Jump to content


This is a ready-only archive of the InstallSite Forum. You cannot post any new content here. / Dies ist ein Archiv des InstallSite Forums. Hier können keine neuen Beiträge veröffentlicht werden.
Photo

Minor upgrade: "optional" -> "required" feature


5 replies to this topic

lam1278

lam1278
  • Full Members
  • 4 posts

Posted 31 July 2008 - 22:22

I have a feature (a user's manual) that the customer would like to have ALWAYS installed on the user's machine during a minor upgrade. The original feature was set to "Required" = "No", so it was in a sense "optional".

I told them I can fix it in the next major upgrade without a problem, but they would like me to investigate the feasibility of doing this in a "patch" minor upgrade.

So, I built my minor upgrade with this feature set to "Required" = "Yes" and built my patch. On the original installation of the product, I DID NOT select the "optional" feature, so when I applied my patch, the newly "Required" feature did not get installed. However, the good news is that when I goto the Add/Remove program applet and select "Change" and decide to install the optional feature it does install the update user's manual.

I was just wondering if anyone knew how to truly make it install this file even though it wasn't selected in the original installation??

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Lynn



felltier-a

felltier-a
  • Awaiting Authorisation
  • 85 posts

Posted 01 August 2008 - 09:00

Hi Lynn,

Maybe i didn´t understand you correctly but is "Follow Parent/Favor Parent" what you´r looking for?

Feature Table
Have a look at:"msidbFeatureAttributesFollowParent"

regards,
Udo

Edited by felltier-a, 01 August 2008 - 09:20.


lam1278

lam1278
  • Full Members
  • 4 posts

Posted 01 August 2008 - 13:19

Hi Udo and thank you for the reply,

My project is InstallShield 12 SP2 Basic MSI. I don't seem to have the "Follow Parent/Favor Parent" option in my Program Feature attributes window. If I goto the direct editor, the "Feature_Parent" is not set. Does this help?

My feature was set to "Required" = "No" in v 2.000.0001 and was distributed on CD. If the user opted not to install this file in the Custom Setup dialog it would not be installed.

Now, I am trying to create V 2.001.0001 as a minor upgrade to v 2.000.0001, and I would like to force this feature to be installed if it at all possible. I tried setting the "Required" = "Yes" flag, but that did not seem to force the file to be installed.

Hope this clarifies.


felltier-a

felltier-a
  • Awaiting Authorisation
  • 85 posts

Posted 01 August 2008 - 14:57

Hi Lam,

you can set "favor/follow parrent" in the features view of installshield. The setting is called "Remote-Installation" i guess. (i don´t have the english version)

Open the features view and choose "Required=Yes" set "Remote-Installation=favor/follow parent".

Now your new feature should be installed only if your parent feature was already installed in your main install.

Of course, this only works if you have a parent feature which gets allways installed.

Maybe another solution would be "ADDLOCAL property". You could set the ADDLOCAL property to a list of the features currently installed + your new feature.

You can test this by setting the addlocal property as command line argument for your patch. Create a log file to see if the property is realy set during patching process.

Keep us informed, i haven´t tried this myself wink.gif

regards,
Udo

Edited by felltier-a, 01 August 2008 - 14:58.


lam1278

lam1278
  • Full Members
  • 4 posts

Posted 01 August 2008 - 15:44

My boss has informed me to abandon this for this patch update... but I would still like to try what you suggested. I am packaging this update up for our test group now, after I label my source code, I will play around with these settings that you suggested.

However, my Setup Design does not have a "parent" feature like you suggested.

It currently looks like this on the CD:

Features --- Required --- Install Level
Application_Files --- Yes 1
Documentation_Files --- No 101
Spreadsheet_Files --- No 101
Quick_Sync_Files --- No 101

The three features labeled "Required" as "No" are the files that were optional. And all features are set for "Remote Installation" as "Favor Local". The feature in question, "Documentation_Files" has it's Required" level to "Yes". I did not think to try anything with the "Remote Installation" settings...

Thanks for your quick and speedy replies.

Stefan Krueger

Stefan Krueger

    InstallSite.org

  • Administrators
  • 13,269 posts

Posted 02 August 2008 - 15:31

By default the patch would run REINSTALL=ALL. You'd have to change this to:
REINSTALL=Feature1,Feature2 ADDLOCAL=OptionalFeature