The Update 1 for RAD Studio XE7, Delphi XE, and C++Builder XE7 is available to download for registered users (and trial users as well). The update has been available since yesterday, but this morning CodeCentral was having some hiccups, so I waited before posting this.

Update Links

  • Download and installation instructions are available in the Release notes in the docwiki at docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE7/en/Release_Notes_for_XE7_Update_1
  • There is an ISO for registered and non-registered users, and different web installers for RAD and individual products, and the trial versions. Best is to download from the specific product registered users download pages following the links in the release notes above (that is, if you have a RAD Studio license, you cannot get the installer from the Delphi product page).
  • The list of fixed issue that were logged by customers (on QC or the new quality portal) is on EDN at edn.embarcadero.com/article/44156. This is NOT the complete list of bugs fixed, as there are many issues our internal QA found and were also fixed in the update.

Why is the Update a Re-Install?

Given this is a common question, let me explain a couple of issues. Ultimately this is our current process, and we are looking for improvements, but there are reasons it is like this, and it might not change despite our efforts.

The most important element is that even if this is a uninstall/reinstall you can preserve all of your IDE settings and installed third party component. If you let the installer uninstall for you, that is done automAtically. If you manually uninstall first, there is a check box in the uninstaller to keep your registry settings. This is very important and makes a big difference.

Now the reasons. First is that patching under MSI (Microsoft Installer) is extremely time consuming. A patch of this size takes much more time than a full install (we have tried internally!). Some users reported a half hour process after the download. Not ideal but not too bad. Second, most large applications (and even small ones) regularly ask to reinstall for every minor release, patch or security update. Examples: Skype, OpenOffice, any Mac application from the store, any mobile application, Windows 8.1 (from Windows 8), most open source projects, Java runtime and most other runtimes. So RAD is not really as much of an exception. Now I  know this doesn't make things easier, and we'll keep investigating for ways to simplify the update process. Including moving to "native install" and using a different installer engine.