[Firebird-devel] [FB-Tracker] Created: (CORE-3641) Win64: installer is better to check for MS VC rutime presence

[Dmitry (JIRA) <tr...@fi...>]

Win64: installer is better to check for MS VC rutime presence
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                 Key: CORE-3641
                 URL: http://tracker.firebirdsql.org/browse/CORE-3641
             Project: Firebird Core
          Issue Type: Improvement
          Components: Installation
         Environment: win7 x64
            Reporter: Dmitry


Updating my Win7 x64 box i deinstalled FB 2.5.0 and started installing 2.5.1 x64

The installer unpacked files and then thrown bunch of "access denied" files.
FB files were unpacked yet not registered.

Manual run for inst*** tools also resulted in Access denied error.
I traced them and cmd.exe ni Process Monitor but could not find single operation with statuses other than SUCCESS or FILE NOT FOUND. I was confused.

Step by step i came to good idea that tools miss msvcr80.dll and msvcp80.dll
Maybe they never been on my box or some previous deinstaller wiped them out, dunno.

Then the quest was to find it. Okay, it is MC VS 2005, but i do not trust to no-one sites like dll-find, i wanted them from Microsoft Download.
After a while it came out that MC VC 2005 runtimes do disappear from Microsoft Download search results, if user language is Russian.

Then at last i found http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=18471 and been able to finally register and run FB.

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I think that installer(both Win32 and Win64):
1) ...should know whether it has or does not have MS VC runtmes within the package. Currently it is VC 2005, but FB3 was told to switch to VC2010. May one day the server exe and inst*** tools dependent on different MS VC versions - then installer is to know about each version distinctly.
2) if it does not carry the runtimes, then it should check if they are already present on the computer
3) if neither installer nor computer have the runtimes, then it should pause (or even abort) installation and ask user to download and install runtimes 1st. User is to be able to copy the URL from installer-given prompt or open the browser to the page from the prompt.
4) if possible, instXXX tools should give better errors when MS VC runtimes are missed - "access denied" is confusing and does not give hint how to fix it.

Even if decision would be made for installers to always have runtimes within, those points still apply since
a) someone might want to make custom, diet installation package. And got into trouble later.
b) some error may cause to release no-runtime packages. Since aon test machines runtimes would probably be already installed far ago - tests would not show problems. but some users would have.
c) the decision can be some day later reviewed and n-runtime policy applied, when this potential problem be forgot.


I also think documentation and www download page are to be updated to give download links and describe symptoms, however those points are not for this component.

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