Question

I have two PCs both with XE2. I thought that I had installed identically on both but have problems installing 3rd party packages on one while the other is just fine.

I want the same on both anyway. The easist would probably just to “migrate” the working set-up by moving in into my Dropbox folder. Can I do that? If so, how?

If not, can I (easilly) backup my registry settings on one machine and then import them on the other?

I suppose I could just sort out the problem on the one PC, but am not having much luck so far. I would rather invest the time in only having one Delphi setup. And since I am moving lots of other stuff to DropBox anyway …

Answer 1

I don’t know of any way to do so with DropBox. Here’s an old post I made (related to Delphi 7, but with correction of registry keys still applicable) in the CodeGear newsgroups; hopefully it will help.

(It probably goes without saying, but back up the existing registry settings on the destination machine before starting by using RegEdit and exporting them, just in case. You’ll at least be able to get back to the point you’re at now if something goes wrong by deleting the imported entries and then importing the saved ones.)

You can’t, without some difficulty anyway. (Especially if you have
third party components installed, as they may have placed files in the
%SYSTEM% folder you may not know about.)

You may be able to (for going from the old computer to the new
computer running the same exact version of Windows!) by exporting the
registry keys under HKCU\Software\Embarcadero and
HKLM\Software\Embarcadero from the old machine, and then after
installing Delphi on the new machine (in the exact same folder
location) importing that registry file.

Many of the compiler, linker, and other settings are configured on a
per-project basis, and should transfer over when you move your source
code to the new machine.

Third-party components are a problem, as I mentioned above. You may be
able to get away with using the registry export/import if you copy
each third-party component set from the old computer into exactly
the same location on the new machine before importing the registry
file. You’ll probably have to track down some .BPL files that end up
in the $(BDS)\Bin and possibly other folders under the $(BDS)
tree; the IDE will tell you about missing stuff when you try and start
it. Make sure you answer “Yes ” when asked if you want to try and load
it again next time!