Readme file for Advanced Query Tool Version 5.5.6 Last update 8 June 2003. New to AQT V5.5.6 ============== . You can now restrict the types of databases that you see in the signon window. This can be used a security measure to prevent users from accessing particular database types using AQT. New to AQT V5.5.5 ============== A few bug fixes: . Export to Excel sometimes did not close Excel correctly . Export, when run in Batch mode, failed when more than 32K rows were exported . Save Query sometimes saved the query as "True" or "False" instead of the query text. . Comment Text in the Run SQL window sometimes commented the wrong line . AQT failed when running a Stored Procedure with more than 50 parameters . Stored Procedure information for DB2/390 was sometimes displayed incorrectly . Sybase/SQLServer datetime values sometimes truncated the millisecond portion . Sybase had errors displaying information on Logins . Get Constants function in Row Display was not working correctly . GUI Query Builder generated incorrect SQL when a group-by column was selected as no-Show. Plus: Displaying of users and roles for SQL Server has been improved New to AQT V5.5 ============= New Features We have added two often-requested features: . Syntax-highlighting of SQL . Editing of tables directly from the Table Display window. In Addition . We have improved the handling of saved-queries. If you change a query you will now be prompted to save this before the window is closed or the SQL is overwritten. . The Database Explorer previously had a limit on the amount of a View / Stored Procedure that was displayed. This limit has now been removed, and you can print or save-to-file the entire text. . There is a new function Extended Get Values; this is similar to Get Values, but gives more options about the values retrieved. . There is now an option about how the Grid Colors are displayed. This improves the appearance of the grids for those with 256 color screens. . There is an option to Re-Connect to a database. This is useful if your database connection has timed out, or been terminated for some other reason and you wish to re-establish the connection. . When running a batch script, you can now specify parameters that are used throughout the script. The user can be prompted for entry of these parameters. . In the GUI Query Builder, when you add a new table by either double-clicking or right-click, the table will added at the cursor position. Changes in Export Data Processing Based on feedback from many people using this feature, we have made a number of improvements. . When exporting data to Excel, you can specify the name of the Worksheet to be written to. You can append-to an existing Worksheet. . You can now use Export Data when running a script containing multiple statements. AQT will prompt for the Export options only once; subsequent statements will append data to the same file. . Export Data now works when running a Stored Procedure (or code-block) that produces multiple result-sets. . Similarly, when running a batch script, you now need to specify output options (--aqt output specification) only once. All data will go to that file until this is changed with another output specification. . You can specify text that is written before or after the query-results. This makes it easy to include a report title with your output, or separate multiple outputs that are in the same file. . To make it easy to set up --aqt output statements for batch processing, the Export Data window has an option Tools->Generate Batch Control Stmt; this generates an output statement according to the options specified. Batch Mode Operation There are a number of improvements to this. . You can specify parameters that are used throughout the batch script. The user can be prompted for entry of these parameters. . For Excel, you can specify the name of the Worksheet to be written to. You can append-to an existing Worksheet. . You can specify text that is written before or after the query-results. This makes it easy to include a report title with your output. Other changes to the Run SQL window: . An improved Find / Replace function . A function to comment / un-comment a block of SQL . The entire SQL text can be printed . Auto-indent and proper recognition of the Tab character. . Results of the Run Db2 Command are now shown in Notepad (rather than the SQL window). . The Analyse functions now do not overwrite your current SQL. . The limit of 32K bytes of text has been removed. . The option Run on Enter has been removed from the Run SQL window. This feature is not possible with the new Edit control. New to AQT V5.3.4 ============== Some Bug Fixes . An intermittent Overflow error, while switching between windows, has been fixed. . Numeric columns for Sybase are no longer truncated at the last digit. . Time columns with a value of 24:00:00 are now displayed correctly. . Improved behaviour when running a block of code (Sybase). . Output-to-file in batch-mode no longer fails after 1000 rows. . Improvements