I was originally going to very vague with this to not give it away but it seems easier to just tell.
I am writing a batch file named "XJSS Installer" to automatically check to see if java is installed (if not then install it), Install Forge, and move a folder named "mods" with (you guessed it, mods in it) to ".minecraft" in "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft" but I am having trouble with making a "universal mover"? Basically all I need is to be able to move "mods" to C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft but have it work on computers setup with different users (I mean like my friends PCs).
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I have a fairly large application (~750k LOC) that I distribute using the Package and Deployment Wizard. I fully understand that it would be nice to migrate to .NET (that ain't happening - see the code size above), and that the PDW is deeply flawed. However, for the most part I've made it work well for my end users, by customizing the Setup1 application, writing a menu-driven wrapper for the Setup application, and by running it in silent mode. (Note that the problem I'm about to describe occurred even before I started using silent mode.)
The issue I'm having is that my application requires quite a few auxiliary files, which I've added to the PDW project in the "Included files" section. When a user does a clean installation (either from scratch, or after un-installing a previous installation), everything works fine. However, if they simply run the installer to update the existing installation, the executable file and any OCXs I've updated get copied over the previous versions just fine, but my auxiliary files don't - I have to have the user manually delete them, and then the Setup1 program will re-install them as it should.
I've checked in the Setup.lst file, and all of the files are listed there, with their current date stamps. In fact, in my "BuildAll.bat" file, I do the Windows equivalent of a "touch" (copy /b "TheFile.dat" +,,) to force the date stamp to be current. However, if the file exists on the target machine, it won't be over-written even though it's older. There are no errors reported, either visibly or in the .LOG file (which is required if using the silent option).
A couple of additional points: Some of the auxiliary files are themselves VB6 applications - just the .exe files. Those do get copied correctly if they're newer than the existing files. Other than being files with internal versioning information, there's no difference between them and the other auxiliary files (which are things like media files, or text-based .txt or .dat files).
So, what's going on, and how do I fix it (besides moving to Inno or some other solution that won't work for me...)? Thanks in advance for any help!
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Mark Moulding
I am not a Mac owner and am putting myself through a crash course to get up to speed (e.g., reading "Switching to the Mac"), to give you an indication of my current level of understanding. The access I have to a physical Mac is limited, so I am trying to connect as many dots as possible before my next session with my friend's computer.
I have: a file folder containing all resources needed for a self-contained application written with Java (OpenJDK 11, JavaFX 11). The JLINK tool was successfully used to create this file folder, and it holds all necessary Java libraries as well as the code I wrote for the application. The executable resides in a subfolder: /bin. The program runs perfectly well on the Mac when the executable is run.
I want: something that is easy to download, install and run.
I'm unclear about what needs to be done to get this. The road map seems to have two main steps:
the file folder needs to be converted into something that responds as if it were an application (e.g., a Bundle? or an .app?)
the resulting folder-as-executable can be shipped via either .dmg or .pkg
For the second part, I've researched and found tools such as Packages or create-dmg. It seems to me these tools are pretty straightforward and shouldn't be too difficult to learn to use. (Just have to pick one or the other or something similar.)
For the first part, I'm on shaky conceptual ground. I've found info about Bundles, but no tutorials, walk-throughs or examples. It looks like a key step is understanding how to make a proper Info.plist file, but doing this properly looks tricky. Also, I'm not clear on how the resulting Bundle will become an .app file or if it needs to, or if there is another, more direct way to make my file folder be viewed by the OS as an application.
Some hand-holding or references to tutorials or even assurance that I am on the right track (if that is the case) would be much appreciated. Thanks!
The Java Deployment guide from Oracle relies heavily on ANT, but doesn't cover the case of a self-contained, customized JVM via JLINK well enough for me to decipher. So, I've taken the approach of trying to learn/understand the necessary steps using command-line commands.
While creating a Bundle is certainly an option, there is an easier way.
Step one is to make an .app manually. An answer to this question: "How to make a Mac OS X .app with a shell script?" goes over the basic steps. The Java file system that results from jlinking has a folder /bin in which there is a bash file that runs the program. This file should be moved to the outermost folder, and it should be named the desired name of the application. The bash file itself will have to be edited and "/bin" added to the address in last command so that the executable will be found. In addition, the folder itself will have to be renamed to be the same as the bash file, but with .app added as an extension.
The next thing I wanted to have was a custom icon. The question "Include icon in manually created app bundle" shows how to do this.
For the next step I made use of the program "Packages". I'm a bit confused about where I downloaded this from (there seem to be multiple sites), but here is a link to the manual. This tool allowed me to create a .pkg file that, when executed, installs my .app in the Applications folder. Then I compressing the .pkg file (to .zip) and made it available at a URL for downloading.
I've had a friend do a test download and install, and the program works!
This isn't meant to be a complete tutorial, and there are a few steps more that I want to figure out pertaining to sandboxing and sealing, but I believe this is a reasonable roadmap that can be used for simpler jlinked Java applications for Mac distribution.
I have a setup file for a particular application. When I run this file it automatically creates a folder in my C/: drive without consulting me and installs some stuff in there. Then it installs the rest of the stuff in Programfilesx86 folder in C/: drive. It is really frustrating that I have no control in deciding these parameters.
