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".
Related
What methods exist to include parameters (such as userid) into the setup.exe that users download from a server?
I'm looking for a way to give a customized installer to users that I already know (because they are logged in).
Is your question tied with some technology/installation system? Or you are researching which installation system to use to achieve this functionality?
In NSIS there is option to append custom data to installer, see this article: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/ReadCustomerData.
Maybe the easiest would be to send a setup_whateverparameter.exe filename instead of setup.exe...
A smarter approach would probably be to store parameter into a ressource file which would be edited from command line with some tool like http://www.reseditor.com/
Another one would be to generate a sort of INI file which would be packed with the original setup file using some installer software like Inno Setup (http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php) and the original installer would be configured to check if some ini file exists in a temporary location, to just use its content to do specific tasks.
Other possibilities might exists, thoses are just the one which might be the most easy to implement.
#elfrancesco hinted at Ninite and Patrick from Ninite got back to me with:
We put the installer id in a segment of the .exe that doesn't get
included in the hash for the signature. So we just sign our loader
.exe once whenever we update it and then our web server drops in the
key for each download.
I would like to create an installer of my program.
However because the installation is quite complicated, I need something more advanced than installshield limited edition.
I have to run another installer from my current one. It doesn't matter if the user press "cancel" or installs the program, I just need to run it.
I have to install a directory structure on user computer which has a lot of files, that's why i'm going mad with wix: 100 files and I should write all of them with my hands in that xml file? Are we mad?
I have to install files from point 2 into a registry key. That's why I was using wix
I played with nsis long time ago and I liked it, but the language is not so nice.
Wix has "similar" problem. I would love using something like C# and things like that otherwise I'll stick with wix but I need a way to add files faster to xml file, can't add 100 files manually.
Any suggestion?
You can give Advanced Installer a try. It has folder synchronization, which means it can batch add contents of folders, with the possibility to filter out certain file name patterns, for example you'd want to filter *.pdb files and add all the rest to the project automatically.
I use it myself and never had a problem.
Wix Heat can generate the wxs source files for you.
You should look at InnoSetup. It has an IDE available that allows drag and drop of files (and multiple select in a file selection dialog), can launch other applications (including additional setup files), create and modify registry settings, and supports pretty complex scripting if needed. It's pretty easy to use, and the documentation is pretty good. It comes with pretty comprehensive sample installations, too.
The installation scripts are created by the IDE and then compiled into an installer, so the script source is editable by hand if needed. It's also not XML, but more like an INI file, so it's a little easier to work with manually as well.
Best of all it's free, and so is the IDE.
I would go back to using NSIS, if you use the HMNSIS editor http://hmne.sourceforge.net/ to write your scripts you can use the Wizard mode to make a list of the files and directory structure you will use in your installer.
Running other installers and registry settings are also easily done with NSIS.
I would like to know how can I detect if help file is contained in setup file for windows platform application (msi or exe). Is there any method to get this information without installing the software first ?
Of course setup file can be created by many setup makers like innosetup, installshield and so on. So I wonder if there is some universal method to solve this.
For an MSI based install it would be very easy. For example you can use the Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller interop via C# to open the MSI as an InstallPackageClass then access it's Files collection to see if it contains the file you care about.
For a Non-MSI based install, there is no universal way and in most cases, no way period. See, that's kind of the point of MSI: to have a standards based package rich in meta data to be able to see what it's doing. When you do some proprietary script driven installer you lose that openness.
If it's a MSI file, open it up using Orca, and you can view file names.
For both of them, you should be able to do an administrative install, which would extract the files, but not register anything. Depending on where the exe came from, doing an administrative install changes, since each vendor(installshield, innosetup, etc) has their own way to run an administrative install.
for a MSI it's simply
msiexec /a <msi_filename>
For an exe you'll have to look up how to pass the /a argument.
I would like to build a setup, or something like that (1 file), to deliver a single file to a target system. Plugin for an application, installable to users AppData folder.
After some research I'm still not sure in which direction to look. I can create the setup project with Visual Studio 2010, but all of the options so far seem to be way too heavy or have some flaws.
SetupProject stubbornly wants to create an application folder which I don't need, and complains about installation to user folder. Cab doesn't seem to offer automatic install, oneclick is not available for the project, etc.
Is there an easier setup technology I could use?
Requirements:
Install -> Copy 1 file to a folder
under %userprofile%\3rdpartyapp\ if
it exists (xcopy).
Uninstall -> Delete the file and also
one folder with custom settings
(rmdir \s).
Distribution -> Free for commercial
use.
Maybe I should just pack the file in self extracting c++ exe?
It may be overkill for one file, but I like InnoSetup for creating setup packages. Check it out, and see if it suits you. It is very easy to use and deploy.
Take a look at WiX toolset. It allows creating MSI-based installers, and the installer could be quite simple:
Search for %userprofile%\3rdpartyapp;
Copy the file into it, if it exists;
Fail install or maybe create it, if it does not exist.
Uninstall would be very simple: it would need to remove the installed file. To remove a subfolder of 3rdpartyapp, you can use RemoveFolderEx element.
MSI registers the installed app with Add/Remove Programs Control panel. Uninstall is handled by Windows Installer service, therefore you don't need to copy any additional files or programs to support uninstall.
I think any setup technology is too heavy for one file. I'd go with creating a simple application that would extract the file from its resources stream and copy it into %userprofile%\3rdpartyapp.
Uninstall is trickier: there should be something that can handle the uninstall process. It could be a batch or script (js, vbs) file stored somewhere in user's profile, another simple application or the same one. (Installation process can also be handled with a script.)
In an InstallShield project I have a VBScript custom action that conditionally needs to execute a certain file packaged with the install.
Normally I get the current directory of a vbs using code such as
sCurPath = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject").GetAbsolutePathName(".")
Which, if it returned the location of the Setup.exe that initiated the install, should work.
However when running the install, the current path (on XP) is C:\Windows\system32 instead of the location of the Setup.exe file I was expecting.
Assuming the output of my InstallShield build looks like the following
Disk1
->Setup.exe
->ISSetupPrerequisites
-->Req1
-->Req2
-->...
->OtherReqs
-->ConditionallyRunMe.exe
How could I run "\OtherReqs\ConditionallyRunMe.exe" from a VBScript custom action?
Thanks!!
(Note: I realize there are ways to conditionally run exe files from withing InstallShield, but in this case the requirements are not supported by InstallShield - unless there is a way to use a VBScript custom action return value as a condition to run another file?)
After a lot of messing around, I got it (actually found it in the InstallShield manual, and not Google, go figure :))!
This line of VBScript does the trick
disk1Path = Session.Property("SETUPEXEDIR")
The line above points to where ever the setup exe file was, so from there it's trivial to run any exe included with your install media.
Other useful ones I found, which I'll past here for reference are
'points to app data\downloaded install directory
MsgBox Session.Property("SourceDir")
'where the software wants to install to on the users system
MsgBox Session.Property("INSTALLDIR")
Not sure why it's so hard to find a good reference on MSI Standard properties (even just a list). The closest I found was this, but not all of them work (and not specifically for InstallShield at all). If anyone finds a good link with documentation about MIS Standard properties and their description please add a link here, so no one has to waste as much time on this as I did :).