Which is best for developing apps?

[Greg]

I'm developing a VB application that will definately be installed on Windows
95/98/NT/2K/XP/ME machines. I plan on using Microsoft's Package&Depolyment
tool to create the setup package.

Any thoughts on which version of Windows I should use to develop/compile
my app to avoid compatability problems during deployment/runtime?
Or is the OS not relevant? Anyone have any issues before?


Thanks.

[Arthur Wood]

Greg,

In general, my approach has always been - Use the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR
- in this case, since you indicate that you MAY need to run on Windows 95,
then THAT is where you are ALMOST forced to do your development. But remember,
W95 is NOW an OBSOLETE operating system, no longer supported by Microsoft,
so if it were up to me, I would NOT choose to develope for that platform,
and make the minimum system be Windows 98.

But if that choice is NOT UP TO YOU, then Windows 95 is where you MUST do
your development.

Arthur Wood



"Greg" <glohes@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>I'm developing a VB application that will definately be installed on Windows
>95/98/NT/2K/XP/ME machines. I plan on using Microsoft's Package&Depolyment
>tool to create the setup package.
>
>Any thoughts on which version of Windows I should use to develop/compile
>my app to avoid compatability problems during deployment/runtime?
>Or is the OS not relevant? Anyone have any issues before?
>
>
>Thanks.

[Steve]

I've recently run into this. I find it depends on the referenced elements
in the project. If the application is made up of basic controls and libraries
then you can relatively safely develop on any OS, *provided* you let the
PDW extract the system files and use the latest VB service packs.

When you start factoring in additional libraries that the PDW doesn't recognize,
things can get dangerous if you're working on a newer OS and installing on
an older one if you manually grab dependency DLLs out of the System32 directory.
(This can lead to very, very bad things I've run into a problem where gathering
the dependencies for a third party grid from an NT4 SP6 machine and installing
them on an NT4 SP4 machine caused the SP4 machine to stop booting.

However I have successfully deployed an installation from a 2000 box to a
98 machine without a serious hitch using the PDW. The snags with the older
OS was mainly the IE version, which didn't have support for the Scripting
runtime. (FileSysObject)

My advice is that it's safe to develop on any OS you prefer, but be absolutely
sure to test your application thoroughly on any OS you plan to support, and
define a minimum service pack level for each OS. (Especially 95 and NT) Also,
don't just test the installation & start-up, but also the entire GUI and
data access functionality to save headaches from your customer that you may
not be able to reproduce immediately on your development box.

Steve.

"Greg" <glohes@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>I'm developing a VB application that will definately be installed on Windows
>95/98/NT/2K/XP/ME machines. I plan on using Microsoft's Package&Depolyment
>tool to create the setup package.
>
>Any thoughts on which version of Windows I should use to develop/compile
>my app to avoid compatability problems during deployment/runtime?
>Or is the OS not relevant? Anyone have any issues before?
>
>
>Thanks.

[Eli]

Well this is kind of a tough one. I have found that if you write your app
for NT it will pretty much work on 2k and XP. However sometimes there is
a problem between the Win 95/98 and NT platforms. Usually if you write your
app in Win 95 platform it will run in all other platforms like NT, 2k, and
XP. What you might want to do is write your app on the 95 platform. But test
on all the other platforms. You may need to even write some functions that
do things differently in other platforms. It may take longer to do that,
but you will have an application that can be installed on any computer with
Win 95 or greater. I hope that this is helpful.

ELI

"Greg" <glohes@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>I'm developing a VB application that will definately be installed on Windows
>95/98/NT/2K/XP/ME machines. I plan on using Microsoft's Package&Depolyment
>tool to create the setup package.
>
>Any thoughts on which version of Windows I should use to develop/compile
>my app to avoid compatability problems during deployment/runtime?
>Or is the OS not relevant? Anyone have any issues before?
>
>
>Thanks.

[SteelCodr]

XP development platform to an NT target using the PDW can do very very bad
things! The PDW does a good job of detecting all the files you use, but
these files may not be suitable for a lower platform. Specifically, I found
msvcrt.dll is troublesome. The XP version of this file appears to make NT
non-bootable.

I use the PDW to detrermnine what files I have in use, and then use NSIS to
do the installation - you have much more control of the installation, in my
opinion, but other people swear by other installation packages. (NSIS is
free, and you get the source code for it) - you can do some really nice neat
and wacky things with it, too, without detracting from the whole 'windows'
feel.

Having to deploy to multiple OSs can add a lot of time: you truly should
have 'clean' installations of any operating system you are going to
distibute to, and test it first. Plus, just because you develop on one OS
does in no way mean it will run on other installations of the same OS. This
does depend, of course, on the complexity of the project (a simple 'hello
world' won't have much dificulty), but Database accessing, scripting runtime
(someone mentioned this) can be problematic.


"Greg" <glohes@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3dc019df$1@tnews.web.devx.com...
>
> I'm developing a VB application that will definately be installed on
Windows
> 95/98/NT/2K/XP/ME machines. I plan on using Microsoft's
Package&Depolyment
> tool to create the setup package.
>
> Any thoughts on which version of Windows I should use to develop/compile
> my app to avoid compatability problems during deployment/runtime?
> Or is the OS not relevant? Anyone have any issues before?
>
>
> Thanks.

[Peter Young]

I'll throw my 2 cents in too...

If you use straight VB code, that code will run on all Win32
OSs. If you have any API calls, you need to verify that the
calls will work on all versions of Windows. Also, any
dependencies in your project need to be looked at to
guarantee that they will work on all versions of Windows.

I think what's far more important here is that you not use
the Package and Deployment Wheezer. It is at best a barely
adequate installer. Use something decent. If you want to
stay in the free category then use Inno Setup. It's a very
highly-evolved, professional and robust tool with excellent
support via the Inno newsgroups. The P&DW finds dependencies
for you (sort of) which some people like, and Inno requires
you to tell it what to include. Personally I prefer the
latter as it makes you aware of what's really going on
during the install process.
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

Best,
Pete

"Greg" <glohes@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3dc019df$1@tnews.web.devx.com...
>
> I'm developing a VB application that will definately be
installed on Windows
> 95/98/NT/2K/XP/ME machines. I plan on using Microsoft's
Package&Depolyment
> tool to create the setup package.
>
> Any thoughts on which version of Windows I should use to
develop/compile
> my app to avoid compatability problems during
deployment/runtime?
> Or is the OS not relevant? Anyone have any issues before?
>
>
> Thanks.

[Bernie]

>The P&DW finds dependencies
>for you (sort of) which some people like, and Inno requires
>you to tell it what to include. Personally I prefer the
>latter as it makes you aware of what's really going on
>during the install process.

Hi,

The PDW doesn't 'find' anything for you. It just tries to read the DEP-files
for each and every component used, that tells it what's needed to include
and just(!) includes it. The PDW finaly shows what it have found and lets
you edit the result.

How many developers keep their DEP-files in shape?. Too many developers don't
even know of their existens(!). Too many third-party suppliers of components
seems to belong to this category since too often no DEP-files are included
with their components.

I've tried a number of 'setup-wizards' and haven't this far found any that
can decide better than the one creating the app, what files to include and
where to put them. I haven't even seen one this far that makes any kind of
version checks of the files it includes.

Never, ever rely on some kind of wizard to make the job for you. And furthermore,
before trying to put the stuff together, make a list of the files needed,
their versions, where to put them, if they are to be shared and how they
should be registered.

Try the package on a 'clean machine', meaning a newly installed Windows.
And do this with every version of Windows you promise your app should work
on.

...certainly it works on the machine you have built it on, but on all others?

Bernie