in the handling of Transaction Mode. New Features . Explain-plan for DB2/UDB has been added. Some enhancements to the Explain-plan window. The Explain-queries have now been moved to the cfg files, so you can amend these or add your own if required. . There is a new option Maximum Query Columns. You can increase this beyond the default of 500 if you are dealing with tables with a large number of columns. . You can specify a startup-script for AQT. This might be used to (for instance) automatically sign onto the databases you commonly deal with. . Output To has now been renamed to Export To. You can now run an export from the GUI Query Builder without returning to the Run SQL window. New to AQT V5.3 ============= New Install Method AQT is now delivered as a *.msi file, which is an Install Package for the Microsoft Installer. To install AQT, the Microsoft Installer needs to be installed on your PC. If so, double-clicking the *,msi file will install AQT. The Microsoft Installer *may* be on your PC if you have Windows 95/98. The Microsoft Installer *should* be on your PC if you have Windows NT V4 (Service Pack 3 or higher), Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP If Windows does not recognise the msi file type, or the install is not working, you may need to install or upgrade the Windows Installer. This can be downloaded from the Microsoft site, as follows: . For Windows 95/98/ME go to http://download.microsoft.com/download/WindowsInstaller/Install/2.0/W9XMe/EN-US/InstMsiA.exe . For Windows NT/2000 go to http://download.microsoft.com/download/WindowsInstaller/Install/2.0/NT45/EN-US/InstMsiW.exe If you have any other problems or questions on the install process, contact us as support@querytool.com New Grid The major new feature of this release is a new Grid Control. We have implemented the DataDynamics #Grid throughout AQT. This has the following features: . A slicker look-and-feel. . Inline editing of grid data, including drop-down boxes. This is used in a number of places in AQT (though we haven't yet implemented inline editing of tables - next release). . Improved printing facilities . Many other features, as detailed in the next section. Changes to the Table/Query Display Window . #Grid offers a feature whereby the data can be grouped (by specified columns) and shown in a tree-view. This is extremely useful for analysing your data. . Data sort is now done by clicking on a heading. . Column order can be changed by dragging columns left and right . Columns can be hidden by dragging a column "away" . Columns and rows can be frozen (which means they remain fixed when the data is scrolled). . You can display your data in a two-colour display . You can display your data with variable row height . Pivot. We have added the ability to do a Pivot of a query-result. This allows a data analysis to be displayed in a more meaningful tabular format. . View as for LOBs. You can now specify a default viewer; this is used when you double-click a LOB file name. Note: most of these new features can be switched-on in the View menu item. The default behaviour of these is controlled by Options->Display Options. Row Detail Window . This has been changed to use the #Grid (in the past this used and array of text-boxes which had a number of limitations). Consequently this window has a different look and feel. . There is now an option to show the column data-types in the display Plus many other features requested by users . Explain for Db2/390 and MySQL . Output as Inserts now allows you to include the column-list in the Insert statements. The column names can be customised. . Output to File, Fixed Format. This can now generate a control file with the positions of the columns in the output file. . Audit Facility. This provides a mechanism for auditing all the SQL statements that you have run in AQT. . Batch Mode. You can now specify the statement delimiter when running AQT in batch mode. . Batch Mode. You can now include another script file within your script. This, combined with the output statement, allows you to copy data from one database to another in batch-mode. . Read-only Mode. You can now set AQT to run in read-only mode. In this mode, AQT will only run queries - all other SQL statements will be rejected. This option can be "locked" to prevent a user from changing it. . Improvements to the handling of Users and Access rights for MySQL . GUI Query Builder changes . The grids now work slightly differently (better) due to the new grid control . Join type can be changed when you right-click a join . Table Id. There is now more flexibility about how a table-id is to be constructed from a table name. . New option - Include Columns in New Tables. This specifies, when a new table is added to the query, whether or not the table columns are to be automatically added to the query. Bugs and Limitations The #Grid control has a number of bugs / issues that have not yet been resolved in this release of AQT: . The dropdown list in the Row Detail window