In what order should Delphi and MS dev tools be installed?

I just got a new laptop with Windows 7 (32-bit) and I have to install the following things:

• SQL Server 2005 (Dev edit开发者_运维知识库ion)
• SQL Server 2008 (Dev edition)
• Visual Studio 2008 Prof.
• Delphi 2007
• Delphi 2010

In addition I need the usual suspects such as Office 2007 etc.

I was thinking of doing it in the order listed above but would like to know if this is the best way. On my old system I must have done something wrong as I have had lots of problems with broken help files etc. especially in Delphi.

Thanks.

IMHO: You shouldn't!

Instead, install each development enviroment on different virtual machines. (Eg VMware Workstation)

The disadvantages are minimal. Perhaps some more costs (VMware + additional OS license).

But the advantages are invaluable!

• Portability. If you get a new (physical) machine, it is very simple to copy the virtual machines from the old one to the new one. (You can even save the vm's on a USB-stick and run them on different computers).
• Snapshots. Before you do any changes in your dev.env. (updating, adding and removing sw) you can take a snapshot of the vm, and roll back to this state at any time! Make sure you've got your documents and source code on the host machine or a server, though. Because everything is rolled back. Every file is restored to the state it had at the time the snapshot were taken.
• Forks/branching. If you are working on a new feature, you can create a branch of the dev.env. (via snapshots), and easily switch between the experimantal dev.env and the production dev.env. at any time.
• Using snapshots you can maintain multiple (virtual) operating systems without having to buy several OS-licenses. (You can't run these branches of the OS simultaneously, of course).
• More testing environments on the same (physical) machine. Different combinations of OS-versions and MS Office-versions etc)
• Protection when testing risky code. (Eg deleting files, updating databases, registry changes etc)
• Start playing with new sw-versions without messing up the existing dev.env.
• Separate customers/projects according to their various needs for different third party tools, database solutions, report solutions etc

I installed Delphi 2010 after Delphi 2007 without any problems.

Just uninstalling gave me some problems (BDE had to be installed again).

My main suggestion would be to download the latest ISO for Delphi 2007 and Delphi 2010.

Don't rely on your installation DVD's if they aren't current. I used to have problems installing Delphi 2007...I bought my copy around the first month it was available...then I downloaded the latest ISO with all the updates and never had problems on Windows 7 Enterprise (32-bit).