InstallShield Hash on files to be installed - installation

I have an InstallShield project and I want to implement a hash / crc check like Microsoft has relating to MSICHECKCRCS. Is there someway in InstallShield to set some option that the file is hashed/checked before installation then hash/checked after installation to make sure the installation file was corrupted?
And if there is such an option what will InstallShield do if the file is corrupted?
Thank you

Related

installer to replace installShield

I need a recommendation for an installer.
I was using InstallShield but unfortunately it was a demo version that only allowed me to get a quick start.
Now I need to switch to an installer that is open source and allows to:
create environment variables on user's computer
add files to a giving path
create .exe (via Release Wizard in IstallShield)
I came across tools like NSIS but I am not sure it has the same features as InstallShield.
Please advice!
Thank you
You can use Wix tool. It is open source and it has most of the capability of Installshield. Only problem with WiX is there would be a learning curve of MSI technology and WiX itself.

Visual Studio installer does not overwrite non binary files

When I run new installation over existing installed product the installer does not overwrite non EXE and DLL files. For EXE and DLL I can setup version number which defines whether the files will be replaced. But this is not possible for configuration files that contain plain text.
Is there anyway to force the installer replace all files?
Setting DetectNewInstalledVersion to True or False does not have any effect.
RemovePreviousVersions is set to True
The file replacement rules for Windows Installer do not allow user-modified files to be replaced:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370531(v=vs.85).aspx
The basic problem is that you don't really want a product to install a database file, fill it with data and then destroy it with a product upgrade.
This is most likely what's happening. If you log the upgrade with a command like:
msiexec /I [path to upgrade MSI] /l*vx [path to text log file]
and then search for the file name it will tell you why it didn't replace it.
Another possibility is that the file has been marked as NeverOverwrite in the Component table of the MSI file. This seems unlikely in your case because Visual Studio setups do not provide support for this in the IDE. This applies to the component after it has been installed and cannot be undone - it is a system setting, not an MSI setting.

Installshield and Redistributables

I have .net 3.5 application
I have made basic MSI installer with installshield added .net 3.5 in Redistributables tab rebuild and checked .msi and .exe but size is same .net only added in ISSetupPrerequisites folder
Installshield does not put Redistributables in .msi?
I must send full folder (DiskImages) to my clients?
their would be no points in putting the redistribuable in the MSI since you cannot launch another msi while an msi is runing.
a good practice would be to compressed all your files in the setup.exe. it's easier to carry around and prevent anyone from replacing them with nasty stuff and launch them with admin's right.
right click on the prerequisit and open the properties
Now specificly for the .net 3.5, since it's a windows feature on most of the modern OS (anything but xp...) the installation of the module will failed. I would suggest making a launch condition validation the presence of the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.5|Version. like that
it will make your installer smaller and probably more usefull since you can customize the error message to explain how to activate it.
You can compress everything into the .exe file (select compressed, and "extract from setup.exe" as appropriate), but since Windows Installer does not handle prerequisites, it cannot be just the .msi file.
If you stick to the uncompressed build you described, then yes, you must send the full contents of at least the Disk1 folder (also any other Disk folders if there are any; they're typically only used for multiple-disk media scenarios).

InstallShield: source and target directories and files

I've been tasked with taking our existing InstallShield based installer and converting it to Install4j. I've been going through the ism file (XML version) trying to figure out what files are being loaded into the installer MSI and then where these files and directories are installed when the MSI is executed. So far I haven't had any luck, we still have a licensed copy of InstallShield 2009, but I don't know where to even look for something like this and the manual has been less that helpful. Does anybody have any ideas?
Open the project up in InstallShield and go to the Files and Folders designer. This will show you the destination view along with the source locations for all the files.
If it's an MSI based project you can build the MSI and then perform an Administrative Installation to extract the files. The extracted structure will mimic how it would have been installed.
Administrative Installation

Is it possible to create self-extracted setup with InstallShield Limited Edition

InstallShield Limited Edition comes as free addition to Visual Studio 2010 users. It has many options on how to configure installation package, but I am having an issue to figure out if is possible to create a self-extracting setup with LE. Alternative to this can be 7-zip SFX add-on, NSIS, etc.
I've since imaged a new dev machine and installed InstallShield 2010LE. Through the standard Visual Studio (solution) Configuration Manager you have the choice of build CD-ROM, DVD-5 and Single Image ( self extracting EXE ).
Windows's own IExpress.exe can also be used for creating a self-extracting installer.
I don't have InstallShield LE 2010 installed on this machine so it's hard to answer. Why don't you install it and find out? My guess is InstallShield supports this. If anything it might not support an uncompressed MSI in order to try to prevent you from coloring outside of the lines.
Or you could just call them. Worst that will happen is you'll get spam from them trying to get you to upgrade.

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