does not scroll. You can still move through the dropdown list using the Up and Down keys. . The dropdown list in the Row Detail window has spacing between the items. . Printing. The Max Horizontal Pages option is ignored. . Database Explorer. Printing of the right-grid when this contains a large amount of text (such as a Stored Procedure). This does not all print. This is a limitation of the #Grid control. Will be corrected in AQT V5.5 when we will implement a new textbox which has print capability. . Database Explorer. Print-screen does not print the grids correctly. As an interim measure, use the Print Scrn button to copy/paste into WordPad then print from there. . Database Explorer. Cannot select multiple items (for copying etc). We have disabled multi-select while we resolve a bug / strange behaviour. . Column Sort. For Numeric columns, this does not sort (null) values correctly. . Column Sort. Date / time columns are sorted as character-sorts. Consequently this will only sort correctly if the date is in the format yyyy-mm-dd. New to AQT V5.2.4 ============== A few bug fixes: . Generate Text produced wrong output when a Table Filter was used . "Add Related Tables" sometimes gave the incorrect result . Autojoin function occassionally caused AQT to crash . We may have resolved the issue with AQT remaining active after being closed One new feature: . AQT now remembers the Connect Options (No Password etc) between signons. If any are set, AQT will automatically show you the "More Connect Options". New to AQT V5.2.3 ============== A few minor bug fixes: . Errors when more than 32000 tables within a schema . Output to File failed to enclose string columns within quotes . Compare Tables reported wrong database name . Run SQL window now has focus set in the SQL textbox New to AQT V5.2.2 ============== A few minor bug fixes. New to AQT V5.2 ============= . A few miscellaneous bugs with the GUI Query Builder were fixed . When a query is imported into the GUI Query Builder, it would only recognise Columns Synonyms when they are specified with the AS clause. Now, Columns Synonyms without the AS clause will be recognised in some (though not all) circumstances. Compare all Tables in Schema ---------------------------- The major feature of this release is a new function Compare all tables in Schema. This improves AQT's ability to show you the differences in definitions of the tables between two Schemas (whether in the same database or different databases). . This will show you, side-by-side, all the tables in the two Schemas and the number of columns in each table. This makes it easy to see, at a glance, which tables are defined in one schema and not in another. . When a table exists in both schemas, double-clicking the table will show you the Compare Columns window for viewing the definitions of the columns in the tables. . Alternatively, you can do a full compare of the Schemas; in this mode AQT will automatically compare the column definitions in all the tables in the Schemas. . Any differences between tables and / or columns are highlighted in red. This makes it very easy to see differences. . This function is scriptable: this makes it possible to set up a batch script which produces a report on all the differences between two schemas. New to AQT V5.1.2 ============== A few bug fixes: . some functions in the GUI Query Builder failed when there were more than 10 tables in the query. . GO as a statement delimiter was not working for Sybase Outer Join syntax is now generated correctly for SQLBase . Run Stored Procedures for Sybase should be more reliable (we've improved the work-arounds for problems with some ODBC drivers). . Can now deal with Stored Procedure Input and Output parameters of up to 5000 bytes in size. New functions: . a new window has been added to display the results of Compare Results . Batch Mode operation of AQT has been added New to AQT V5.1 =============== This release has major changes to the look and feel of AQT, plus delivers many new features Multiple Windows . AQT now uses the MDI (Multiple Document Interface) style of interface. This allows many windows to be open within the AQT application. . To simplify navigation between the AQT windows, a window-toolbar has been added. This shows all open windows and allows you to move between windows with a single click. . Some menu-items have been rearranged to be in more sensible places. Multiple Database Connections . You can now have connections to multiple databases open at the same time. . Each database connection has its own database-information window – (this is in contrast to an explorer-style tree-view used in many other systems). We feel that this style of interface is easier to work with than the tree-view style. . When you run a query, you can select which database this is to run against (note however that you can only run a single query at once). . We have improved the Filter objects feature. The filter text-box is always displayed, and is remembered as you move between