Need Action-Files search help

[GalacTek]

Now that we have just sent out 5K CD's to all our clients. Can anyone tell me why this does not work with windows 98. It seems to not search the drives like it does with 2000 and XP. All our our clients running windows 98 now get the wrong page displayed and our help desk is hammered walking users on manually running the update off the CD. I understand this is our fault for not testing the CD more thoughtly.

What happens is it searches all the drives looking for \\mpn\\eclipse32.exe, if not found it displays the new install page. If found then it displays 1 of two pages depending the entry in the ini. It seems that Windows 98 skips all this code. This action is on the pre-load on the main page. The code below works great on 2000/XP/NT4. This code will not work on 98. I need to know why or maybe another way of doing it.

drives = Drive.Enumerate();
min = 1; -- The number to start at
max = Table.Count(drives); -- The number to stop at

for count = min, max do
--Dialog.Message("ll",drives[count]);
exists = File.DoesExist(drives[count].."\\MPN\\eclipse32.exe");

if exists then
-- file exists, check the value then jump based on that
eclini = INIFile.GetValue(drives[count].."\\MPN\\eclipse.ini", "SETTINGS", "ECLIPSE_DATABASE_VERSION");
eclini = String.ToNumber(eclini);
if eclini >= 9 then
Page.Jump("Update V9");
else
Page.Jump("Update V8 to V9");
end
end
end

[Brett]

The problem is that Drive.Enumerate() returns the drives in the format C:\ as stated in the docs. Then when you add "\\MPN\\eclipse32.exe" to it it becomes:

C:\\MPN\eclipse32.exe

which is invalid on Win 9x. Windows NT+ has always accomodated that syntax but 98 doesn't like it. I've been bitten by it more than once in C++ myself if that makes you feel any better. ;)

[GalacTek]

I would like to thank you and Adam. that solved my problem. I have done many really cool things with SF & AP. Not being any type of a programmer I would have never known about. Adam was great when he helped me put this together we keep testing to get it right. As Stated it's my fault for not testing on 98... Go to show never assume.

[Brett]

This thread reminded me of something that I keep meaning to mention. ANYONE out there that releases ANY kind of software (or even videos, documents, etc.) to unknown system configurations should check out Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/virtualpc).

You can get a free 45 day trial from the MS Web site. This little gem alows you to run completely protected, isolated Virtaul Machines. We have setup all of our testers and tech support folks with it and plan to put it on all of our development machines soon. In fact, GalacTek, Adam used this program to confirm and find your bug today. All you do is run the Virtual PC and have Windows 98 (or any other OS) running in a Window or full screen and run all of the tests you want. Then just shut it down. Next time you come back, it is "clean" again.

Again, this will save you $$$, time and reputation, I can almost guarantee it. I don't often plug other pieces of software on these forums, but this one is a must buy.

[itamar]

Sounds like a tool that every developer needs, I'll check it out.

Thanks Brett,
Itamar.

[itamar]

We should open a new Theard to discuss our debuggin methods and tools.

Itamar.

[Corey]

That's a great idea, feel free to go into the "Computer Chat" forum and start a thread called, "Discussion on Favorite Debugging Tools and Usage". That thread will stay there and become an ongoing conversation for years to come. :)

I'd start it but I've never used a debugging tool, sounds cool though. :yes

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software (http://www.indigorose.com)