I have an ancient program that I use for reading and writing data from AutoCAD. This program is written in Delphi 5. I have tried to update it to a newer release but several of the libraries I use no longer exist and it is a huge program with lots of libraries used.
The program uses the ACAX##ENU.TLB type library that is provided with AutoCAD. Where ## changes for each AutoCAD release. Every time Autodesk sends out a new AutoCAD version I import the new type library and life goes on.
Now I am faced with Windows 10. For some reason the automation links between my program and AutoCAD are not working in Windows 10. Did something change about the way the type libraries work between Windows 7 and Windows 10? Something that Delphi 5 is no longer compatible with? Maybe it's a 16bit vs 32bit vs 64bit issue. That is all over my head but I understand that Windows 10 dropped support for some 16bit operations. But my program itself runs perfectly. Even the BDE can be made to work which is amazing to me.
Is there anything I can do for an experiment? I am really lost about what to even experiment on.
Thanks.
Well, it's been a long time since I asked this question but here is an answer:
I was able to get my Delphi 5 compiled program working with AutoCAD 2017 in a Windows 10 environment. I am pretty sure that the solution was to run the program WITHOUT administrative permissions and WITHOUT any compatibility modes switched on. Apparently Windows places restrictions on COM communications as soon as you turn on either of those features. There may have also been issues with Windows 10 still having UAC active even when you set UAC all the way off. There is a registry setting to actually set UAC to off but my corporate IT prevents turning that off even with admin rights.
So in the end it was not a problem with Delphi, my program or with AutoCAD. It was a Windows 10 problem.
There was a bit of a clue that might be helpful to others: with the admin permission and/or windows XP compatibility turned on the program took several extra seconds to boot. With the settings turned off it booted quickly.
Or maybe its something entirely different from any of this. But the program is working now.
Thanks.
Are there any problems with programs that are compiled with Delphi 2010, using Rave reports (no database connection) running on Windows 10?
In principle, there's no reason why a program compiled with Delphi 2010 will not work perfectly well on Windows 10. Indeed, a program compiled with any 32 bit version of Delphi (Delphi 2 or later) can, in principle, be executed on Windows 10.
The usual caveats apply though. You have to make sure that your code respects features like UAC. So don't attempt to write to HKLM, system directories, etc. as standard user.
As a broad guideline, if your program executes on Windows 8.1, you can expect it to execute on Windows 10 also.
So, in summary, you should be perfectly capable of producing a program that runs on Windows 10 using Delphi 2010. However, it's impossible for anyone to tell you definitively that your program will run because only you know the full details of how your program is implemented. You should test your program on each new operating system as it is released, if not before it is released.
I'm not sure, but the internal Kernel ID from Windows is set from 6.x (Windows Vista - Windows 8.1) to 10.0 (Windows 10) so this can be a problem.
Can anyone help with this.
I'm using Delphi2007 December update.
I'm trying to connect to a Gupta database through ODBC and get the error message: The specified module could not be found. C:\Windows\System32\c2gup15.dll.
The DLLs are 32 bit and are found in c:\Windows\SysWow64 as they should be.
When running my compiled program standalone (not inside Delphi) I have no problems.
On XP (my other machine) running within Delphi IDE gives no problems.
All other ways of connecting (like Excel) through this ODBC-driver works perfect.
I'm having this problem both with ODBCExpress and AnyDac.
As I have understood it: When running a 32 bit app in Win7 64 bit windows should automatically use SysWow64 instead of System32.
Does Delphi2007 in some way ruin or override this?
Any suggestions how to solve it? (It's not easy developing software when you can't use your debugger)
Over the past 15 years or so I've written all the software that runs my medical practice in Delphi 5.
Last week my disk became unbootable/unrecoverable. I have my original D5p disk and all the components backed up but I want to migrate to Windows7. I don't care if my delphi apps look like vista/7; I just want to be able to install it and code on the machine again for maintenance purposes.
are there any tricks to install D5 so it works in W7?
is using a virtual machine really the only/best way? if so, which is suggested?
Thanks in advance.
Larry
LKohnMD#msn.com
I don't know if this helps, but I run Delphi 7 on 64 bit Windows 7 with no problem.
There are some special steps to installing it, but after that, it works fine.
Check out this site for the details: http://www.drbob42.com/examines/examin84.htm
Although I use VMs for other things, running Delphi inside a VM IMO is a nuisance. So it'll be worth your trying the above. On the other hand, I know developers who swear by VMs for this since they can get such great backup snapshots, as noted by others.
I'm not an expert in the Delphi field any more, but I'm pretty sure you're not going to get D5 running on Windows 7 smoothly. Even if you get it running as such, it's going to give you trouble in the details.
But Windows 7's built-in XP virtual machine is a joy to use, and integrates seamlessly (i.e. you can even have Delphi and your old apps in Windows 7's start menu). I'd say the virtual machine is really the way to go. It's called Windows XP mode and can be downloaded here at no extra cost. You just need Windows 7 professional or better, it won't work on a Home edition.