objects. Multiple Query Results Windows . This window is no longer “modal” (as it was in earlier releases) . You can have multiple Table Display windows open at the same time . You can display the Row Number. . A window has been added to allow you to customize the View As options . If you are displaying LOBS as Files, you can now save a particular LOB file. This is useful if you wish to retain a LOB file for future use. GUI Query Builder . You can now run a query directly from the GUI Query Builder (eg. without having to return to the Run SQL window). This makes it a lot faster to build and test a query. . You can have multiple GUI Query Builder windows open . You can build queries which involve tables in multiple databases (SQL Server and Sybase only). . There are now a number of options about how the Table-Id is generated. . It now supports complex joins conditions, eg. joins that have functions on the join-columns, and a join-operator other than “=”. . You can now specify a table-expression (a.k.a inline view) as a query table. . The Options tab has been reorganised. The Other tab has been removed. The Options are now saved between AQT sessions. . When a query is created by the GUI Query Builder, AQT can save (as part of the query SQL) information on the location and positions of the table-windows. When you re-open that query AQT is able to re-establish to query as it was when you built it (including the positions of the windows). . You can use the Query Builder to build a sub-select statement in your SQL. In the Run SQL window, if you select a portion of your SQL and click on the Build Query button, only the selected portion of text will be passed to the query builder. When you click on the SQL icon (in the Query Builder), your built query will replace the selected text in the Run SQL window. Run SQL Window . You can have multiple Run SQL windows open. . Explain Plan for Oracle has been added. . There is a now a checkbox Add Table Id to specify whether the table-id is to be added to a column-name you are adding to your SQL. This is useful if you are building a multi-table query, where the column names need to be prefixed with the table-id. . We are introducing the concept of a Query. When you retrieve a Saved Query, the Query name is given as part of the window caption. This will also be given in the display of the data. The Query name is remembered with your query as you undo/redo, and recall SQL History. Compare Tables . This now allows you to compare to another specified table, not just one with the same name in another schema/database. . You can also compare by Name (rather than Column Number). This is useful if your tables have the same columns, but in a different order. Plus . Information on Sequences in Oracle and DB2/UDB has been added. . The Options window has been changed to match the modern idiom. A few additional options have been added. . You can now directly output query results to an Excel spreadsheet. . Improved support for use of GO and / as statement delimiters in Sybase/SQL Server and Oracle. . The Insert/Update Row function now makes it easier to insert / update BLOB values. . We are introducing a scripting ability within AQT. This allows a set of queries to be run without any prompting. This initial implementation of this allows automation of query output to file. . Run Stored Procedures can now cope with stored procedures of up to 50 parameters. . A few bugs with the syntax of outer joins in Oracle have been fixed. . The Primary Keys for Oracle tables are now correctly identified. This improves the behaviour of the Query Builder, and the Update Row windows. This previously did work for Oracle, as the ODBC function for getting the Primary Key function always returned ROWID (not the real primary key for the table). . In the SQL History, you can now navigate through the entries with the Up/Down keys. We have added a Find function, which makes it easy to find a particular SQL statement. New to AQT 4.2.7 ================ This release fixes a few bugs: · Query Builder failed if there were more than 500 columns in the query tables. · Auto-detect of table relationships did not work for SQL Server · Procedure information for DB2/390 was incorrect when there were multiple procedures with the same name. · Show Table Detail was truncated if there were more than 50 values in the display. · The Run SQL window did not show columns information beyond the 100th column. · Improved the handling of tables which have a decimal-point as part of the table name (this often happens with Text data sources). In addition, there are a few useability enhancements: · in the Run SQL window you can Open/Save a query with Ctrl-O and Ctrl-S · in the Update Row window you can run your update with F5 New to AQT 4.2.6 ================ This release fixes a couple of urgent bugs: · DECIMAL and NUMBER columns were displayed incorrectly in some cases. · We have improved the way AQT behaves with DECIMAL and NUMBER columns when a Decimal Separator other