In order to update the software, you must have administrative rights to the computer or server on which FF&EZ is installed. Also, your FF&EZ user account must have access to the more restricted functions like this one.

FF&EZ's installation is slightly more complicated than more generic software, because it uses a permanent database that is not only separate from the program but may be located in different places depending upon each user or company. The location of the database is also used for report design files so that you can replace or update these without having to do a complete installation (for which some users may not have access rights).

Because of this structure, an update is actually composed of three parts: 1) downloading the update file, 2) extracting its contents to specific locations and 3) locating and running the new installer (extracted in part 2).

The Update Software utility makes this process easier by handling the more complicated portions of the process. Before you start, check to see what version you are currently running, in case that makes a difference in which path you take. The current version appears when you first start the software as well as on the main screen. In more recent versions, it also appears on the FF&EZ window's title bar (at the top).

We strongly recommend that you only update the software by closing FF&EZ (all users), restarting it and then immediately beginning the procedure. This makes it less likely that Windows will retain locks on data files that interfere with the backup option that is part of the procedure. If you have created an external backup procedure, run this prior to restarting FF&EZ, since this is a more predictable type of backup.

To update your software, you need to first choose which type of update you need to do, based on which of these descriptions match your current version:

Updating Versions Earlier than 4.1 (oldest)

Updating Versions Earlier than 4.3 (older)

Updating Versions from 4.3 or Later (most recent)

Note that if you need to use an older method, where you download the update file into the standard Windows Downloads folder first, you may need to request the download link, since at some point we will only provide the update token.