Software Requirements
The code examples and
case study in this book require that you have the following software installed
on a computer using the Windows NT 4 (SP4 or greater) or Windows 2000 operating
systems. In summary the software requirements are:
Windows NT 4:
-
Visual
Basic 6 (SP3 recommended)
-
SQL
Server 7.0 (SP1 recommended)
-
ADO
2.1 or ADO 2.5
-
MTS 2.0 (Microsoft Transaction
Server)
Windows 2000:
Operating System Requirements
Although the code
examples and case study can be run on a computer running the Windows 95, Windows
98, or Windows 98 Second Edition operating systems, we strongly recommend the
use of Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000 due to the reduced component functionality
and lack of security in the Windows 9x series of operating systems. The illustrations
and examples in this book were created on computers running Windows NT 4 and
Windows 2000, although we mention how to accomplish the required tasks in Windows
9x where differences are present. No software changes are necessary if you use
the Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4 operating systems.
Visual Basic Versions
The version of Visual
Basic 6 we're using is the Enterprise Edition, although the Professional Edition
may also be used. The Professional Edition lacks tools such as Visual Modeler,
however, so some features or add-ins that the book uses may not be present if
the Professional Edition is used. If tools are included only in the Enterprise
Edition, we indicate this when they're discussed.
ActiveX Data Objects Code Libraries
The code examples will
run with either version of ADO (ActiveX Data Objects); if you have ADO 2.5 installed
instead of ADO 2.1 in either Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000, only a change to
the project references from ADO 2.1 to ADO 2.5 is necessary.
ADO is Microsoft's preferred high-level
data interface to data stores. It provides a reasonably easy to use object model
that's easier to work with than lower level interfaces such as ODBC (Open DataBase
Connectivity). Since this book works with Microsoft technologies, we'll use
ADO exclusively for accessing the WROBA data in an SQL Server 7.0 database.
ADO is available as a Tools installation
with VB, is installed by Office 2000, and is available for download at the Microsoft
Universal Data Access (UDA) Web site.
A
downloadable version of ADO 2.5 is available as part of the MDAC 2.5 (Microsoft
Data Access Components) download at http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm.
MTS and COM+
Database
transactions are handled by Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS),
which is an operating system component that is available as part of the Windows
NT Option Pack installation. COM+ is a replacement for MTS in Windows 2000,
and is automatically loaded as part of the Windows installation. A more limited
version of MTS is available for the Windows 9x series of operating systems,
and can be loaded from the VB 6 Enterprise Edition disks, the Windows NT 4 Option
Pack, or can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site. The Windows NT 4 Option
Pack contains a version of MTS that can be used by the Windows 9x series of
operating systems, in addition to the version for Windows NT.
The Option Pack may be used to install
MTS 2.0 in Windows NT or in Windows 9x and we discuss the installation and configuration
of this product in Appendix B.
SQL Server
A free, 120
day evaluation version of SQL Server 7.0 may be downloaded from the Microsoft
MSDN web site. A SQL Server 7.0 evaluation version CD can also be ordered at
the same web site. Visual Basic 6 Enterprise Edition also includes a version
of SQL Server 7.0 that can be used.
A downloadable evaluation
version of SQL Server is available at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/productinfo/evalcd.htm.