INVOICES 5-6 can run on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and on Windows Server 2008 R2. Enhancements and updates in the source code support the special requirements of those operating systems. These changes also affect customization handling, i.e. plug-ins and the COM API.
The newer operating systems are more restrictive than earlier operating systems with respect to user access to system files. In particular, regular users generally cannot modify the content of the WINDOWS and Program Files directories. Therefore, INVOICES now supports customizable file locations. For example, the location of the Eilocal.ini file is no longer hard-coded to C:\WINDOWS but can be specified during installation.
The INVOICES COM API and event-handling mechanism are also modified so that they no longer assume file locations that are now selectable. Therefore, hard-coded file locations for configuration data are no longer required or allowed or accessible from the API. Instead, we must now use the Configuration property to access configuration data.
Some code in each plug-in must be rewritten for use on these two operating systems. You will most likely want to do this in such a way that the plug-ins can also be used with earlier INVOICES (on other operating systems). The Configuration property has been available since the release of the 5-3 type library. Unfortunately, some bugs were found. This table shows what INVOICES upgrades are necessary to run a plug-in that has been modified to run on these two operating systems:
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INVOICES version |
Action |
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No action necessary |
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Upgrade to the latest hotfix or to 5-5 SP3. |
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Upgrade to 5-5 SP3 or to the latest hotfix of 5-5 SP2. If that is not possible, request a hotfix. |
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|
Upgrade to the latest hotfix. |
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Upgrade to 5-4 SP3 with the latest hotfix. If that is not possible, request a hotfix. |
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Upgrade to 5-4 or 5-5 (see above). If that is not possible, request a hotfix. |
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Not supported. |
To support Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008:
Upgrade INVOICES according to the table above.
Write or rewrite the plug-in code to support these operating systems. The IsVistaConverted method must be present, and the Configuration class must be supported.
Use the Configuration property of the Application object to access the INI files.