than fullstop is used. · We now allow an Unlimited number of rows to be displayed. New to AQT 4.2.5 ================ This release fixes a number of bugs: · Write LOBs to Files only worked when Max Column Size was set to No Limit, and not at all for unregistered users. Oops! This has now been corrected. · Load LOBs from external Files has been extended to also work for long character columns. · Miscellaneous other fixes with Write LOBS to Files and Load LOBS from external Files. These features have now been tested on a number of database types. · SYBASE decimal columns now have the lengths reporting correctly. · Print Data now does not overlay data when a column contains linefeed characters. · For DB2/UDB we have improved the way we display User and Group authorities. AQT will now display the correct results when there is a User and Group with the same name. · The positions of a number of windows are saved and reestablised when the window is next opened (previously many windows opened centered in your screen and, due to a quirk in VB, re-centered themselves when they regained focus). · Date / Timestamp values earlier than 100 A.D. are now displayed correctly. New to AQT 4.2.4 ================ New features: · BLOB/CLOB values can now be loaded from an external file. This provides a very easy mechanism for loading BLOBs into your database. · BLOB/CLOB values can be written to files; this allows the full LOB value to be retrieved from the database. Mechanisms are provided to display the LOB using an external application. A few bugs were fixed: · Timestamp columns sometimes had the decimal part displayed incorrectly · error displaying a table with more than 50 date columns. · Compare Tables treated TIMESTAMP,TIMESTMP and CHARACTER,CHAR as different types. New to AQT 4.2.3 ================ A few bugs were fixed: · binary columns were incorrectly displayed in some cases · Oracle binary columns more than 1000 bytes were incorrectly displayed as Null · Null numeric values were incorrectly shown as blank New to AQT 4.2.2 ================ This release has a few miscellaneous bug fixes. · The Update Row screen now has an option Get Constants (the same as Get Constants in the Run SQL Window) . We have changed the behaviour of the Table Info and Table Display windows slightly. In the past, if you clicked on a large value a popup box showed you the full value of the cell. This often happened when you didn't want it to. Now you have to double-click a cell to display the full value. . Binary columns are now displayed correctly. New to AQT 4.2.1 ================ This release has a number of miscellaneous bug fixes. · Add Table to Query has had a number of bugs and quirks ironed out. · The GUI Query builder has a number of miscellaneous minor bugs fixed · Some users were having trouble using AQT with SQL Server V6.5. This is due to the way parameterised queries were being processed. We have resolved this problem by not using parameters in SQL Server 6.5 system-table queries. New to AQT 4.2.0 ================ With this release we have completely re-written the database-access layer of AQT. We have removed Visual Basic's RDO layer and rewritten it with native-ODBC calls. While this is largely an internal change, it allows us to correct a number of long-standing problems, and will allow us to offer some extra features in the future. In particular: · AQT nows displays large columns without problem. In the past there were a number of problems with these (which manifested themselves in a number of ways). · Blobs and Clobs are now displayed (previously they were excluded from the table display). · AQT now displays timestamps correctly. Previously they were being truncated at the second. DB2, Sybase, SQL Server and Informix users will now see the correct timestamp value. · Oracle users can now use the Oracle ODBC Driver for Oracle (in the past AQT only worked well with the Microsoft ODBC Driver for Oracle). Other features this release has: · support for Informix has been added. · the window for running Multiple SQL Statements has been rewritten. This now shows you your SQL statements before you run the Script. You can exclude particular statements from being run. You can also change the text of your statements before they are run. This makes AQT a very powerful tool for running a large script. · you can now specify a statement delimiter other than semicolon. · we've added some features to make it easier to view large text columns. On the Table Display window there is an option "View As ..." which allows you to view the value of a column with another program (Notepad, Internet Explorer, Word). This is extremely useful if you are storing html, xml or Word documents in a table. · we've finally bowed to popular demand and allowed up to 100,000 rows to be displayed. Just don't complain to us if your PC runs out of memory. In the future you will be able to display all of a large table by being able to display the table in a series of "chunks". · for DB2 users, we allow