5 replies to this topic

[Superfreak3]

I have a ton of .dll's to add to a new install (800+). Is there a way to quickly create a component for each instead of dynamically linking to a source folder. If I link, I would then be including more than one .dll in a component, which goes agains Best Practices and a Self-Repair would not be triggered if one of the non-Key .dll's is missing.

If there's no easy way of doing this quickly, I may resort to dynamic linking, but I was hoping there was a fairly quick way to abide by Best Practices.

Any info., as always, is greatly appreciated!

[Glytzhkof]

If you are making a new project, I believe the Project Wizard will create components according to best practice if you add multiple files in any given directory.

[Superfreak3]

Ah, good thought. Unfortunately, I've already started work on the UI as the project file already exists.

I guess I could create a new project to try your suggestion then possibly Export the newly created components into my existing project. I think you can only do that one-by-one also so that would be tedious, but might be a bit quicker than building the components by hand.

Oh well.

[Superfreak3]

I tried the Project Wizard, but this adds multiple files under a single component, AllOtherFiles.

Thanks anyway for the info.!!

[Glytzhkof]

It does add multiple files, but those are files that aren't EXE or DLL. In other words it adds files according to Microsoft best practice.

I think you might want to try the Installshield automation COM interface for this. Your script could read a folder structure and create components. This is not difficult to do, but requires some QA to ensure that it worked correctly. I have seen several tools out there that does stuff like this. I think there is one here (Create Components Automatically): http://www.installsi.../en/msi/isd.htm

[Superfreak3]

THANKS! I will most definitely check out the COMP Author!!