I've taken over a legacy application and I have the exe created. If I can configure the BDE then in theory it should be possible to run this. Someone indicated that Delphi needs to be installed in order for the app to run. I'm unsure of that - it doesn't quite make sense to me as there is an exe file. Any input from Delphi experts would be appreciated.
Roddy
If the application uses the BDE then the BDE has to be installed before the exe can run. The BDE files are not linked into the exe.
A Delphi installation normally also installs the BDE. This might give the impression that Delphi has to be installed to run the exe, but that is not true.
According to the deployment licence you have to use something like InstallShield Express that comes with Delphi to create some setup for the BDE, but I might be mislead here. You may even try to google for a BDE installer or have a look at this question.
Your application should work without installting Delphi if it wasn't built to use runtime packages(BPL files).
If it was built to use runtime packages, you'll need to deploy them with your application. Since all delphi's runtime package are installed with Delphi, that may give the impression that installing delphi is required for the application to run, which is not the case.
You might however need to install delphi to retrieve the required BPL files.
BPL files are special DLL files that delphi can refers to instead of linking all code into the .Exe, making EXE files much smaller.
So if you manage to get the BDE up, create the right aliases in it, and get all required BPL(if any), the application should start up correctly.
1 last thing that might need to be deployed with your application is midas.dll. (If the application use, for exemple, Tclientdataset)
That's all I can think of for now...
It seems very awkward to me that Delphi needs to be installed to run your application. Maybe your application is build with runtime packages which means you have to include the bpl's the application depends on, but Delphi itself should not be needed.
You can test this yourself, just run the app on a computer without Delphi installed. When it gives an error about a bpl not found, you have to find that bpl and add it to the directory where your application is located.
Uwe has the answer here. if your application uses any of the data components provided by Delphi it will almost always require the BDE to be installed and other drivers if for example you are talking to Oracle then the Oracle OCI drivers must be installed.
You do not need Delphi to install the BDE but you need to find the BDE installer and have it installed. MANY programs out there use the BDE and not just Delphi since it was licensed by many companies.
