Hi Christian,
[quote user="Christian M"]Can you recommend a way that we can programmatically detect in setup what Visual Studio Platform is needed to run on MicroStation Connect?[/quote]
Similar topic was discussed here and in my opinion to use the registry, as discussed, is the right way to go.
[quote user="Christian M"]If there is a way that we can determine through MDL that would also be usful for us to inform the user if they've loaded the wrong file.[/quote]
I am not sure if I understand it correctly. To allow to load wrong dll (e.g. dll compiled for Update 4 using VS 2013 to MicroStation CE Update 5) is the problem of wrong installation / setup and not the application itself. It's not ensured that such dll will work correctly in "not target environment", so even there will be some test implemented, maybe it will fail.
But at the same time I agree it's often better to be more careful and to implement more tests. If you want to check wrong dll was loaded, probably the first task in MDL main method should be to use mdlVersion_getVersionNumberts.
[quote user="Christian M"]We considered trying to force all users to update to the latest Connect release, but in practice that is not going to always be possible.[/quote]
That's something to be always negotiated and it's about a balance between technical issues and the application maintenance cost and sales objectives. I discussed the same question with some my customers and in some cases it will be simpler to focus to new versions only, in others to maintain both VS2013 and VS2015 platforms.
With regards,
Jan