Update Web Connection from a previous or Shareware Version

To update a Web Connection installation, you can simply unzip the Web Connection installation files into an existing Web Connection installation folder.

To ensure all the latest components are registered you should also run Setup.exe which re-installs the samples and configures things like the Visual Studio addin and other system settings. This may not always be necessary, but is a good idea to ensure all the right dependencies get updated in your Web Connection install folder.

Consider this the base install and you should not change anything (other than perhaps the samples if you play around with them) as these files will always be overwritten in any update/upgrade.

NOTE: If you changed any of the sample files in the installation folder, these changes will be overwritten. Hopefully you don't make changes to anything in the installation folder, but only in your project folders. We highly recommend you always create new projects in separate folders as set up by the New Project Wizard.

Upgrading from the Shareware Version

To upgrade from the shareware version you can simply install Web Connection either to a new directory or on top of your shareware installation. If you install on top of an existing installation simply unzip the distribution files into the original directory.

Delete wconnect.app

When upgrading from the shareware version it's important that you delete wconnect.app, which holds most of the Web Connection class libraries for the shareware version. In the release version those libraries are replaced with the actual source code classes in the .\classes folder.

To delete:

DELETE FILE wconnect.app

Other than that upgrading from the shareware version is the same as upgrading from any other version.

Also make sure you have the the wconnect.h file from the full version in place.

Recompile your classes!

If you are updating an existing install or are not installing under VFP 9.0 you should first recompile all of the Web Connection classes to ensure you get the latest code and properly compiled code for your version of FoxPro.

To do so, start Web Connection in its install directory and do:

DO CompileWC()     && in \tools folder

alternately you can manually do this as well:

COMPILE *.prg
COMPILE <wconnectInstallFolder>\CLASSES\*.prg
COMPILE <wconnectInstallFolder>\CLASSLIB CLASSES\*.vcx

Update DLL Dependencies in your Projects

You will also want to update all of the Web Connection dependent DLLs in any of your projects created external to the wconnect install folder.

This includes these base files that should always be updated:

wwipstuff.dll
wwdotnetbridge.dll
newtonsoft.json.dll

And these optional specific feature files:

Renci.SshNet.dll (SFTP support)
Markdig.dll (Markdown parsing)

Basically you can copy all of the DLLs out of the Web Connection folder into your project folder as these files are needed when you deploy your application.

You'll also want to update these same files on your deployed servers when you update the application there.

Update Web Resources

In addition to your program files, you may (or may not) want to upgrade your server resources:

Web Connection Server Modules
Admin Page
Required Scripts

Optionally you can also update the stock Web Connection templates from:

templates/ProjectTemplate/Web/scripts
templates/ProjectTemplate/Web/css
templates/ProjectTemplate/Web/lib
views

For the ./views folder you'll want to carefully compare old files vs new files if you overwrote the existing templates. Specifically _login.wcs and _layoutPage.wcs.

Overwriting Changes

Take special care when updating any of your templates if you made changes you might not want to just copy these templates outright over the old files. At the very least it's a good idea to run a tool like BeyondCompare to compare folders and files and compare changes. While templates often have only minor changes you've made you'll want to see those changes and merge them into the new templates.

Update your Web Connection Web Binaries

When you update you'll want to replace the Web Connection handlers appropriate for your project:

templates\scripts\webconnectionmodule.dll (.NET Handler)
templates\scripts\wc.dll (ISAPI Handler)

You need to update these in each of your projects and also your deployed sites.

Update the Web Connection Web Server

If you are using the local, .NET Core, Console application based Web Connection Web Server in your project, you should also update that installation. You do so by replacing the \WebConnectionWebServer folder in your project, with the \WebConnectionWebServer folder from the Web Connection application install folder.

If you are upgrading from a version prior than 7.26 you also may need to install .NET Core 6, prior versions use .NET Core 5. More info in the server information topic.