Readme for MDAC ComponentChecker

August 1999

Microsoft Corporation

Overview

The Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) ComponentChecker is a tool that can:

Determine the MDAC version on your computer
Remove MDAC components
Remove MDAC components unattended
Show components in use
Read information about another computer
Take a snapshot of your current system
Register/unregister COM objects
Rerun an analysis

Each of these operations is described in detail in this document. This document also describes command-line options and .ini file settings.

Determine the MDAC Version on Your Computer

This section describes how to determine which version of MDAC you are currently running on your computer.

To determine the MDAC version on your computer

Run MDAC ComponentChecker.
In the ComponentChecker—Choose Analysis Type window, select Perform Analysis of your machine and automatically determine the release version, and click OK.
The program attempts to identify the MDAC version on your computer, based on versions of the core MDAC files. If a given snapshot of the MDAC files has more matches for one version than for other versions, you receive the following message:

The version which closely matches your machine is XXXX.

The program then uses the identified version to complete the analysis. If the snapshot identifies more than one version of MDAC on your computer, the program notifies you and asks you to select a version from a drop-down list.

Remove MDAC Components

This section describes how to remove MDAC components from your computer.

To remove MDAC components

Run MDAC ComponentChecker using the /D command-line option.
In the ComponentChecker window, select the build that best matches the one on your computer, and click OK.
When the analysis completes, click Delete or, on the File menu, click Remove MDAC Components.
This produces a warning message asking you to confirm your action.
Click Yes to proceed.
If there are components in use that would prevent the successful removal of all MDAC components, you receive an error message telling you so. When you dismiss the message, the in-use components are displayed in the Summary Report view. (See the “Show Components in Use” section of this document for information about showing in-use components without performing a removal.)

When the program has verified that it can successfully remove the MDAC components, it prompts you for a redistributable .exe file, to be run immediately after the removal has completed. (See the description of the /NR option in the “Command-Line Options” section of this document for information on how to skip this step.)
Specify an .exe file for the Install program for the version of MDAC that you want to use.
The program then removes your MDAC components and runs the redistribution program. When the redistribution program finishes, the ComponentChecker shuts down.

Note The files that the program doesn't remove are listed in the DeleteExceptionList.csv file in the \Streams subdirectory in which you installed the program. This is simply a text file that you can edit to customize files that are not removed.

Remove MDAC Components Automatically

This section describes how to remove MDAC components from your computer without additional input from you during the process.

To remove MDAC components automatically

Run MDAC ComponentChecker using the /D/REMOVE/Q command-line options.
The program then removes the MDAC components without further input.

Note The build from which the removal occurs is based on the type of analysis last selected. (This information is contained in the ComCheck.ini file described in this document.)

Show Components in Use

This section describes how to obtain a list of components currently in use on your system. You can use this procedure to determine whether or not you can successfully remove MDAC components. This is easier than repeatedly attempting the removal process, only to find that you have critical components in use.

To show components in use

Run MDAC ComponentChecker and perform any type of analysis.
On the File menu, click View Files and Registry Settings in Use.
The Summary Report lists the components in use. The components displayed with a red icon are the ones that can prevent you from removing MDAC components. The components displayed with a yellow icon are in use, and will not prevent you from removing MDAC components.

Read Information About Another Computer

A support person can use this procedure to read information from a client's computer. This procedure has two parts:

The client's procedure for sending information to the support person
The support person's procedure for reading the client's information

To read information about another computer (Client)

Run MDAC ComponentChecker and select the version that most closely matches that of your computer.
When the analysis is complete, on the File menu, click Save.
The Save dialog box appears.
Select Save All the Data, and click OK.
The program saves information about the computer’s current state using text files and notifies you where the text files are located.
Send all the saved text files to the support person.

To read information about another computer (Support)

Copy the client files into a folder.
Run ComponentChecker with the /O option (letter O, not zero), to view the saved state data from the client's computer.
Click Open.
In the Open Directory Containing Data from Another Computer dialog box, select the directory into which you copied the files.
Select any file in that directory, and click OK to view it.

