One of the challenges of software development and testing is installation. With each new version of the software, the installation package must handle any obsolete items that a tester might have installed on his computer. The Beta B installation has to handle three older versions of the Client Tool software: Alpha, Beta A, and Beta A SP1. To help testers who might have one of those versions on their computer, a couple of FAQs have been added to the Installation section.

I participated in the first Beta testing session. Will I need to uninstall the Client Tool prior to installing the new version of the Client Tool?

The installation program for the new version of the Client Tool will perform all of the necessary uninstalling of software prior to installing the Beta B version of the Client Tool. Testers should not use the Windows Add/Remove functionality to uninstall the Client Tool or any of its supporting software.

Note, however, that any data in the database cannot be preserved with the new installation. The installation of the new version requires that the Client Tool database be overwritten with an empty database.

I participated in Alpha testing last year, but I did not participate in the first Beta testing session. Will I need to uninstall the Client Tool prior to installing the new version of the Client Tool?

There have been a number of changes between the Alpha version and the Beta version. However, for installation purposes, the only software that needs to be manually uninstalled is the Microsoft Report Viewer. After the Report Viewer has been uninstalled, the Beta B Client Tool installation can be run, and the Beta B installation will handle uninstalling any other Client Tool software from the Alpha version. Click here for instructions on how to manually uninstall Microsoft Report Viewer.

Note, the Beta B installation will install a brand new database. No data from the Alpha version will be preserved.

Note, that for any service pack version released during the second session of testing, it will not be necessary to uninstall or reinstall the Client Tool. Instead, testers will be able to upgrade to the new version without losing data using the Update Utility.

Labels: Beta B, FAQ