I managed to open the setup file using Winrar and there were six folders in there numbered from 'disk 1' to 'disk 6'. In 'disk 1' there are a couple of setup files which when run skip the first part of the setup (in which a folder is created in the C/: drive) and starts installing stuff in Programfilesx86.
There are also some other stuff in that folder which I tried to open with Notepad such as setup.lid, setup.ins and dll and bin files. Some of them looked sensible when opened, but some contained a lot of funny looking and meaningless characters (at least to me).
If you want something for testing (i.e. the software of interest), try downloading the Motec ECU manager from their website for free.
Any help or hints are appreciated.
I'm having issues with a few .ocx files in vb6. I have 2 components registered but when I attempted to add both into my project it says that I need to register them. I have tried copying new files into the sysWOW64 folders and still it does not work.
This occasionally happens when there is some corruption and conflict in the registry. One way to fix this is to place the two items in a folder within the project and add them by manually going to the reference and selecting that local copy, it will automatically register it as a new object and often (although not always) will fix the corruption by tagging the new path and it often resolves the issue you are facing. The only problem is that in the future projects, you may need to repeat the process or have access to the items.
The cleaner approach is to find all instances of the files on the system by doing an advanced search and finding ALL COPIES of them on the system, often they are all over the place. Once you have those paths, you need to regsvr32 /u <filepath.filename> each one to clean remove them from the registry and then place them in a common area and then register them from ONE location using regsvr32 <filepath.filename> and now things should work fairly cleanly.
Easiest way to find all instances on your machine (at least for me) is to simple go to your command prompt (if using more recent than XP, then as administrator) and then simply type:
C:
cd\
dir /s <filename.ext> > c:\files.txt
and wait until its done, at that point you open that file and it should give you all the paths to the files you need and you can easily turn the text file into a batch file by adding the commands you need to unreg and run it, voila, quick and fairly painless. If at anytime you unreg and it whines about it not being registered or can't do it, don't worry, just acknowledge and move on. Some OCX and DLL don't have registration entry points. If you register and it complains saying it can't do it, then you pretty much have no choice but to it the way I mentioned at the very beginning, by direct linking in your reference and having it drop into your project.
Final note, unless they are 64 bit compatible, you don't need and often shouldn't put them in the WOW system folder but rather system and system32 folders depending on version control and binary control of the original OCX.
My installer requires there be two files in the same directory in order for it to install.
The installer (.msi file)
An organization specific config file that the installer copies. (This file is customized by the organization and then distributed to it's end users).
Since there are two files, the file has to be distributed as a zip file. Which presents the issue of if a user tries running the .msi without actually extracting the zip... only the msi file gets extracted. I am able to detect the issue in the install process and tell the user they need to unzip the file... but you know how noone actually reads error messages.
So, I'd like to make it more foolproof and so i was wondering if there was a simple tool that i could let my customers (ie the organization) be able to make modifications to the config file and when finished create a .exe file which when clicked would extract to a temp folder and then run the msi. I know there are solutions for this which require commercial software. I'm wondering if a simple freeware tool exists that can do this.
Edit: Accepted Solution Notes:
The one issue i ran into is the iexpress wasn't designed to be used for .msi files. As a result on the step that asks you for the Install Program. It's a combo box which if you had added a .exe file in the previous step could just select the .exe file from. Instead you have to manually type in
msiexec /i yourinstaller.msi
I was very pleased to find such a simple solution that's built in to windows. The only way this could be better is if it allowed for wildcards so that your iexpress project would be able to handle changes in the msi file's name which occur with each version. And defaulting the Install Program to the .msi file. These minor inconveniences are offset by the fact that end user wouldn't need to install any new software to create the package so I have stopped looking for other tools.
You could try using iexpress.
It enables you to package up a set of files which can be extracted, with the option of running an installation command automatically after extraction. It also has options to enable you to prompt users about things, show a EULA, restart the computer, etc..
I believe it comes as part of Windows (part of IE?) - try running iexpress.exe from the run dialog to get the UI.
The Wix project has a bootstrapper and packager for dealing with this kind of thing.
I've used wix a lot but haven't really looked at the bootstrapper/packager much - last time I had a quick look it wasn't really usable but that was a long time ago so it may be better now.
I'm guessing that the config file is something like a properties file, and that you want users to set the values of the properties "foo" and "bar". You don't need a separate tool to update the file.
I would do this:
Put one or more dialogs in the install that ask the user what the values of foo and bar should be, and set a couple public properties accordingly.
Write a custom action that writes the config file out to whatever location you want, including whatever values you want for foo and bar. This would be pretty easy in vbscript.
Put the custom action somewhere in the execute sequence (ideally as a deferred execution action, since you're making changes to the system).
Add an entry to the RemoveFile table, so the config file is removed on uninstall (assuming you don't want it to be left behind.)
Add an entry to the LaunchCondition table, to prevent users from doing a silent install. Or if you want silent install to be allowed, make the names of the public properties that hold the config data known, and make them part of the LaunchCondition. You would block "msiexec /i myapp.msi", but you could choose to allow "msiexec /i myapp.msi FOO=Something BAR=SomethingElse".