you to specify your Isolation Level (Committed Read or Uncommitted Read). · the Date and Time formats are now remembered between sessions. · the GUI Query Builder can now handle up to 20 tables, 20 joins and 200 Where clauses. · the Build Where Clause window of the GUI Query Builder has a new "OK and Add Another" which makes it a lot quicker to add multiple Where clauses. · The Table Display window now uses a Text Box in the right grid for displaying large objects such as View Text and Procedure Text. This gives the ability to scroll through the text. · The Query Timeout option has been removed as we have decided it is unnecessary. · The Signon window has another option - Prompt for Missing Info. In most cases is a better option than Prompted Signon. · Run Stored Procedures had a few bugs removed and a few other miscellaneous enhancements. A number of changes have been made to the Run SQL Window: · you now see a list of options when you right-click the SQL Text box · you have an option to do a syntax-check of your SQL · you can set the font used in the text box · you can change the case of selected text · you can switch to another table without having to exit the window · the last 10 tables you have dealt with are remembered · the last 10 queries you have dealt with are also remembered Dates We have reviewed the way we deal with dates. These are complicated as: · people want the flexibility to view them in a particular format. · most databases are very fussy about how dates are specified in insert/update statements. · all databases have different date/time fields, and different rules about how they are handled. To cope with this we are introducing the concepts of Display Format and Update Format. Display Format is how you wish to see the dates displayed. This is how you will normally see the dates. Update Format is how the date needs to be formatted when specified in an update/insert statement (or a Where clause). AQT will show dates in the Update Format when: · you do a Get Values to get the values of a date column · you go into Update (or Insert/Delete) Mode on a table. AQT will "convert" the dates from the Display format to the Update format. See here for more info on dates. Oracle TO_DATE Function With Oracle, dates often have to be specified in conjunction with the To_Date function. In most places where dates need to be specified, AQT gives you the option to add the To_Date function to the date. This is done in: · the Run SQL window, where you may need to specify a Date in a Where clause · the Add Where clause window of the Gui Query Builder · the Update function of the Row Detail window Not Done in V4.2 We have done our first cut of support for Informix. In future releases we will improve this. What has not been done so far is: · support for Informix-syntax outer join is only partially implemented · column-list for synonyms hasn't been implemented yet · the number of system-table queries will be increased. We'd appreciate some suggestions here on the type on information you would find most useful. · handling of timestamp columns will be improved This is, of course, assuming we have some Informix users out there. If so, please contact us to let us know (features in AQT are generally based on demand). Plus: · Run Stored Procedures for some versions of Sybase for some ODBC drivers can give a variety of problems. We are working on this. New to AQT 4.1.3 ================= The main feature in this release is a facility for running Stored Procedures. This has the following features: · prompts for the procedures parameters. · handles all types of parameters - Input, Output and Input/Output. · handles the output of multiple result-sets · saves the details of the last 100 procedures run. These can be recalled and rerun. This history is saved between AQT sessions. This feature is extremely useful for those running stored procedures on a regular basis. Sybase and SQL Server users who use Stored Procedures for system administration, will find this particularly useful. Other features in this release are: · Support for DB2/400 has been added. · Saved / Retrieve queries now remembers the last 10 directories used. · The Row Display window has been amended. The way the scrolling is done has been changed slightly; the window can now cope with tables of up to 500 columns. · The GUI Query Builder now has a Query Assistant that provides information about your query. · In the Run SQL window you can rebuild the column list for the table that is in your SQL. New to AQT Version 4.1.2 ======================== In this release we have put in several suggestions we have received from a number of users. . The columns in the Table Display window now auto-expand to the size of the data. This makes the window a lot easier to read, especially on large-resolution screens. · A number of enhancements have been made to the Run SQL window: - the functions for a column can be seen/added by right-clicking a column name - you can now select multiple columns. This makes it a lot