#GPPT What’s New: Installer and Documentation

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David Musgrave MVP ...

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GP Power Tools is the first product that I have released over the years to have a proper installation program. As the complexity of the products increases and there are more files involved than a single Dexterity chunk (.cnk) file, it became necessary to use an installer rather than just a zipped archive file.

GP Power Tools has a number of DLL files as well as a text file with version history, a license document and the user guide PDF.

This article shows you what the new installer windows look like and how simple GP Power Tools is to install.

Installer

When you click on the installer executable: GPPowerTools_XX.00.00XX.exe, the first window you will see is the UAC (User Access Control) check. Winthrop Development Consultants now has a code signing certificate and so the installer executable and all the DLL files are signed with a digital certificate.

You will then be presented with the welcome page, which allows you to confirm the product, version and build you are about to install. Click Next.

Next you will see the License Agreement page where you will need to accept the license terms before proceeding. This is the same license as contained in the GPPTools_License.doc file. Tick the checkbox and click Next.

If you have more than one instance of Microsoft Dynamics GP of the appropriate version installed, you will be asked to select which instance you want to install against. Otherwise this window is skipped. Select an instance and click Next.

The Install folder for the selected instance is displayed. While it is possible to change the folder, usually you should just accept the folder listed. The installer will check that the folder contains a Dynamics.exe file of the correct version before continuing. Click Next.

Now the installer will list all the settings for final confirmation. Click Next.

Once Next is clicked, the installer will install the Dexterity chunk (.cnk) files and DLL files as well as the .txt, .doc and .pdf files. It will also automatically unchunk and include the chunk files while the installer has elevated permissions.

The last window will tell you that the installation has completed. Click Finish.

If you run the installer again, you will be presented with a different window which will allow you to either install again or to remove an existing instance. You can install again to a new instance or install over the top of an existing instance if you need to perform a “repair”.

Note: You must uninstall GP Power Tools from inside the application from the About GP Power Tools window, before uninstalling via the installer. This will perform the appropriate clean up within the application. It also backs up the GP Power Tools settings to a Debugger.xml file that will be read back if you re-install.

Documentation

Finally, after receiving a feedback survey which gave a score of 1 out of 9 for documentation, I thought it was worth reminding everyone that there is a very detailed (256 page) user guide manual installed with the product (that can also be downloaded separately).