Installing SoftArtisans XFile

• Automatic Installation
• Manual Installation

Did you install an evaluation version of XFile? If you did, see Upgrading SoftArtisans XFile for instructions on upgrading the CAB version on the client.

Automatic installation

Double-click XFile's Setup.exe, and follow the InstallShield instructions. The automatic installation will register XFile's dll files on your server.

By default, the automatic installation copies two sets of dlls to the following directory: C:\Program Files\Software Artisans\SA-XFile. One set is wrapped in a cabinet file (SAXFile.cab in XFileSE and SAXFileEE.cab in XFileEE) that is signed by SoftArtisans, and the other set is found as a collection of individual dlls in the directory. It is the second set of individual files that is registered on the server. The following table lists the files installed with each XFile editon:

Note: SAXFShEx.dll (shell extension) is not included in the SoftArtisans signed CAB file, but is registered on the server with the default installation.

XFile includes two sets of dlls (in a CAB file, and outside of a CAB file) for the following reasons:

1. In order to use the XFile server-side/ASP code samples, the dlls must be registered on the server. This requires that there exist at least one set of dlls that exist outside of a CAB file.
   
   
2. In order to use the XFile client side/HTML code samples, the dlls must be available in a downloadable CAB file, or distributed and installed by some other method, client-side. Since internet distribution is the most common scenario, a signed CAB file has been provided so that the client-side/HTML code samples can be run immediately.
   
   
3. To discourage malicious use of the CAB file that is signed by SoftArtisans, those dlls have been altered so that they will always display a dialog asking if the user agrees to upload or download a file, regardless of any browser security settings.
   
   
4. The individual dlls that are not included in the CAB file do not ask the user to accept uploads and downloads. This allows for completely hidden and silent file transfer. If an application is to be developed with these dlls and distributed via the internet, they will need to be placed in their own CAB file and signed accordingly.

If you are using one development machine as both client and server, the default installation of XFile may not be ideal for reproducing the client-side experience. See Client-Side Installation for more information.

Manual Installation

To install SoftArtisans XFile the first time, run the automatic installation. Once InstallShield has unpacked the files that contain XFile, you can re-install XFile manually (if, for example, you are moving the component to a different server). By default, the automatic installation installs two sets of dll files: one set is wrapped in a cabinet file that is signed by SoftArtisans, and the other set is a collection of individual dlls. The file names are different in XFileSE and XFileEE. The following table lists the files installed with each edition:

To register the dll files manually:

1. Copy SAXFile.dll, SAAXFile.dll, SAXFShEx.dll, SAArch.dll, and SAFilMgr.dll to a stable location on your web server, for example, c:\winnt\system32 on Windows NT/2000.
   
   
2. Register each of the dll files in the system registry, as follows.
   
   
   • Open a DOS prompt window.
   • Enter "net stop iisadmin /y" to stop the Web server.
   • Enter "regsvr32 path\SAXFile.dll," and click "Ok."
   • Enter "regsvr32 path\WebClient.dll," and click "Ok."
   • Enter "regsvr32 path\SAAXFile.dll," and click "Ok."
   • Enter "regsvr32 path\SAXFShEx.dll," and click "Ok."
   • Enter "regsvr32 path\SAArch.dll," and click "Ok."
   • Enter "regsvr32 path\SAFilMgr.dll," and click "Ok."
   • To restart Web services, enter, "net start w3svc."

Registering the dlls is necessary to run the server-side samples. However, if you do not plan to use XFile in server-side code (that is, instantiate XFile using Server.CreateObject), you do not need to register the dlls. See Client-Side Installation for more information.

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