easier to add a number of columns to your SQL. You can also do multi-columns analysis with the Analyze Column functions. - a button has been added to show common Constants for columns · Many of the windows now have the Database name as the first part of the window caption. The database name is thereby more visible on the task-bar icons (useful if you are running multiple AQTs against different databases). · Setting and saving of the font used in the Table-Display window and for Printing has been improved. · The license keys are now held in the LOCAL_MACHINE, rather than CURRENT_USER, part of the registry. This is useful in an NT environment where there might be multiple users wishing to use AQT on the one machine. All other settings are held in CURRENT_USER. New to AQT Version 4 ==================== · The major feature is a GUI Query Builder. This is a major new component of AQT - about 9 months development work. There are numerous features in this - too many to detail here. · The GUI Query Builder can reverse-engineer SQL - eg. take an existing SQL statement and display it as a GUI query. This makes it very easy to visualise and amend complex queries. · The GUI Query Builder can also reverse-engineer view definitions. You now have an option "View as Query" (when you right-click a view) to show the view definition as a GUI query. Other Features Apart from the GUI Query Builder, the other new features for this release: · the Query History is now saved (on disk) between AQT sessions. The number of entries in this is increased to 100. · Elapsed time for a query is shown, and this is included in the Query History. · You can save and retrieve the results of a query. This allows you to view the results of a query at a later point in time, even after you have disconnected from the database. · If you have saved the query results, this is shown in the Query History, and this can be re-displayed with a single click. This is extremely useful. · In the Run SQL window, you can run a part of the query by selecting it before hitting Run / F5 (it will run the selected text, rather than everything in the query window). · Compare Tables can now compare tables in different schemas in the same database. . Support for SQLBase has been added. What is Advanced Query Tool? ============================ AQT is a database query tool designed for the DBA and database developer. It provides a simple and fast way of seeing the tables in your system (both table definition and table content). It allows you to build and save queries. AQT has a large number of features and tools designed to simply and automote the your job - in product demonstrations it takes us over 90 minutes to quickly run through all the features of AQT. Advanced Query Tool works with any ODBC database. In addition (and this is what makes AQT unique), AQT will access the system tables (a.k.a. catalog, dictionary) to provide you with comprehensive information about the objects in your system. The feature which reads the system tables needs to be configured for each database type (this is done with a *.cfg file which contains the menu structure and system queries for that database). So for this has been done for the DB2s, Oracle, Sybases, MS SQL Server, MySQL, SQLBase and Informix. Other databases will be added in the future. For a fuller list of features, see http://www.querytool.com or double-click on the help file aqt.hlp which comes with the product (you can download this separately). Prerequisites ============= Software: Windows 95/98/2000/XP, Windows NT V4.0 or above Hardware: 486 or Pentium processor. Disk space: 5 MB in your Windows system directory 2.5 MB in your program directory Memory: AQT uses 15-20 MB of memory. ODBC: 32-bit ODBC driver. ODBC connections to your databases must be configured. In some cases this may require database client software to be installed on your machine. In addition, you will need to have been given the database access rights to read the system tables in your database. Evaluation Version ================== When you install AQT you get an evaluation version of the product. There are some restrictions in this version, principally: 1. only 50 rows can be displayed 2. queries cannot be saved 3. query results cannot be printed (apart from screen print) 4. you can connect to a maximum of 2 databases 5. you can only have one SQL and one GUI Query Builder window open 6. a maximum of 1000 tables (within a schema) will be shown To fully activate all the features of the product you must pay for it. At $100 it is cheap for the features it provides. Distribution ============ You can distribute this product freely to anyone, as long as you don't receive any money for this (apart from the cost of the media) or pass it off as your own product. However you cannot reveal your registration code to anyone else. End User License Agreement ===================== See file eula.txt for the End User License Agreement. Product Cost and Payment ======================== AQT costs $100 US