Flow requires the following third party components. These are automatically installed alongside Flow. The install process will detect which components are already available on your computer and install any missing components.
If the component is required it's install program is downloaded to c:\program files\flow software\components and installed during the Flow installation.
If you need to re-install a third party component you can download the latest install package from the vendors web site. The following third party components are installed alongside Flow.
The Microsoft .Net framework supports .net applications and is required to operate Flow.
Flows configuration database is hosted on SQL Server Express. If desired (and you have licenses available) you can use a full version of SQL Server. Flow supports MS SQL Server 2000 or above.
By default Flow installs an instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express. This SQL Server instance is called <computername>\Flow. This SQL Server instance has a default administrator account with the name sa. The password is F1owsq1!
The Microsoft SQL Management Console Express can also be installed. This allows you to manage the Flow configuration database such as creating, backing up, and restoring configuration databases.
SQL Compact is used for storing configuration information for light-weight versions of Flow. When distributing Flow by an OEM partner as part of their application it is common to use SQL Compact for holding the configuration database.
FlowWeb and FlowTransportWeb are C# web applications that are hosted within IIS server. Flow checks the operating system and installs the IIS version appropriate to the operating system. IIS is not distributed with Flow so you may require your windows CD during Flow installation.
Depending on the host system you wish to operate against you may require ODBC drivers to be installed. Flow currently ships with ODBC drivers for QuickBooks and MYOB.
Flow installs v4 and v6 of the Microsoft XML library. This is used by Flow for processing XML documents.
Flow requires the latest windows installer. This is normally upgraded by Windows update however FLow will check to ensure it is the latest version.