Embarcadero RAD Studio 2010 - Embarcadero - Known issues - You may experience issues running this program on Windows 7.

"Known issues"?

I’m sure that Help Update is needed but F1 not working in OI should have been fixed weeks ago !

Information on what they are and what they do would have been nice.

http://staging.embarcadero.com/images/dm/RAD-2010-upgrade-FAQs.pdf

This is link under "More information" at the bottom of window which is offering an upgrade.

Craig: It is doubly funny because the *very next one* after that says "See below for details and restrictions."

Not so funny story: I used an LGPLv2 library that granted special exception to allow closed-source apps to statically link to the library without distributing the resulting software with LGPL license. After months of effort, the LGPL library had to be replaced. Why? Because during due-diligence, it was determined that the non-LGPL license for the resulting software (as allowed by LGPL) is required to allow reverse engineering, among other things as a condition of allowing non-LGPL license. A "license engineer" from fsf.org also confirmed this awful finding. See for yourself by reading LGPLv2.

Until that incident, I assumed it was safe to use LGPL in closed source software. And I assumed it was doubly safe if the LGPL library had a special exception for closed source software. I was wrong and the experience wasn’t fun.

Do popular Delphi libraries like JCL, JVCL etc. include any LGPL or GPL code? Does any GPL or LGPL code get static-linked into your binaries? What does that mean for your closed-source software and your commercial EULA? Ask fsf.org or your own IP lawyer, because their opinions matter more than ours regarding these matters.

Imagine how funny it would be if a qualified intellectual property lawyer told you that your software must allow your end users to reverse-engineer and modify their copies of your binaries for personal use. Then imagine if you had already allowed thousands of end users to download a shareware version. ROFL.

Good luck!

I heard that executables might be larger than Delphi 2009, so I use PECompact (by Bitsum Technologies) which sometimes compresses a 6MB .exe to only 2MB.

Yes, I know UPX is a free executable compressor, but UPX is GPL and says "The terms of the GNU General Public License still apply as compressing a program is a special form of linking with our stub." — which means you have to allow reverse engineering and binary modifications for personal use among other things (not compatible with 99% of commercial software EULA).

So all in all, there’s no practical disadvantage by upgrading from Rad Studio 2009 to 2010. Highly recommended because it increases productivity. Isn’t improved productivity one of the biggest reasons we use Delphi instead of Microsoft Visual C++?

The improved help is nice, but what we need are updated editions of books like Delphi in a Nutshell and many more. In the meantime, I’m waiting for Marco Cantu’s Delphi 2010 Handbook and hope they are as good as his 2007 and 2009 editions.

DISCLAIMERS: I’m not affiliated with Bitsum. I’m just a happy customer having switched from ASProtect to UPX and finally to PECompact (most reliable so far). I’m also not affiliated with Embarcadero. I’m just a happy customer of Rad Studio & Rapid SQL (I just wish I wasn’t compelled to use Microsoft C++ for creating DLLs that need to load into 64-bit apps).

The Standard edition doesn’t fulfill my needs either, because the VCL sources are missing. Don’t know about the command line compiler, but that is another important feature for me.

Oh, and since we upgraded to RAD Studio 2009 (at work) I also want to comment on the very unsatisfying update wizard (InstallAware?). It’s not transparent to me as the user where the files land (need to actually search them) and it’s not obvious how to use them (without downloading them again without the wizard) after re-installing RAD Studio. E.g. on the same machine after restoring a backup of the system disk which didn’t contain RAD Studio in the first place …

The Unicode transition was nice, but it’s a shame Unicode is now the *only* option, instead of making it a preprocessor decision (as in MS’ C/C++). Oh yeah … were is that preprocessor anyways?

Oh well, no reason to rant any further, for my private use BDS 2006 was the last one and it’s going to stay that way unless the maintenance and pricing policy changes a lot (and unnecessary stuff doesn’t have to be paid dearly). I want Delphi 5/6 and its quality and speed back …

Strangely enough none of the questions touches the topic of maintenance of current products. And the past records of Borland/Inprise/Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero w.r.t. Delphi/BCB aren’t very convincing. It has become a normal method to simply abandon X-1 and X-2 (and all X-n with n > 2) if X is the current product version. Sometimes you even get that feeling for X itself. For that price and with that kind of maintenance policy I don’t even think about upgrading anymore.

Just look at the competition and think again. Apart from that in Delphi I don’t need all the fancy DB-related stuff, SOAP and "web application" stuff. There are (IMO) other and better tools for these purposes. However, with the Pro version I always get these by default and *pay* for them and even worse have the (disk/memory-wise) overhead of them.

Oh and this text field is TOO SHORT!

i.e. instead of "Upgrade in the next 2 months or we’ll consider you a new user"… offer: "Upgrade to Delphi 2010 and get the same edition (Pro/Ent/Arch) of Delphi 2007 FREE"

I bet you’ll get a better response and a lot happier customers as a result.

As it is I imagine many people on 2005 and earlier will instead be thinking "Well, that’s it then… definitely time to switch to Visual Studio if THIS is how we’re going to be treated in future by Emborcaderoprise"

and the navigate panel is not so smooth in my firefox

Click the arrows to the left and right. The applications will scroll 4 at a time.

BTW, I’m unable to redeem my BOGO coupon because I’m unable to register Rad Studio 2010 Ent. since last night. I keep getting "The serial number provided is not valid." error. Both wizard and website fails.

If customers are unable to register because of a problem that can be reproduced by Embarcadero, will we be able to redeem the BOGO coupon after the deadline?