InstallShield vaporized project? (neophyte user)

lowellnelson


I generated a VFP prg and build an exe version which run without errors. I then attempted to use InstallShield to prepare for distribution to another site (I am completely inexperienced with InstallShield), but the test installation halted before completion and provided an error code. NOW I FIND THAT MY PROJECT, WITH ALL TABLES, FORMS, AND REPORTS NO LONGER EXISTS. Have I so offended the InstallShield gods Is there life after death Is it possible to recover the lost files

dni


What operating system system Files were on local hdd You may try to not write to much if you had files on local hdd. It is possible to recover.

dni

If files were on local hdd you may try:

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/Restoration/restoration.html

ift is working fine with xp.

lowellnelson

OS = Windows 2000. Files on local HD.

Aside from the general issue of recovery of files on a hard drive, the thrust of my question is related to the nature of VFP projects, and to the nature of InstallShield. If tables, forms, & reports are incorporated into a project, are all of those component files vulnerable if some glitch occurs in the project superstructure If InstallShield crashes does it take down my project and all of its components at once Does VFP provide any means for extracting the components of a damaged project superstructure, or of repairing the superstructure Currently I see the name of my project in its home directory, and I can open the project tree, but all of the component tables, forms, and reports have disappeared.

dni

There are lot of programms who are repairing vfp files.

http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll Wiki~TableCorruptionRepairTools~VFP

Rick Borup

Lowell,

Several things are perplexing about what you are saying here. For starters, there is no relation between the VFP project and the InstallShield project, other than that in the Files portion of the InstallShield project you would typically include the EXE you built from your VFP project, along with other files that need to be deployed with your appplication. I don't know how your InstallShield project is configured, but even if it contained a reference to your VFP project file for some reason, it's highly unlikely it would corrupt it regardless of whether or not the build was successful. Something else is going on here.

Secondly, a VFP project file is essentially just a container for references to the tables, form, reports, and other components that comprise the application. Although it's scary when a project file is lost or becomes corrupted, it's not fatal: Simply create a new one, add the main prg (or scx, or whatever) and do a build; VFP will prompt you for the location of each piece of the app it can't find, which in this case will be everything other than what's in the same folder as the main prg. After you respond to each prompt and tell VFP where to find the parts of the app, the project file will be intact again.

-Rick

lowellnelson

Thanks Rick

I'm glad to hear your opinion that the timing of the file loss while I was attempting to use InstallShield was coincidental.

However, this was not just a loss of a component file. Every file associated with my project disappeared except for the project structure (the project tree remains intact) and the main program (which contains only a small amount of code); all tables, all forms, and all reports are gone from their home directory, or have been rendered invisible to me. They don't appear to have been moved; a search of the entire computer (including the recycle bin) fails to find any of them. This is not a matter of reconstructing a table and re-adding it to the project, or of re-establishing broken links between the project and files which have been temporarily orphaned but still exist; 99% of my project must be reconstructed unless those files have just been hidden in some manner which leaves them recoverable.

.... I just picked up on a nuance of your statement that one needs merely to restore links with everything which is not in the same folder as the main prg. In my case, all of the related files WERE IN the same folder as the main prg. Your comment seems to imply that there are characteristic crashes with VFP which take out the whole directory in which the main prg lives.

Rick Borup

lowellnelson wrote:

I just picked up on a nuance of your statement... Your comment seems to imply that there are characteristic crashes with VFP which take out the whole directory in which the main prg lives.

I'm not sure what nuance you're referring to, but I did not mean to imply that at all. I've seen VFP project files get corrupted from time to time, but I have never seen nor even heard of the entire contents of the project folder being erased as the result of a build.

However, I just read your initial post more carefully and realize I may have misunderstood how the problem originally occurred. You said "the test installation halted before completion and provided an error code." Did you mean mean the error occurred when you were building setup.exe in InstallShield Express, or that setup.exe was successfully created and you were actually running it to test installation of your application when the error occurred

lowellnelson

Rick

I'm guilty of some sloppiness in my life, including not saving my work as often as I should for my own good, so occasionally I have lost files I have been working on. However, I have NEVER experienced the loss of multiple files simultaneously in the manner which I described. This was so startling and confusing for me, in a circumstance in which I am entering new territory, that I was looking for meaning wherever I could find it, including the possibility of unexpectedly strange behavior somewhere in that new territory. So...sorry if I put words into your mouth. The "nuance" was related to your phrase "which in this case will be everything other than what's in the same folder as the main prg." The wording seemed to suggest that what was replaceable was material that by chance or design was not in the same folder as that of the main prg.

Anyway, if my memory (which is not photographic) remains intact, the problem was noted during the testing phase of InstallShield. I think I remember that the test installation failed, and upon a re-try a different error dialog appeared, announcing that a required file could not be found. Subsequent searches showed the disappearance of almost all relevant files, as I have noted.

I have rebuilt my project from (somewhat delinquent) backup files, so I am more or less up and running again. However, I am disturbed in principle by the episode of multiple simultaneous file loss within a VFP project. The affected files were all associated with the project; nothing else went missing. It seems not to have been a matter of deletion of the project (the project tree and the main prg persisted), or of deletion of the database (forms and reports also disappeared).


So...if you have any advice for me about VFP machinery or other relevant principles by which such a event could have come about I would be very happy to hear from you again.

Thanks

Rick Borup

Lowell,

I'm sure we've all lost files we wished we'd backed up more recently, so at least you're in good company. What I meant about having to tell VFP where to find "everything other than what's in the same folder as the main.prg" is that if you rebuild a project file from scratch, add in only the main.prg is for starters, and do a build, then VFP knows to look for other files in the same folder where main.prg is located but it does not know about any other folders where the project's screens, reports, images, and other files might be located. During the build, VFP will prompt you for the location of each file it can't find.

Back to the original problem: If your files disappeared when testing the installer, there are a couple of things I'd look at. First, are you testing the installer on the same machine where the VFP project and source files are located If so, what is the value of INSTALLDIR in your InstallShield project There is no reason you can't build the VFP app, build setup.exe using InstallShield, and test the installer all on the same machine, but you want to be sure everything is in its own direcotry and that you're not, for example, including your source files in the installer nor installing to the same location your source files are located in. The default target location for the installer would be something like C:\Program Files\myApp, while your VFP project and source code files would typcially be somewhere else such as C:\myVFPProjects\myApp, and your InstallShield project would be in its own location such as C:\myISEProjects\myApp.

Also, you would want to look at which files are being installed. Normally this would be only the application's EXE that you built from the VFP project, plus any support files and/or data files needed by the app at runtime. The VFP runtime files are incorporated into the InstallShield project as merge modules, so you don't need to handle them individually.

It might help to deal with specifics from here on out. If you want to pursue this, please post back with some of the information above and let's see if we can take it from there.

-Rick

lowellnelson

Rick,

I appreciate your comments, and your recommendations about keeping source files, installation targets, and InstallShield components in their respective cages seems like good advice (I have been careless with respect to such distinctions). However, the issue of reasons for the mass exodus of my files seems not to be likely to have a straightforward answer, and though their disappearance is still vexing, I can't spend the rest of my life looking for my missing socks. I already know that I have more questions about InstallShield, and I need to get on with those other things. So thanks for the help. I'm going to stop here and address other questions in a new thread.

Rick Borup

lowellnelson wrote:

...thanks for the help. I'm going to stop here and address other questions in a new thread.

You're welcome, Lowell. Good luck going forward.