I have a Mac runtime solution that multiple people around the world are using.  It was originally created using 13.0.5.  Some users tried running it on El Capitan and rightly got error messages that files were missing as it is not compatible with 10.11.  I created a new runtime of the same files that were distributed using 14.0.4 and tested simply replacing the runtime engine file only (& none of the data/interface files).  The solution seems to run perfectly on El Capitan with this runtime engine upgrade.  I see this the same as upgrading the FileMaker Pro application version, and no changes need to be made to the .fmp12 files.  Am I making a bad assumption if I simply have the users replace the runtime engine file (& none of the other files) to be compatible with Yosemite?

That sounds about right. I'm not sure about manually replacing files for your end users. It may be easier to create a new installer for them, as there may be other things that need to happen like updating OS registry and such.

Mike

Thank you for your response Mike.  I really need to learn more about building installers for both the Mac & PC platforms.  Do you have any suggestions regarding where to learn or what installers work best for both platforms?  Several users have manually replaced the runtime engine and it is working fine, so hopefully it truly is this time...  I will study up for next time.

Honestly it has been a few years since I had to use one, and that was for PC only. The Mac installer is a little easier, since you basically take what the developer utilities give you and put it on a disk image with a readme file. There are some utilities to help with this as well, if you like. On the PC side, you can just zip the runtime folder if you are comfortable walking clients through how to install it, but if you want a full fledged installer, there are several out there that will work.

Mike

I'm embarrassed to discover I never acknowledged your response - thank you very much for your suggestions & help.  I currently use Actual Installer for the PC platform (but I think there are probably others equally as good) and a zip file for Mac platform.  I can't seem to get a .dmg file to upload or download properly from my website for the Mac platform.