Version Checking of Redistributable Files

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Because other applications may redistribute earlier or later versions of the same files as your application, it is important that you install newer versions of the files over older versions on your user's system, but not older versions over newer versions. Typically, version checking is the responsibility of your setup program. If you do not have a setup program for your main application, then your application must manually check the version when installing the redistributable files on your user's system.

The programmatic technique for version checking varies, depending on which category of file you are redistributing:

  • For the MFC DLLs, use the version checking APIs available as a standard part of the Win32 API.

  • For the ODBC files, see "Installing ODBC Software" and "Configuring Data Sources," in the ODBC Programmer's Reference.

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