InstallShield Setup Prerequisites for PIA 2003, PIA 2007, VSOT, .NET2.0

Now, if you are writing an "InstallShield X" package for something like an Excel Addin, you are dependent on a number of things:

• .NET Framework (2.0, for example, dotnetfx2.0.exe)
• Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies (o2007pia.msi)
• Visual Studio Tools for Office (vstor2005.exe)

One way to do this is setting up a "Basic MSI Project" (NOTE: this doesn't work with a standard InstallShield project as pre-requisites are not supported there !!)

and add prerequisites (Tools->Prerequisite Editor) for each of these dependencies.

See http://shieldmaster.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/tutorial-adding-setup-prerequisites-to-installshield-package/ for a good tutorial on this.

Now the crucial question is, which condition to set for each of these packages ?

Here's my best solution, so far (Conditions tab in Preqrequisites):

• .NET Framework 2.0: "A File does or does not exist" [WindowsFolder]\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\RegAsm.exe --- Run setup if: Not Found
• PIA Office 2007: "A registry key does or does not exist" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{50120000-1105-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE} --- Run setup if: Not Found
• PIA Office 2003: "A registry key does or does not exist" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{91490409-6000-11D3-8CFE-0150048383C9} --- Run setup if: Not Found
• Visual Studio 2005 Office Tools: "A registry key does or does not exist" HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{388E4B09-3E71-4649-8921-F44A3A2954A7} --- Run setup if: Not Found

Took me a long time to figure these out, thanks Anthony ! Would be nice if this helps someone :-)

InstallShield and Windows Services: ServiceExistsService doesn't work

So for me, ServiceExistsService didn't work at all.

There are some permission issues apparently (see http://community.acresso.com/archive/index.php?t-169135.html)

but the solution proposed there is a tad too heavy-weight for me.

Here's an alternative, use the Registry entry of a service to figure out if the service is installed or not:

// Indicates if the service with this key (e.g. myNewService) has been installed

function BOOL windowsServiceExists(serviceKey)

string szKey,szServiceName;

number nRootKey;

begin

nRootKey = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE;

if (RegDBSetDefaultRoot (nRootKey) <>

MessageBox ("Unable to set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.", SEVERE);

return FALSE;

endif;

szKey = "SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\" + serviceKey;

//MessageBox("Testing for service: " + serviceKey, INFORMATION);

if (RegDBKeyExist (szKey) = 1 )

then

//MessageBox("found service:" + szServiceName, INFORMATION);

return TRUE;

endif;

return FALSE;

end;

How to suppress InstallShield warning W7503

If you are like me and don't like duplication you might have something like a common.rul file that contains common methods. But with the InstallShield (7.x and higher ?) compiler you get this warning if you didn't use a method:

W7503: function defined but never called

Bad thing about this is the fact that you can't easily spot real warnings from this 'warning to ignore'.

Here's how to avoid this:

1) define a dummy method where you call all your offending methods

// dummy function to supress warning 'function defined but never called'

prototype dummySuppressWarningW7503();

function dummySuppressWarningW7503()

begin

setRegistryValue("","",0,"");

end;

2) call this method someplace that is definitely executed inside an if( FALSE ):

// a little trick to stop the compiler from showing warnings

if( FALSE ) then

dummySuppressWarningW7503();

endif;

Tada ! The compiler thinks its called, but it never is.