Installshield

Installation Fun w/ InstallShield and ASP.NET (1.1 & 2.0)

Chris Williams — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 12:29:00 GMT

The Problem:

Recently, I ran across a situation where we have an ASP.NET 1.1 app that we were installing onto a machine with the 2.0 .NET Framework already installed.

When the virtual directory was created by the install, all the "non-application specific" file extensions were mapped to the 2.0 isapi.dll file. However, the "application specific" ones were mapped to the 1.1 isapi.dll. So, when I tried to hit the site the first time, a lot of stuff was screwed up. Going into IIS and remapping everything to ASPNET 1.1 seemed to fix everything.

The Solution:

We need to specifically configure the application mappings for the virtual directories via the 'Virtual Directory' tab of the virtual directory in the InstallShield project. We just need to point to the old dll. The behavior should be very similar with the InstallShield project since they mimic the IIS manager.

Windows IIS manager:

InstallShield IIS view:

So, we can just configure the InstallShield project to specifically point to the 1.1 dll's.

Please note that you can't configure existing virtual directories, just new virtual directories.

Charleston, SC Code Camp

Chris Williams — Tue, 31 May 2005 17:28:00 GMT

Coming to Charleston, SC this September 17th...

MSDN CODE CAMP!

More info to follow at www.gcnug.org , although if you're interested in volunteering or speaking, contact me!

Chris

Installshield versus the volcano

Chris Williams — Fri, 13 May 2005 15:06:00 GMT

As many of you know, I've been using InstallShield a lot at work. For the most part, I really like it although it's not without it's share of issues.

Recently, someone asked me why specifically I use InstallShield as opposed to Visual Studio .NET.

Since I'm creating MSI installs, sure the InstallScript is nice but is there anything that I couldn't do in VS with VB and VBScript? Not having a great answer to the question, I decided it would only be fair to find out. So having said that, I'm going to be doing some research & experimentation on porting my existing work to VS.NET setup kits (as opposed to just doing IS inside VS).

Actually, I'll be looking at 3 things...

IS based installs created from within the IS IDE
IS based installs created from within VS.NET
VS.NET based installs (created in VS.NET)

Stay tuned...

Good News for .NET Developers

Chris Williams — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 23:02:00 GMT

well... .NET Developers who use InstallShield at least.

Remember my wishlist? I just got word from Bob Corrigan (InstallShield Product Manager) that #4 is being worked on!

What's #4 you ask?

4. Please allow me to call .NET DLLs from InstallScript and retrieve a value from whatever function method I call.

Currently I can only call C and COM+ DLLs. If I absolutely have to call my .NET DLL during the install, I have to either a) register it as COM+ (which I never got working quite right) or b) write a program that uses the DLL and writes the value out to a file, which I then read in via InstallScript.

InstallShield Utility Belt updated

Chris Williams — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 21:47:00 GMT

In addition to the handy stuff in my InstallShield utility belt, here's another VERY useful script, although this one should go in your Setup.rul file:

function OnResumeUIBefore()
    STRING szMsg;
    NUMBER nResult;
begin
    // change the interior-dialog banner
    DialogSetInfo(DLG_INFO_ALTIMAGE, SUPPORTDIR ^ "newbanner.bmp", TRUE);

Dlg_Start:
nResult = SdWelcome( "Upgrading your product", "The InstallShield Wizard will now upgrade your existing your product installation." );
    if (nResult = BACK) goto Dlg_Start;
    Enable(STATUSEX);

end;

When you are working with an InstallScript MSI Project, you will find that Minor Upgrades are treated as Resumed Installations by some aspects of the Installshield UI sequence.

Unfortunately, the support community is loaded with people asking how to change the text of the Upgrade Welcome dialog. Directly editing the string table doesn't seem to work either. If you manually add the above function, it will override the built in version of the same and you can control your “resume” behavior. This has been an ongoing problem since at least version 7 of IS. You won't find this anywhere in the help documentation either.

Here's the updated Utility Belt: http://www.geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/articles/27847.aspx

InstallShield Skins continued...

Chris Williams — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 17:52:00 GMT

So... I've also been researching creating custom skins. So far I haven't had any real luck with that. InstallShield X (IS-X) ships with a handful of predefined skins. There is NO mechanism for discovery of new skins in IS-X. If you want to create a new skin, you actually have to manually alter one of the existing ready-made ones.

There are a load of problems with the support for custom skins in IS-X. The biggest problem is that there ISN'T ANY SUPPORT! People who rely on the “community” for answers can forget about it. Sadly, people actually willing to pay for support aren't much better off. There are COUNTLESS messages on the “community” about people being told “it's trial and error” when creating custom skins. Things like proprietary “dialog units” that have no real world correllation to pixels, and getting your images or buttons to show up in the right place... TRIAL AND ERROR? That's the official response? Seriously??

