Inherited Delphi 2007 Project and need to compile it

Question

I've spent quite a bit of time (nearly a full day at this point) trying to figure out how to get an IDE that can compile a Delphi 2007 project. I have only found solutions using the Delphi IDE (From RAD Studio, which has a license fee of $1,500-$4,000), or Lazarus (which apparently isn't really good for importing existing Delphi projects, just new ones).

At this point, I just need to confirm that I can compile the project. If I can do that then I could probably justify paying the license fee for RAD Studio.

My question is does anyone know if its possible to get the 2007 Delphi compiler from anywhere? Also, is there any free IDE that I can use for Delphi 2007? I called RAD Studio customer support about getting a trial, but they cannot give a trial for the 2007 version unless you purchase a license for the current version.

This project does come with makefiles to compile via the command line, but it errors when attempting to compile using v34 compiler that comes with the current trial version of RAD Studio (10.4). I believe these errors are caused because of the v34 compiler version not being for Delphi 2007, but I just need to confirm that and ideally compile it using the correct version (I think v16 or 17 of the compiler).

Does anyone with more experience in Delphi have any information about where I can get the previous versions of the compiler, or just information in general that could help me figure out how to compile this project without a RAD Studio license?

Answer 1

does anyone know if its possible to get the 2007 Delphi compiler from anywhere?

Not for free, no. But licensed, yes. See further below.

is there any free IDE that I can use for Delphi 2007?

No. But there is a free Community Edition of the Delphi IDE ¹. You could then upgrade the D2007 project to 10.x. But you will likely have to make tweaks to the code as well, since D2007 predates Delphi's migration to Unicode in D2009.

^{1: at the time of this writing, the Community Edition is for Delphi 10.3 Rio. Though Delphi 10.4 Sydney has been released, a 10.4 Community Edition has not been released yet.}

I called RAD Studio customer support about getting a trial, but they cannot give a trial for the 2007 version unless you purchase a license for the current version.

Correct. The latest Delphi version includes licenses for past versions. Once licensed, you can then login to https://members.embarcadero.com and download RAD Studio 2007 from the "My Registered User Downloads" section.

This project does come with makefiles to compile via the command line, but it errors when attempting to compile using v34 compiler that comes with the current trial version of RAD Studio (10.4). I believe these errors are caused because of the v34 compiler version not being for Delphi 2007, but I just need to confirm that and ideally compile it using the correct version (I think v16 or 17 of the compiler).

Create a new project for the modern IDE, add the existing source files to the new project, then compile. Or install a licensed D2007.