Try the CVF 6.5A update

[Steven_L_Intel1]

I'm giving forum readers first crack at trying the CVF 6.5A update (for X86 right now - Alpha version will follow). The software itself is "frozen", this is just to make sure that the update process itself works for most people. Naturally, this is only for people already running CVF 6.5.

Download and run CVF-X86-65A.exe Please report any problems here, or let me know that it worked ok. After installing, try rebuilding your application and viewing the online documentation.

This update is suitable for Standard and Pro edition users, and will update Pro-only bits if you have them.

If all goes well, I'll release the final updates next week.

Steve

[Steven_L_Intel1]

For those of you who saw my message about pulling the update - sorry. A new copy has been placed at the above location (if it seems to be unavailable, wait a half hour and try again). This one should be ok. Again, let me know how it works for you.

Steve

[david_jones]

Worked OK for me. Tried out simple console and moderately complicated quickwin applications. Noted: (i) splash screen in Dev Studio still says version 6.5, but about-box shows 6.5A; (ii) executables now slightly larger, by up to 12Kb, which may be important to some people.

David Jones

[marklewy]

Steve,

I ran the upgrade to upgrade my VF 6.5 standard edition. A couple of things of note:
1) If you have a file called upgrade.exe in the same folder as CVF-X86-65A.exe, it runs that instead of starting the upgrade process. Solutions - delete upgrade.exe or put the VF upgrade in an empty folder.
2) I had the Visual Studio SP4 fix installed with my copy of VF 6.5, the upgrade pops up a message box telling you that SP4 is installed and it needs to apply a fix (again?). I found this a bit confusing.

Apart from that it looks like the compiler and the help have upgraded OK.

Mark.

[Intel_C_Intel]

Worked OK for me (6.5 professional, AC++, WinNT) as far as I can see. Executables now slightly larger, e.g. around 10 k. for a simple console application and 20 k. for a quick win application, both having a size around 600kb.
curt

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Thanks for the feedback.

I had thought that WinZip unpacked to a temporary folder - interesting. I'll rename UPGRADE.EXE to be something less generic and this should solve that problem.

I was unaware of an increase in the size of executables - will check into that.

Regarding the SP4 fix - yes, the 6.5A update has to reapply it.

The splash screen doesn't change for "letter" updates.

Steve

[wkramer]

I had no problem upgrading to CVF 6.5a running on Win98.
I had also no problem rebuilding and running several console and windows applications. Also the once that showed problems after upgrading from 6.1a to 6.5 now build and run OK



Walter Kramer

[Steven_L_Intel1]

The increase in size is due to some significant new functionality, including new run-time diagnostics (such as "array temp created") that required new support in the RTL, and expansion of NAMELIST to support array slice notation.

On our "to do" list is a restructuring of the RTL so that fewer unused modules get pulled in - thus reducing the size of many statically-linked programs.

If executable size is an issue, consider linking against the DLL libraries.

Steve

[durisinm]

I was able to successfully apply the update under Windows 2000 and Windows 98. I rebuilt a console application under Windows 98 without any problems.

Mike Durisin

[Steven_L_Intel1]

I'd appreciate everyone trying out the online documentation from within Developer Studio. Let me know if you see any problems. Thanks.

Steve

[durisinm]

I looked at a few pages of on-line documentation, and everything seemed to be fine.

Mike Durisin

[david_jones]

I have had a small problem with the Help facility. I printed off a few pages, using the "heading and all sub-topics" option and found that the Help window was frozen after the print dialogs were complete. This could be unfrozen by clicking on the Help-window's tab on the task bar. The print appeared on the printer OK.

A little more testing has shown that this is repeatable if the thing printed is the collection of headings under "Using the Resouce editor to Design a Dialog" (under "Using Dialogs" in the Programmer's Guide), but not for other equivalent groups of items that I tried ... maybe someting in what is being printed (includes various screen shots) is having an effect.

This is on NT4 (dual processor). The Help control window says version 4.73.8412 and my IE is at version 5.50.4522.1800 (SP1).

David Jones

[davidgraham]

Steve, How large is the file as it's taking a long time to download?

Thanks, David

[Steven_L_Intel1]

The upgrade simply replaced a couple of the documentation files - it doesn't touch the help facility itself, so I doubt the printing problem is related.

The upgrade is about 9MB.

Steve

[Intel_C_Intel]

Hi Steve,

I've been a bit short of time lately, but I got a chance to apply the update to a NT4 install of CVF 6.5 and just had time to take a brief look. I noticed that while the 'Fortran COM Server App Wizard' was updated, the Fortan COM Server Wizard (csaddin.dll) was not; it should have been, no? There were no errors in the cvf65aupg.log file and csaddin.dll was not listed as one of the 17 files patched in the COM Server Wizard patch component (csw655ai.rtp).

I briefly looked at the release notes and the online docs. Now, I didn't look too deeply, but at first blush it seemed that the docs were a little light on the whys of the new compiler options/attributes.

That's the only 2c I have right now. Thanks,
John

[Steven_L_Intel1]

John,

Good catch! Even Leo didn't notice that! I'll fix that for the final version.

Steve

[jackosullivan]

Steve,
I've (finally!) gone from 6.0A directly to 6.5A (having purchased the 6.5 CD-ROM, of course), so I don't know if this is a 6.5A-related or other difference.
In my QuickWin FPS-compatible program I used
OPEN(UNIT=2,FORM='UNFORMATTED')
to open a scratch file for input and output. And it worked very nicely behind the scenes, totaly unknown to the user.
Now, the user gets prompted for the file to use for Unit 2. Who cares? Gimme a scratch.
Perhaps the new compiler is more rigorous, and I'm supposed to really learn the language? ;)

I have found the upgrade worthwhile in another aspect: it has caught several more "used before defined" things which have been there forever.

Thanks for the good job!
God bless!
Jack

[david_jones]

A small thing I noticed was that the update to Array Visualizer has not changed the text in the start menu from Digital Array Visualizer 1.0 to "Compaq" and "1.5". Possibly you were not trying to do so.

David Jones

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Jack,

Do you by any chance have a FILE='' in that OPEN? If so, then the behavior you are seeing is what I would expect. If not, it isn't - and I'll ask you to please send a problem description and a ZIP file of your workspace to us at vf-support@compaq.com

David, the upgrade doesn't change the start menu. I agree that it should, and will try to have that done in future upgrades.

Steve

[Steven_L_Intel1]

I have removed the "pre-release" copy of the update and put the final (I hope) copy here. If you installed the "pre-release" version, please first download and run this small patch and then download and run the final version from the above link. If you don't run the small patch first, you will run into trouble in future updates.

An Alpha version will follow in a day or two and then I'll announce it on the web site. Thanks for all your comments and testing.

Steve

[jackosullivan]

Steve,
I've sent the bug report on the OPEN() problem. There was no "FILE=" of any kind.
A couple of additional very minor items:
The Add/Remove Programs list still says "Visual Fortran 6.0" and "Array Visualizer 1.0" -- perhaps your Setup could clean this?
Also, your bugreport still says to send it to Dvf-support...
Will try the brand-new "final" update momentarily.
God bless!
Jack