There have been many times I have considered asking my employer about purchasing a support contract so I could get some serious help when I need it (been doing pretty good without it though, thankyouverymuch) but after seeing this... I don't think I'm willing to waste the money.

Trial and error.... yeesh...

InstallShield Skins... not quite ready for prime time

Chris Williams — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 17:45:00 GMT

Installshield X ships with a handful of “skins” for their dialogs. You have blue, slate, monochrome (very sci-fi looking), true color blue, olive, midnight and my personal favorite: “NONE”.

Why is this one my favorite? Well it's true the others look fairly cool, but they don't work with custom dialogs (even the same size and layout) and they don't even work reliably with the shipped dialogs. Just recently, I ran into a problem where I set my dialog skins to “true color blue” and rebuilt the install. I admit it was curiosity that drove me to it, but I paid the price. Once I saw it, and decided I didn't like it, I switched back to “NONE” and rebuilt. Imagine my surprise to discover that the Install Status dialog (aka STATUSEX) had decided it liked being skinned and absolutely was not going to give it up, even though the other dialogs were being nice and compliant. Panic ensues...

I muck around for a bit, try applying different skins, building, removing, rebuilding ad nauseam only to discover that STATUSEX gets stuck with the last skin applied, no matter which skin. I simply could NOT get it to go back to the default of “NONE”. Not one to give up without a fight, I tried a different approach... I deleted my project (bless you sourcesafe) and uninstalled InstallShield X. Deleted any leftover files, poked around the registry, etc... reinstalled IS-X... ultimately to NO AVAIL. You read that right... NO LUCK! That damn STATUSEX dialog was still BLUE (or green, whatever).

I scoured the InstallShield “community” and found a number of posts relevant to my problem. My joy quickly turned to despair when I discovered that none of them had been answered. Ok, not entirely true. A couple had answers that were vague or unrelated to the problem, and there were some “I wanna know too” replies, but I don't count those. (Keep in mind boys and girls, this isn't paid support. It's USERS ignoring USERS...)

Giving up there, I started digging around in my bag o' tricks (i.e. I read the Help File... shhh!) and found this:

Disable(USE_LOADED_SKIN);

This is NOT a solution, but it fixed my problem. This command suppresses any applied skins and can be used anywhere in the script. I use it just before the call to STATUSEX and it works just peachy, but come on now... I shouldn't have to do this at all. And don't tell me my IS-X install was corrupted, I uninstalled it TWICE! *sigh*

Anyway, the moral of this story is that there is a way to circumvent the problem. Now it's up to IS to actually SOLVE the problem.

ok... so which build relates to which service pack and hotfix again??

Chris Williams — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 15:52:00 GMT

When you're working on an install, and you need to check for a specific version or Service Pack of SQL Server 2000, chances are you'll find this page very useful: http://www.krell-software.com/mssql-builds.asp

I certainly did this morning.

Installshield Custom Skins

Chris Williams — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 16:28:00 GMT

My “never-ending“ crazy install project is finally nearing completion, and the time has come to create a custom skin.

1st - grab the IS X Skin Customization Kit: http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?pcode=ALL&articleid=Q108764

hmmm... It appears that dialog images are measured in “dialog units” instead of pixels. There is no obvious correlation between the two.

Also, according to Ritesh from InstallShield, if I want to remove the InstallShield logo from my dialogs... “You will need to use the Skin Customization Kit to extract the images. Then use an image editor to erase the logo from the image. Repackage the skin. However, a repackaged skin will always show an "InstallShield" branding.” Kinda makes me wonder what the point is...

So after more digging I find this thread on the InstallShield Community (remember... it's not “support“, you have to pay for that. This is the “users helping users“ community where the most common answer to questions is “I dunno either, but if you figure it out please tell me.“) http://community.installshield.com/showthread.php?t=134101&highlight=skin+customization+kit

ok, this looks promising: http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=Q108542

Stay tuned...

InstallShield Utility Belt, revisited

Chris Williams — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 17:21:00 GMT

I've received a few emails recently regarding the “InstallShield Utility Belt” (full of various InstallScript tidbits) I blogged a while ago. Since apparently a few people are finding it useful, I've copied it out to an article and put a link to it on my main blog page.

This way I can update it as I come up with more stuff.

Enjoy, and thanks for the positive feedback!

Also, if anyone wants to send me any InstallScript code that they find useful, please do so. I can't guarantee I'll add it, but you never know.