The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Another Deployment ?

Hi,

Thanks for the input on a previous deployment question I posted. I have come to the conclusion that I need to change the installation location for some of the components of my application. I am planning on putting an INI file and error.txt file in the common app data folder directory, but I am having problems doing that.

I currently use Visual Studio Installer for creating the MSI file. Does anyone have any ideas or tips what I should do?

I do realize that using VSI I have to manually edit the MSI file with Orca and add the ALLUSERS property. I still can't figure out what to do.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin Moore
Thursday, December 18, 2003

You can actually automate the process of modifying ALLUSERS by using the Windows Installer Object Model. For quick and repetitive work, you can use VBScript (or any Windows Script Host supported language) to automate the task of modifying the MSI tables. We currently use VBScript in our automated build process to change the default value of ALLUSERS.

Here's an example of using VBScript to modify the tables behind the MSI file: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msi/setup/execute_sql_statements.asp

kl
Friday, December 19, 2003

How about using a smarter tool? Try Advanced Installer (http://www.advancedinstaller.com) maybe it has what you need.

It doesn't cover all the Windows Installer functionality, but it is MUCH easier to use than any other tool I know.

MSI phreak
Friday, December 19, 2003