BDE Enterprise installer and Windows 10

[Antony Danby 1]

I am sorry to ask about the BDE in 2020, but we are trying to move a client from Windows7 to Windows10 and then eventually from the BDE to FireDAC

 

I installed BDE v5.01 onto my machine using the installer ( 30868_bde_installer_for_rad_studio_delphi_c_builder_10.3_rio ) and apparently in order to give the client the ability to insall the BDE I must find BDE_ENT.msi on my machine ( in %programdata% ) and then give them that file to install. However, I cannot find BDE_ENT.msi anywhere on my system. I have even gone into %programdata% and manually searched for it and it is nowhere to be found. 

 

So, I guess my questions are:

• Do Embarcadero still sell or make available for download or to purchase the Enterprise version for clients ( not developers ) with a proper installer ?
• Can a proper installer be obtained from anywhere ?
• If the customer already has a licensed version of the BDE Enterprise (v4) are they allowed to get an updated installer ?
• Will this work on Window 10 (v4 or the latest version) ?
• What is the latest version of the client side of the BDE ?
•  

Sorry for all of these questions, but like I said earlier I am trying to move a client from Windows7 to Windows10 and then eventually from the BDE to FireDAC. So eventually they will be on FireDAC, but for now we need to get the BDE working.

[Lars Fosdal 1793]

I can't find anything BDE but those Delphi version specific variants of the one you mention in my registered user downloads.
Have you tried crawling all of your disk for BDE*.msi ?

PowerShell> Get-ChildItem c:\ -include *.msi -Recurse

I suspect adapting to FireDAC may actually be easier than fighting with the ancient BDE.

 

[Lars Fosdal 1793]

Hmm... Wasn't these installer modules - i.e. .msm files?
What about

PowerShell> Get-ChildItem 'c:\program files (x86)\' -include BDE*.ms* -Recurse

 

[Antony Danby 1]

Lars, sorry I have trawled my hard drive and I have tried the PS script you suggested and have tried using the Everything app searching for BDE*.ms* and nothing, nada !

 

Oh, I think you are right about FireDAC, but the customer is a bit adverse to it at the moment and wants to spread the "risk" out a bit and I can't blame them to be honest.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Antony Danby

[Serge_G 87]

Hi,

You are not alone 😉 even if BDE is largely obsolete I still have some fights with it.

My suggestions to use it in a MS UAC environment (from Vista and more) :

Don't use "program files" folders, install it in a root base directory (i.e. c:\borland\BDE)

After install change some options  :

    NET DIR directory  (configuration/native/Paradox

    SHAREMEMxx values (configuration/system/init)  (check this document for values)

Last, don't forget to put Object/Options/ save for use  with windows 3.1 and windows 95/NT << yes this can be a bit strange and prove obsolescence, as far as I understand this indicates BDE to find IDAPI32.cfg file and not in registry ,

as you certainly knows registry, UAC and users are not very friendly

 

Installing BDE ? I use a setup I found  with one of my older Delphi version (D2010 I think), but some installers (don't know if it's legal) can be found on the web i.e  here or there

be aware that BDE installer from Code Central need IDE  to be installed on the PC

I use version 5.0.1, note : last version was 5.2 I think

 

15 hours ago, Antony Danby said:

Oh, I think you are right about FireDAC, but the customer is a bit adverse to it at the moment and wants to spread the "risk" out a bit and I can't blame them to be honest.

I can't understand this, Firedac is much more than BDE ! Ok, if they still use paradox, db tables but wow ...

[haentschman 92]

Hi...

 

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kwcqphrkfefcnvf/bde64.rar?dl=0

 

from here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-other_settings/borland-database-administrator-bde-in-windows-10/1ed623b1-e404-49f2-b149-27bdd5548734

 

without guarantee...

[Antony Danby 1]

Serge_G : It's all about not taking so many risks, they are an insurance firm. I can understand where they are coming from and there have been some initial conversion issues that caused data corruption, so now they are more cautious

[Serge_G 87]

An argument : Firedac is BDE like (this mean all the old "BDE code" could be used as is) but is much more 😉