Release 3.00 Installation Instructions

To install the system, run setup.exe on the CD and follow the prompts.  Your login must have Administrator privileges in NT.

Note 3: Many users will wish to transfer copies of the "read only" files from the CD onto hard disk. When copying files from CD to hard disk, don’t forget to click off the "read only" property after you paste them to hard disk. If the files stay "read only", Manifold will be unable to add objects or otherwise edit the files.

Note 4: Read through the current release notes in the service_packs directory on our FTP servers.  If any of the errata mentioned affect your use of the product, download and install the latest service pack.

Installation Troubleshooting

Attempting to install Manifold in NT without Administrator privileges will cause errors, including the two following problems.

Release 3.00 Installation

(See the following section for Release 4.00 Installation issues)  Although rare, there are two problems you may encounter during Manifold System R3 installation.  Both are usually caused by other programs, not by Manifold or by the installation program.   They are evidenced by error messages like:

"error copying data file" or "error occurred during the move data process " during file copy phase of installation. This is caused when a system file that Manifold must update during installation is in use by another program during the installation procedure, and so the installer is "locked out" from updating that file. Solution: Before launching installation shut down all non-system programs and processes. Note: Some applications programs will run background processes whenever your computer is turned on even if you do not actually launch them.  You might not even be aware the background process is running.  To see if this is the case, In NT or 95, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL to call up the running program/process list and end all tasks / programs that are not systems programs.  Restart installation.  If this problem repeats, there is still something running in background.

"ordinal error in mfc..." or "can't find ordinal in mfc.." when you first launch Manifold after what appeared to be a successful installation.  Manifold has gone out to what is supposed to be a standard Microsoft dll (dynamic linked library) and could not find the standard code that is supposed to be there.  This can have two causes:

1) a third-party program prevented Manifold from updating a system .dll file during the installation.  If you have an older Windows installation and have not loaded any of the newer networking or database programs, you are probably still operating with old versions of the MFC libraries.  Manifold uses the newer Microsoft MFC libraries which have been distributed to developers to upgrade older dlls.  On installation, Manifold checks to see if you have the newer libraries.  If not, it will install them for you.   If a third-party program prevents Manifold from upgrading the library with the new Microsoft libraries, when Manifold launches for the first time it will be unable to find the new Microsoft library code that it expects to see.  Solution: Make sure there are no third party programs or processes running during installation.  Repeat installation.

2) a third party program overwrote the standard Microsoft system .dll with its own renegade .dll in a way that fools the installation program into thinking current Microsoft libraries are installed.  The second cause is very rare, since most programmers know better than to scribble over system files with their own versions.  Solution: (Messy!) Re-install Windows, install Manifold, copy all the mfcxxx.dll files from the Windows system directory into the Manifold System directory (by default, Program Files \ Manifold System), and then install the various other software packages.   Make sure your system PATH variable starts with a look in the current directory.  What you are doing is manually moving out of the way the mfc files that the third party program clobbered.  If you put them in the Manifold System directory, Manifold can find them and use them.

Release 4.00 Installation

Release 4.00 eliminates many of the above problems; however, Release 4.00 also utilizes Microsoft system libraries for ODBC connectivity, which offer possibilities for misuse by "poor neighbor" application installations.  For example, errors of the form:

Runtime Error!   Program: C:\TEMP\_INS0576._MP abnormal program termination

are almost always caused when a previous installation has left a system file in a non-standard condition (files not writable, registry errors, etc).   The installer crashes when attempting to work with a system file that is not within Microsoft spec.  Regrettably, this is a fairly common occurance within ODBC installations and currently appears to affect at least 1 %   of Manifold installations.

Due to the very wide array of programs that may be installed, it is not always possible to identify exactly which application has misbehaved.  Non-standard installation and registry issues can be so subtle that only a complete re-load of the operating system will restore the system to a known good state. We are developing some guidelines to isolate and fix the more commonly occuring problems short of a complete operating system re-load.   If you encounter this problem, please inform us and provide a comprehensive list of all items installed.

In the interim, a drastic remedy is to re-load Windows and then load Manifold first, followed by other applications.   Manifold installs flawlessly on Windows '95, '98, or NT 4.0 with any combination of Microsoft applications.   Note: uninstalling suspect applications before installing Manifold is not normally enough:  an application which leaves your system in a non-standard state after installation is not likely to do any better after uninstallation!  Likewise, simply freshening the system will not be enough if the registry has been mishandled.

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