Take a Snapshot of Your Current System

A snapshot is a set of .csv files that stores data for a particular version of MDAC components. This section describes how to take a snapshot of your current system.

To take a snapshot of your current system

Run MDAC ComponentChecker using the /S command-line option.
In the ComponentChecker—Choose Analysis Type dialog box, select Scan Your Machine. Do not perform an analysis.
In the Scan Your Machine. Do Not Perform an Analysis dialog box, select Save data for later use, i.e., create your own snapshot.
Enter a name for your snapshot.
From the drop-down list, select the type of build that most closely matches the computer for which you are taking a snapshot.

The snapshot of your computer is now complete and its name will appear on the Perform Analysis Against Selected Version drop-down list in the ComponentChecker—Choose Analysis Type dialog box.

Rerun an Analysis

This section describes how to rerun an analysis using MDAC ComponentChecker.

To rerun an analysis

Run MDAC ComponentChecker and perform any type of analysis.
On the View menu, click Refresh (or press F5).
The original ComponentChecker—Choose Analysis Type dialog box appears.
Rerun the analysis, following the instructions for the type of analysis you plan to run.
Note If you use the /Q command-line option, the program always selects the same type of analysis you ran previously.

Command-Line Options

Option	Operation
/D	Removes the entire set of MDAC components.
/I	Identifies a string containing the name of an .ini file other than the default. The default file is ComCheck.ini.
/NR	Removes components without specifying a redistribution .exe file.
/O	Displays saved information from other computers.
/Q	Selects the same option as that previously selected from the dialog box.
/R	Registers or unregisters COM objects.
/REMOVE	Removes components unattended. The /REMOVE option must always be used with the /Q option.
/S	Takes snapshots.

Initialization (.ini) File Settings

ComCheck.ini is the default initialization file and is located in the root directory of the MDAC ComponentChecker installation. You can change the following sections in this file:

CurrentBuilds
User Selection
Custom Settings

The following table describes the contents of the ComCheck.ini file:

Section	Contains…
CurrentBuilds	The name of the string that you see in the initial drop-down list, followed by the name of the directory that contains snapshots. You can remove the MDAC-specific entries so that they don’t show up in your list box. You can also delete the associated subdirectories in the \Streams subdirectory of your Install directory. The following strings are displayed in the initial drop-down list and the directory that contains snapshots: [CurrentBuilds] 2.1 GA=2.1 GA 2.1 SP1=2.1 SP1 2.1 RTM=2.1 RTM 2.0 SP2=2.0SP2 2.0 SP1=2.0SP1
User Selection	A list of user selections: [User Selection] SelectedBuildDescription=2.0 SP2 BuildDirectory=2.0SP2 OptionSelected=SelectBuild OptionTakeSnapshot=SaveCustom WindowTitle=MDAC In this list, SelectedBuildDescription, BuildDirectory, and OptionSelected are settings that show the last analysis you performed. WindowTitle specifies the custom name you see in the program title.
Custom Settings	Settings that determine whether multiple instances of the program can be run. [Custom Settings] MultipleInstances=0 AlgorithmType=0 MultipleInstances: Set to 0 (zero) to run only a single instance of the program. Set to 1 to run multiple instances of the program. AlgorithmType indicates the type of algorithm used to identify the build: Set to 0 (zero) to have the files listed in \streams\BuildGuess.csv used to identify the build. The program attempts a direct match on the version number of each build listed in the CurrentBuilds section. It then counts the number of direct matches for each build and identifies the build with the greatest number of matches. Set to 1 for the program to count the number of errors for all of the indicated parameters in each of the builds listed in the CurrentBuilds section. It then identifies the build that contains the lowest number of errors. The Custom Settings section also contains two new settings to enable or disable the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) and OLE database trees in the user interface: EnableOLEDBView=1 EnableODBCView=1 Set either parameter to 0 (zero) to disable it. Set either parameter to 1 to enable it.

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