Tim Anderson's ITWriting

September 25, 2006

Delphi 7, Winhelp: not compatible with Vista

It's lucky that Borland brought out a decent version of Delphi in 2006; because Delphi 7 on Vista has issues. Like, here's what you get when you try and install:

So in the interests of research I ran the install anyway. The installer wanted admin rights, naturally, but even after installation I had problems. Maybe this is why it isn't compatible?

So it appears Delphi 7 likes to write to Program Files. If that's the issue I have a hunch that a couple of things might fix it. One, install outside Program Files; I haven't tried this but it might well do the trick. Two, turn off UAC, maybe just temporarily. I tried the latter. UAC off, restart, run Delphi 7 - it worked - turn UAC back on, restart. We're away:

Delphi now works though I don't know when it might trip again; installing outside Program Files would be much safer. There is another little snag. Create a new application and by default it won't run, because Delphi 7 keeps its default Projects folder in Program Files. You have to save the project outside Program Files; then it runs OK. Since I always do this anyway, that's no big deal. This is though:

I love the bit about "was this information helpful". That's right, Vista no longer supports Winhelp, the old help engine little changed from Windows 3.1 days. To be honest it was dated even when Delphi 7 came out (I remember complaining about it); but it was fast and effective and some people never took to .chm. Apparently it is not quite as bad as it first appears. Microsoft is going to offer winhlp32.exe for download.

In the meantime, you can do what I did, which is to copy winhlp32.exe from Windows XP. It works:

Conclusion: Delphi 7 doesn't run by default in Vista, but there might not be much wrong with it if you take a few manual steps.

Then again maybe all the Delphi 7 (or 6 or 5) diehards will stick to XP or Windows 2000.

PS: I don't blame anyone for still running Delphi 7, the last version to run without any .NET overhead.

Update

Instead of fiddling with UAC you could just run Delphi 7 with elevated permissions - right-click, "Run As Administrator"; or set it always to run that way. Not so secure, requires an account with local admin rights, and you'll get a prompt every time it runs; but it may be the most practical option if there are other permission issues.

Tags: vista delphi winhelp