Dollars per copy (see http://www.querytool.com/pricing.html for more details on pricing). Once you pay for the product you will be sent a registration key. You load this into AQT by clicking on the "Enter Registration key" button. This turns AQT from an Evaluation Version to the Full Version. You will not get any physical media (CDs etc). You can pay for AQT in a number of ways: a) within AQT, click on the "Pay for AQT" button. Fill out the form to pay for the product in whichever way you wish (credit card etc). b) alternatively, click Pay Online. This will take you to the web Online Payment screen. c) see http://www.querytool.com/purchase.html for more information on the purchasing procedure. Note that the payment and registration of the product is handled by our retailer Kagi (http://www.kagi.com). Any queries regarding payment and registration should be directed to sales@kagi.com. Installation (full install) =========================== 1. after downloading aqt52.zip, unzip it into some temporary directory. 2. double-click on setup.exe. 3. follow the installation instructions. Installation generally takes 5 minutes or less. You do not need to reboot your machine after installing. The setup files have been split into three pieces (aqt1.cab, aqt2.cab and aqt3.cab) to make it easier for you to transport this product on floppies. Installation (update install) ============================= If you already have a version of AQT installed, you can just download the "Update" installation file. Unzip the files into your AQT program directory. More on Installation ==================== AQT is written in Visual Basic Version 6. The installation process uses the VB application setup wizard. This will install a number of DLLs and OCXs in your Windows System directory. It will do so "safely" - eg. it will not replace a DLL with an older DLL. If you want to see exactly what the installation did see file St6unst.log in the installation directory (eg. c:\Program Files\Advanced Query Tool). Note: do not delete St6unst.log as it is needed by the uninstall. Much of the installation package is the VB V6 runtime environment. The DLLs and OCXes installed by AQT are as follows: File File Date File Size Version ------------ ------------------- --------- ------- VB6STKIT.DLL 7/15/00 12:00:00 AM 101888 6.0.84.50 COMCAT.DLL 5/31/98 12:00:00 AM 22288 4.71.1460.1 STDOLE2.TLB 6/3/99 12:00:00 AM 17920 2.40.4275.1 ASYCFILT.DLL 3/8/99 12:00:00 AM 147728 2.40.4275.1 OLEPRO32.DLL 3/8/99 12:00:00 AM 164112 5.0.4275.1 OLEAUT32.DLL 4/12/00 12:00:00 AM 598288 2.40.4275.1 MSVBVM60.DLL 8/21/00 12:00:00 AM 1388544 6.0.89.64 MSSTDFMT.DLL 7/15/00 12:00:00 AM 118784 6.0.88.4 MSHFLXGD.OCX 5/22/00 12:00:00 AM 438976 6.0.88.4 MSCOMCTL.OCX 5/22/00 12:00:00 AM 1066176 6.0.88.62 COMDLG32.OCX 5/22/00 12:00:00 AM 140488 6.0.84.18 TABCTL32.OCX 12/6/00 12:00:00 AM 209608 6.0.90.43 If you are a paranoid type, you might like to back up the existing versions of these files before installing AQT. You do trust Microsoft don't you? Four of the files deserve mention: olepro32.dll, oleaut32.dll, stdole2.dll and Stdole2.tlb. These files are in continuous use by Windows so cannot be upgraded while Windows is running. If the install process needs to update these you will get a message "Setup cannot continue because some system files are out of date on your system..... You will need to restart Windows before you can run setup again....". If you click on OK, Windows will upgrade these files the next time it is restarted. If you get this message you should: 1. click OK on the Setup message. Click Cancel on the restart message 2. (optional) back up the existing versions of these files 3. restart your machine 4. rerun setup.exe If after doing this you still get the above message (has happened on one install) you will need to manually move the above four files into your Windows System directory by restarting your machine in DOS mode. This procedure will not work on Windows 2000 as this will not allow any "critical" DLLs to be changed. DeInstallation ============== To remove the product from your machine: 1. select option Add / Remove Programs from the Control panel 2. click on Advanced Query Tool then click on Add/Remove 3. click on Yes when prompted. Software Updates ================ Updates to Advanced Query Tool will be posted at regular intervals to http://www.querytool.com/download. It is worthwhile checking this occassionally in case an extra feature you may find useful has been implemented. You can download and use new versions of the product for no extra charge. Problem Reporting ================= If you have any problems, or find any bugs, please email aqt@querytool.com with full details of the problem (including screen snapshots if possible and relevant). Enhancement Requests ==================== Where AQT heads as a product is up to you as users. Please let us know what extra features you would like to see implemented in the product. Known Problems ============== These are all described in the AQT Help.