FoxPro Downgrade Help

I recently formatted my pc at work and and to reinstall all of my applications. I tried installing Visual FoxPro 9.0, however it was not working correctly. It kept giving me the error "Cannot locate the Microsoft Visual FoxPro support library."

So I uninstalled this, and tried installing Visual FoxPro 8.0. The program now runs fine on it's own, however, whenever I try to run a FoxPro-based application (i.e. Mail Order Manager), I still get the same error.

I don't know if the application is still trying to use remnants of FoxPro 9.0, or what.

Does anybody know what I can do to fix this

Thanks in advance,
Steve

Visual FoxPro1

They're looking for runtimes from version they were compiled in. You can check the version using dependency walker or hexeditor.

Whoa, this is confusing me...

I downloaded the dependency walker, but I have no idea how to find what I'm looking for.

Is there a way to just change the default FoxPro support library that is used, when an attempt to run a FoxPro-based application, to version 8.0

>Is there a way to just change the default FoxPro support library that is used, when an attempt to run a FoxPro-based application, to version 8.0

No. Each compiled version uses its own set of runtimes. This is true for Visual FoxPro, and for VB and for many many languages. In other words, if you are running a VFP 8.0 program you need the runtimes (support libraries) for it installed so it can find them.

You can of course, have several sets of runtimes for different versions (major versions and service packs) all installed in the same PC at all times (they are not that big).

To see what runtimes are used by each version:

http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll Wiki~VFP9RuntimeFiles

http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll Wiki~VFP8RuntimeFiles

http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll Wiki~VFP7RuntimeFiles

For some Ready-to-go Runtime Installers see the ProLib FTP archives at ftp://ftp.prolib.de/public

Hmm, I may be conveying this a little differently than I am thinking...

Here, the program I'm trying to run (Mail-Order Manager) is Fox-based. It needs FoxPro to run, but it has it's own interface.

I am able to run this program on different computers with many different versions of FoxPro (6.0, 8.0, and 9.0).

So the program doesn't need a specific version's runtime files. But here's the problem now:

I installed FoxPro 9.0 after a format, but was having the support library problem (I wasn't able to run FoxPro by itself either). So I completely uninstalled 9.0, and tried installing 8.0. I can now run FoxPro 8.0, but I am still getting the error that I was getting when I had 9.0. My best guess is that there is a value set for programs that access FoxPro for anything default to 9.0, which is missing, and therefore still returning the support library error.

I hope this helps, but thanks to all who have suggested their advise thusfar.

Running a VFP exe from within IDE is not the same thing as running it from outside.

Lets clarify the concepts.

To develop in Visual FoxPro you need to install Visual FoxPro IDE (Integrated Developer Environment).

To distribute and run an EXE developed and compiled in Visual FoxPro, the client PC does not need the VFP IDE but the VFP runtimes. Even if the PC had the IDE the EXE would still look for the runtimes it needs.

>Here, the program I'm trying to run (Mail-Order Manager) is Fox-based. It needs FoxPro to run, but it has it's own interface.

You are talking of an EXE developed insome version of VFP. Make sure to install the proper runtimes for it in the target PC (the installer that comes with VFP should take care of that).

>> Here, the program I'm trying to run (Mail-Order Manager) is Fox-based. It needs FoxPro to run, but it has it's own interface.
>> I am able to run this program on different computers with many different versions of FoxPro (6.0, 8.0, and 9.0).

The fact that you can run it in different versions of FoxPro means nothing. A FoxPro EXE (just like C++, VB and the .NET languages) requires one, or more, "runtime libraries" in order to find the static, visual foxpro routines that the developer-written code uses. These runtime libraries are a cut-down version of the full VFP Development Environment. The consequence is that you can use the EXE with (with certain version specific limitations) in any version of the full product, but can only run it WITHOUT the full version if the correct run-time library is installed.

You need to find out what version this product was created in, and then install the runtime libraries for that version.

Ok, you all were right. I was just misunderstanding my own situation. Installing the runtime libraries helped.

I apologize to all for taking more of your time that was needed. However, I would like to thank all of you for your help.

Thanks again,
Steve