We do commercial software development using Delphi 2009 in a Windows XP Virtual PC, hosted on Windows 7. Until last year, we were using Delphi 7 on an XP virtual machine on Vista. Both are excellent development platforms.
As far as I can see, there are no downsides to this setup. Under Windows 7, the Virtual XP machine integrates right into the desktop using XP mode. Backups are easy, since the VHD file (Virtual Hard Disk) is typically less than 16 GB. There have been absolutely no issues with stability. And although performance within the virtual machine is somewhat slower than on a native machine, the speed difference is not significant.
My opinion is that this is the best solution, and we have been using it successfully for years. If you have any questions about it, just let me know.
I got tired of having to reinstall all my Delphi components whenever I had to setup my machine from scratch/install a new operating system/move to a new laptop, so when I installed Windows Server 2008 (32-bit), I installed Delphi 5 in a virtual machine.
Because of that, when I recently moved to Windows 7, 64-bit, I could use the same virtual machine, no new setup required!
Granted, it is a bit slower, but, hey, this was meant to run on computers a lot slower than they are today.
It's a win/win all the way...
Two people at work are now running Delphi 5 on Windows 7 64-bit.
There is a problem with some Jedi files, that rely on a particular define (WINDOWS i think), that isn't true in 64-bit environment. In the end the Jedi files are not useing Windows.pas. Code then fails to compile when it can't find declarations such as DWORD.
Also, there is a bug in Delphi 5 compiled code, that is only exposed on 64-bit versions of Windows. If you have Overflow Checking turned on, and anything calls SendMessage, the compiled Delphi code is checking that the BOOL value is not greater than $FFFF.
This is wrong, since BOOL is declared by Win32, Microsoft, and Delphi 5, to be a 32-bit boolean value; in x64 it returns $FFFFFFFF as the non-zero value. It works on 32-bit Windows because Microsoft has to maintain compatibility with 16-bit applications; where BOOL was only 16-bits, returning $0000FFFF. 64-bit versions of Windows are unable to run 16-bit applications (this is because a 64-bit CPU running in 64-bit mode does not support running 16-bit instructions)
In other words: turn off Overflow Checks
If you have the option of restoring the original system to a working state, I recommend doing that, and the use the "VMWare vCenter Converter Standalone Client" to make a VM of your current system. Then install VMWare on the new PC when it gets here. Now you can simply bring that up under your new PC, and you've got your trusty old PC ready to roll, any time you need it.
You can do it. More over you can even deploy lower versions too.
I am running Delphi 4 on windows7 32 bit, now I tried to deploy to win 7 b4 bit.
So far the compile, building works, I can run my app outside ide.
Inside ide, I could not register correctly bordbk40.dllm this is why app is not starting from ide.
Database Desktop is also not working, saying unkown compatibility issues.
I recently got a new laptop. Unfortunately, it came with Vista. It's been one big hassle getting it to work, and the comp has hardware components for which there are no XP drivers, so I can't "upgrade" to an OS that actually works. I've mostly gotten things working, but one particularly odd problem has me stumped.
I installed Delphi and tried to build a project. It compiled, but wouldn't run. "This application failed to start because sdl.dll was not found." Fair enough. So I grabbed SDL.dll and put it in the C:\windows\system32 folder. (Using Vista 64-bit Home Premium. This is a 32-bit dll, though, so I put it in the 32 folder instead of the 64 one.)
Hit Run again. Same problem. But why? That's where it goes, right? And C:\windows\system32 is in the system path. Anyone know why it can't link to the DLL?
(And yes, I know that I can work around the problem by putting the DLL in the same folder as the .exe. I'm currently doing that as a workaround. It's a bad idea in the long term, though, because I have a handful of different projects that all require SDL.)
That is not a Vista problem, but a 64 bit Windows problem: The name System32 is really confusing, but this is actually the folder where the systems (64 bit) DLLs reside.
So on any 64 bit version of Windows...
... all 64 bit system DLLs are located in C:\Windows\System32.
... all 32 bit system DLLs are located in C:\Windows\SysWOW64.
The name comes from Windows on Windows 64 (WOW64) which is the name of the translation layer allowing 32 bit applications to use the native 64 bit system resources.
Raymond Chen recently addressed the basic reason behind why 32-bit system directories are weird on 64-bit Windows. The first paragraph of the entry is really the key to understanding the reason behind segregated 32-bit directories:
On 64-bit Windows, 32-bit programs run
in an emulation layer...If a 32-bit
program tries to look at the system,
it will see a 32-bit system.
I think you'd have to have separate directories to keep these things all separate and working. The seemingly counter-intuitive name of SysWOW64 for the directory where the files reside is makes more sense when you consider that WOW64 means Windows On Windows 64-bit, which is what the emulater that's mentioned above is called.