Software Installation

Advanced Windows Installer (MSI) Using InstallShield

Learn How to Improve Your Installer's (MSI) Appearance Using InstallShield

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INSTALLSHIELD TRAINING

Services and Training

The Advanced Windows Installer Using InstallShield course provides you with a solid understanding of advanced techniques for customizing the appearance and behavior of your installation software program.

The techniques used in this course involve Basic MSI projects in InstallShield, which use the Windows Installer service (MSI) for the installation's behavior and appearance. While the course does occasionally make use of InstallScript custom actions in Basic MSI projects, this course does not cover InstallScript MSI projects.

OBJECTIVES

In this class you will learn how to:

  • Improve your installer's appearance using advanced control types
  • Provide detailed user feedback using billboards, progress information, and logging
  • Correctly create custom actions for extending Windows Installer functionality (and learn when not to!)
  • Avoid common pitfalls when coding custom actions
  • Work with InstallShield prerequisites and chained installations to handle multi-package requirements

COURSE PREREQUISITES

  • Successful completion of the InstallShield training course "InstallShield, MSI Projects"
  • Experience implementing at least 1 large installation project using the Basic MSI project type
  • Experience implementing at least 2 medium installations using the Basic MSI project type
  • Experience implementing at least 4 small installations using the Basic MSI project type

Note: Experience with InstallScript projects provides a sound basis for the Installation domain, but this experience alone is not a sufficient basis for the Advanced MSI course. At least one of the prerequisites above should be met before enrolling in this course, regardless of the amount of InstallScript experience the student possesses.

Many sections of the course assume familiarity with at least one of the programming or scripting languages C/C++, InstallScript, C#, or VBScript.

COURSE CURRICULUM

The following course sections and topics will be covered in the class. If you have a specific area that you think might need extra attention, mention it to your instructor on the first day of class.

INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW

The course begins with a brief review of Windows Installer and InstallShield concepts and terminology used throughout the week:

  • Windows Installer installation packages
  • Product organization: features, components, and key paths
  • Properties and conditions
  • Using the InstallShield environment
  • Package validation
  • Features introduced in recent InstallShield versions

USER INTERFACE

The purpose of your installer's user interface is to display information to the user, prompt the user for information needed to install and configure your project, and to display progress information while system changes are taking place. In this section, you will learn about:

  • Setting up interactions between controls
  • Using MaskedEdit controls for formatted user input
  • Features and components:
    • Multiple file destinations 
    • Customizing the feature-selection dialog
    • Conditions based on feature and component
  • VolumeSelectCombo controls
  • Displaying billboards during data transfer
  • Techniques for dynamically refreshing dialog boxes

CUSTOM ACTIONS

Most of the system changes made by an installation program are handled by Windows Installer standard actions and tables: the files you install are handled by the File table and the InstallFiles action, registry data handled by the Registry table and the WriteRegistryValues action, and so forth. Because standard actions cannot handle every task an installation program needs to perform, Windows Installer supports custom actions. This section describes:

  • How to use Windows Installer functionality to avoid custom actions:
    •      Copying, moving, and deleting files
    •      Reading and deleting registry information
    •      Using InstallShield extensions
  • Types of custom actions, and advantages and disadvantages of each
  • All about action scheduling:
    •      Immediate and deferred actions, and deciding which type to use
    •      Rollback and commit actions
    •      User and system contexts
    •      Detecting and handling installation, uninstallation, rollback, and uninstallation-rollback
  • "Simple" custom actions: launching executables, setting properties and Directory properties, and displaying error messages
  • Writing code for script, MSI DLL, InstallScript, and managed-code custom actions
    •      Getting and setting property values
    •      Getting property values during deferred execution
    •      Returning success to Windows Installer
    •      Triggering rollback
    •      Additional interaction with the running installation

ADDITIONAL CUSTOM ACTION TECHNIQUES

Going beyond the basics, this section describes advanced techniques for working with standard and custom MSI database tables at run time, along with a collection of finishing touches that improve the appearance of-and user confidence in-your installer.

  • Accessing and modifying the running MSI package for dynamic effects such as:
    • Populating list-type controls at run time
    • Hiding features after CostFinalize
    • Changing shortcut descriptions at run time
  • Working with custom MSI tables
  • Writing to the Windows Installer log file
  • Additional user feedback during action execution:
    • Static action text
    • Detailed action data
    • Interaction with the progress bar control
    • Handling the Cancel button
    • Correctly displaying message boxes

ADDITIONAL TOPICS

The course material ends with discussions of additional tools and techniques you can use to improve your installation behavior, including:

  • Windows Installer's reboots and files-in-use behavior
  • Working with InstallShield prerequisites
  • Working with the Directory table
  • Chained installations
  • Multi-instance packages

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

At the end of class, you will work on a project that incorporates the main ideas of the course, such as:

  • Presenting dynamic data to the user
  • Writing an action that correctly handles installation, uninstallation, rollback, uninstallation-rollback, and cleanup
  • Logging the action's changes
  • Displaying detailed progress information

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