Application Techniques
Deploying Applications and Components

The following table lists the native database drivers supplied with PowerBuilder. If an application or component uses the database specified, the file is required on the computer. The first two characters of the native database file name are PB, the next three characters identify the database, and the last two identify the version of PowerBuilder.

Installed path

%systemdrive%\Program Files (x86)\Appeon\Common\PowerBuilder\Runtime [version]\

Deployment path

Same directory as the application, in a directory on the system path, or in the App Path registry key.

Registry entries

See App Path registry key.

This section lists files that are required for all ODBC database connections from PowerBuilder or InfoMaker applications, as well as files required for a specific database interface or DBMS.

PowerBuilder ODBC interface files

The following PowerBuilder ODBC interface files are required if your application uses ODBC:

Installed path

%systemdrive%\Program Files (x86)\Appeon\Common\PowerBuilder\Runtime [version]\

Deployment path

Same directory as the application, in a directory on the system path, or in the App Path registry key.

Registry entries

See App Path registry key.

Notes

The PBODB.ini file must be in a directory defined by the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\sybase\PowerBuilder\22.0\InitPath registry setting or, in the absence of that key, in the same directory as the DLL file. In most cases, the target deployment machine will not have the registry setting and, therefore, the INI file should be in the same directory as the DLL.

Microsoft ODBC files

The following table lists the Microsoft ODBC files that are required if your application uses ODBC.

Installed path

Windows system directory.

Deployment path

Windows system directory.

Registry entries

None.

Notes

The Microsoft ODBC Driver Manager (ODBC32.dll) and supporting files are usually already installed in the user's Windows system directory.

SQL Anywhere files

If your PowerBuilder application uses a SQL Anywhere database, you need to deploy the SQL Anywhere DBMS as well as SQL Anywhere's ODBC database drivers.

The following table lists some of the files that are installed with SQL Anywhere. For more information see the SQL Anywhere documentation.

Installed path

\Program Files\SQL Anywhere [xx]\bin32 or \bin64

Deployment path

Same directory as the application, in a directory on the system path, or in the App Path registry key.

Registry entries

See App Path registry key and Configuring ODBC data sources and drivers.

Privilege requirements on Windows

When running under User Account Control, some SQL Anywhere executables require elevated privileges. For Windows 10 and later versions of Windows, you can use the SQL Anywhere elevated operations agent (dbelevate[xx].exe) to elevate the privileges of users running these executables and allow non-elevated client processes to autostart elevated servers or database engines. The following DLLs require elevated privileges when they are registered and unregistered: dbcon[xx].dll, dbctrs[xx].dll, and dbodbc[xx].dll.

Notes

Supporting files should be installed in the same directory as dbodbc11.dll. If you are not using the English string library, make sure you deploy the appropriate version of the language-specific string library.

Configuring ODBC data sources and drivers

ODBC.INI

To allow the user to connect to a particular data source, your installation program must provide a definition for that data source in the ODBC.INI key in the registry on the computer that accesses the data source, in HKEY_CURRENT_USER for a user DSN or in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE for a system DSN. The data source definition specifies the name and location of the database driver as well as the command required to start the database engine. The data source in the ODBC Data Sources key must also be listed in ODBC.INI.

The following shows typical registry entries for a data source called MyApp DB that uses SQL Anywhere. Registry keys are enclosed in square brackets and are followed by string values for that key in the format "Name"="Value":

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI\MyApp DB]
"Driver"="C:\Program Files\SQL Anywhere 16\bin32\dbodbc16.dll"
"Start"="c:\program files\SQL Anywhere 16\bin32\dbeng16.exe -c9m"
"UID"="dba"
"PWD"="sql"
"Description"="Database for my application"
"DatabaseFile"="C:\Program Files\myapps\myapp.db"
"AutoStop"="Yes"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI\ODBC Data Sources]
"MyApp DB"="SQL Anywhere 16.0"

ODBCINST.INI

Your installation program needs to make two types of entry in the ODBCINST.INI key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC for each driver that your deployed application uses:

If the ODBC database driver files are not located in a directory on the system path, you also need to add their location to the App Paths key for the executable file.

If you are using ODBC drivers obtained from a vendor, you can use the driver's setup program to install the driver and create registry entries.

The following shows a typical registry entry for SQL Anywhere. A registry key is enclosed in square brackets and is followed by string values for the key in the format "Name"="Value":

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI\SQL Anywhere 16.0]
"Driver"="c:\program files\SQL Anywhere 16\bin32\dbodbc16.dll"
"Setup"="c:\program files\SQL Anywhere 16\bin32\dbodbc16.dll"

For more information about the contents of the registry entries for ODBC drivers and data sources, see the section called “How PowerBuilder accesses the data source” in Connecting to Your Database.

If your application uses OLE DB to access data, you must install Microsoft's Data Access Components software on each user's computer if it is not installed already.

The PowerBuilder OLE DB interface requires the functionality of the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) version 2.8 or later software.

To check the version of MDAC on a computer, users can download and run the MDAC Component Checker utility from the MDAC Downloads page at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937730.aspx.

On the Windows 10 operating systems, the Windows Data Access Components (DAC) version 6.0 replaces MDAC, and implements the functionality requirements of the PowerBuilder OLE DB interface.

PowerBuilder OLE DB interface files

The PowerBuilder OLE DB interface file is required if your application uses OLE DB. The ODBC initialization file is required if you have used it to customize OLE DB settings:

Installed path

%systemdrive%\Program Files (x86)\Appeon\Common\PowerBuilder\Runtime [version]\

Deployment path

Same directory as the application, in a directory on the system path, or in the App Path registry key.

Registry entries

See App Path registry key.

Notes

The INI and DLL files must be in the same directory. If you have modified the pbodb.ini file, make sure you deploy the modified version.

The PowerBuilder ADO.NET interface supports ODBC, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. If you use ADO.NET, you must deploy the common DLLs including pbDBDriver.dll, Appeon.DB.Proxy.dll, Appeon.DB.Proxy.runtimeconfig.json, Appeon.DB.Proxy.deps.json, Appeon.DB.Base.dll and Appeon.DB.Base.deps.json, and the other DLLs for each database.