the various setups. Norton AntiVirus captures scripting activity and warns the user of possible threats.

## 1.2.3. Installing Additional Applications

This release includes copies of the following additional software that you can install and use with Visual FoxPro:

· InstallShield Express 5.0 for Microsoft Visual FoxPro

Provides the capability to package and deploy the applications that you create using Visual FoxPro. The new Visual FoxPro Limited Edition version of InstallShield Express included with this release is an updated version from the one that shipped with Visual FoxPro 8.0.

Note The limited and full editions of InstallShield Express 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 a link for installing additional samples for using the SOAP Toolkit 3.0. The Visual FoxPro Prerequisites setup stage installs the core SOAP Toolkit 3.0 components needed to consume 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 5.0 for Visual FoxPro

1. Insert the Visual FoxPro CD. The Visual FoxPro 9.0 Setup start page opens automatically.

2. Click Install InstallShield Express. This opens the InstallShield Express installation wizard.

3. Follow the instructions in the installation wizard.

You can also locate the Setup.exe file for InstallShield Express in the InstallShield folder on the Visual FoxPro CD and double-click on the file to launch the installation wizard.

Note Visual FoxPro 9.0 installs its redistributable merge modules in a location different from Visual FoxPro 7.0:

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

Visual FoxPro 9.0: \Program Files\Common Files\Merge Modules\

The version of InstallShield Express included with Visual FoxPro 9.0 automatically uses the new Visual FoxPro 9.0 merge module location.

Note When creating Visual FoxPro 9.0 redistributable custom application setup programs using InstallShield Express, you need to include the following merge modules in your custom setup:

· Visual FoxPro 9.0 Runtime Libraries

· VC 7.1 Runtime

· GDI Plus

· MSXML 4.0

· MSXML 3.0 (for use only with CURSORTOXML functions)

· Visual FoxPro 9.0 Reporting Applications

To install SOAP Toolkit 3.0 Samples

1. Insert the Visual FoxPro CD. The Visual FoxPro 9.0 Setup start page opens automatically.

2. Click Install SOAP Toolkit 3.0 Samples. This opens the SOAP Toolkit 3.0 Samples Setup Wizard. Follow the instructions in the 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 9.0 Setup start page opens automatically.

2. Click Install Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE). This option opens the MSDE Readme with detailed instructions for properly installing MSDE in a secure manner.

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

Note Visual FoxPro 9.0 includes Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine Service Pack 3.0a. To make sure you have the latest version and Service Pack installed, please visit the Microsoft SQL Server Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/default.asp. Additionally, if you are distributing custom Visual FoxPro applications that require MSDE, you can obtain the redistributable merge modules, available from the Microsoft SQL Server Web page, for use with Windows Installer-based setup programs.

## 1.2.4. Instructions for Machines with a Previous Visual FoxPro 9.0 Beta Installation

If you are installing Visual FoxPro 9.0 on a computer that has an older beta version of Visual FoxPro 9.0, you need to first uninstall that Beta release. You can uninstall the beta version using Add or Remove Programs from the Windows Control Panel. In addition, you need to remove the beta settings and data files. The following steps walk you through the process of uninstalling the beta version and installing the released version of Visual FoxPro 9.0.

To uninstall Visual FoxPro 9.0 Beta

1. On the Windows Start menu, point to Settings, and click Control Panel.

2. Double-click Add or Remove Programs.

3. Locate Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9.0 Professional, and click Change/Remove.

4. In the Visual FoxPro Setup dialog box, click Visual FoxPro.

5. In the Visual FoxPro 9.0 Maintenance dialog box, click Uninstall Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9.0 Professional.

To install the released version of Visual FoxPro 9.0

· Follow the steps in Section 1.2.1.

To remove Beta settings and files

1. Remove old AutoComp, DataExplorer, Toolbox and Task Pane files.

These files are automatically created using the latest Visual FoxPro 9.0 format and settings. To remove these files, you need to delete the contents of your Application Data directory. You can determine the location of this directory using the HOME(7) function by typing the following line in the Visual FoxPro Command window:

    ? HOME(7)

2. Run VFPClean.app to make sure that all core Xbase and other files are set appropriately. To run VFPClean.app, type the following line in the Visual FoxPro Command window:

    DO HOME()+"VFPCLEAN.APP"

3. To update your IntelliSense tables, perform the following steps:

a) On the Tools menu in Visual FoxPro, click IntelliSense Manager.

b) In the IntelliSense Manager dialog box, click the Advanced tab.

c) Click Clean Up.

d) In the Maintenance dialog box, click Restore FoxCode.

4. It is also recommended that you delete your FoxUser.* resource files.

These files are stored in your Application Data directory, which you can locate by typing the following in the Command window:

    ? HOME(7)

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)

5. Delete old Code Reference files that might be associated with projects in the project directories. These are labeled as follows:

projectname_ref.*

6. In addition, you might need to restore the default Visual FoxPro 9.0 registry settings. To restore the default settings, delete the following registry key using the RegEdit program and restart Visual FoxPro:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualFoxPro\9.0\

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# 2. Known Issues

This section lists known issues in this release of Visual FoxPro.

## 2.1. Documentation Issues

This section lists known documentation (Help file) issues in this release of Visual FoxPro.

· The Toolbox Help topic indicates that you can right-click the title bar to turn docking on or off. This is only the case if Always on Top is turned off. If Always on Top is turned on, docking is not enabled. You can change this setting from the context menu.

· The Help file omits documentation for Error 2115 (Execution of function or command is not allowed in context of SQL command). This error can occur if you have a UDF which attempts to close a table involved in SQL statement containing the UDF.

· The BINDEVENT() Help topic indicates that the cDelegate method must return an integer. This is only true for BINDEVENT() calls using Windows Message style event handling (new to Visual FoxPro 9.0). For Windows Messages, user code is executed instead of the default Visual FoxPro handling. The integer returned by cDelegate is then passed on to the Windows operating system. If you want to have Visual FoxPro perform the default processing, you must call CallWindowProc, and your code can then take action with the returned value including passing it to the Windows OS.

· Many topics in the Help file contain a horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of the content pane. This scrollbar is due to incorrect formatting and width calculation of certain tables.

· The OS() Help topic includes wrong description for Product Suite bit flags value of 256. The description should be “Single user (instance) Terminal Services (Remote Desktop capability for administration tasks).”

· The Type() Help topic indicates that a Blob data type will return a value of “Q”. This is incorrect. A value of “W” is actually returned.

## 2.2. Feature Issues

This section describes the most recent information about features included in this release of Visual FoxPro.

· The PADR(), PADC() and PADL() functions use a space as default for padding to specified length. For Visual FoxPro 9.0, you can use these functions with Varbinary data. Often, it is preferable to pad Varbinary data with CHR(0). You can do this using the optional cPadCharacter parameter.

· The Watch Window does not display the correct data type for Blob or Varchar fields when a field reference for one of these types is added.

· Query Designer will prompt with a temporary file name if you create a new query (CREATE QUERY) and try to close the designer without first saving the file. If you select “Yes”, you will properly be prompted with expected query name in the Save As dialog box.

· Pageframe TabOrientation settings other than 0 (Top) are not supported on bidirectional platforms when the RightToLeft property is set to True (.T.).

· The Visual FoxPro setup indicates at one point during the installation process that it is installing the HTML Help Workshop. This is an erroneous setup message. This feature is not included with this version of Visual FoxPro.