thank you! Still a question here:
I have added a few files (IS automatically created components). Next, I have deleted the files via "Files and Folders" of Installation Designer. Their associated components are still in the list of components. How can re-activate these components to get their files added into the project?
after a long development cycle I have a lot of "dead" components, i.e. listed in the component list, but files are not in the list of files, because have been deleted.
Pls, advise
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by: jmcmunnPosted on 2009-10-21 at 06:39:34ID: 25623778
I prefer to always manually create features and components using the installation designer and going to the "Setup Design" area. It handles both the features and components and I am not sure why Installshield thinks we need them broken out like that if we can do it all in one place.
You can put files anywhere you want, but if you want to get your install Windows certified (using the ICE verification stuff etc) then there are obviously a lot of rules about how and where things need to get installed. For the simplest of installs (basically an XCOPY if it is a .Net app) you can just create one feature and one component and put everything in there. Obviously if some files need to go into a different directory on the machine, you will need another component for those files.
If you want optional parts of your program (help files, or data files) that the user can turn on/off at install time, you use a different feature for each of those. As long as the feature is selected to be installed (either by you forcing it, or the user choosing it) then all components in that feature will get installed (based on overwrite rules etc obviously).
When you add things with the assistant thing, it tried to guess the best practices way of doing things and you end up with some weirdly named components and sometimes the organization is pretty ugly. But that being said, it allows for someone with only a little experience to quickly create a simple install. Once you get past doing anything but the basics, you will tend to use the Installation Designer instead.
Hope this helps.