Registry components each have a KeyPath registered that is an offset to another registry component of +37 so component _1012 has a KeyPath of _1049 so all the registry entries appears to be chained together. Custom Actions can be copied to another project via copy and paste.Įach registry key is added to it’s own component by the repackager so there is no concept here of moving registry out of the bucket components into a component associated with the owning file.The “AI_DETECTED” relates to custom Advanced Installer functionality implemented by their own. AI_DETECTED_JRE_VERSION >= “1.7”, AI_DETECTED_INTERNET_CONNECTION.

Selecting where in the sequence to run your action has been made more straightforward and a range of predefined conditions can be selected from a list in a condition builder dialog.dll), detect service, stop service, detect if a user exists, Test ODBC connection etc. A much wider range of pre-defined custom action types is provided, including things like Run Powershell script (for which they have their own launcher.Custom ActionsĮquivalent functionality appears to be available for custom actions although the range of predefined custom action types is greater. Cannot merge transforms other than during creation of a response transform.Īlternatives: Insted has excellent transform support. Limitations: Cannot display the combined result from multiple transforms. When transform differences are displayed you have the option to revert any rows to their original setting(s).A nice feature about response transform creation is that on completion you are immediately shown the properties that have been created/set.MSI via file save as.Ī transform can be created from the differences between 2. It is possible to merge a transform into an. I suspect this is for performance reasons. The transform differences are not displayed by default in the table view. Normal transform functionality is supported, although support for multiple transforms appears to be limited to during the creation of a response transform, at which point you can specify multiple additional transforms to include. Target registry overhead will be greater and Installs/Uninstalls will be slower on larger packages (I did not have opportunity to run further tests to quantify this). Limitations: Apart from the minor inconvenience of locating shortcuts manually, the one resource per component approach will impact on performance. There is a section in the interface dedicated to COM where the various properties are displayed as fields on a form (with drop down lists where relevant for allowable values), but the COM tables do not get populated in the MSI it produces, except for a single field in the PROGID table. Unusually each and every resource including individual registry values is given it’s own component and the approach to COM data is radically different to Installshild. Note: Advanced Installer also includes the ability to create build & edit projects from the command line. You will notice there is no shortcuts option, shortcuts are found in the relevant folder(s) in the Files & Folders view. The screenshot view below has been customised to just show the most relevant features. This view can be easily customised to only include features you use (e.g. I've looked at the uninstall log and after I click the NO button on the prompt I see that AI_CLEAN_RESOURCES_UNINSTALL is set to 0 so I don't know why the registry key and folder are still being deleted.A few months ago I carried out an evaluation of Advanced Installer from Caphyon in comparison with InstallShield and decided I should share this on my Blog for the benefit of anyone else who may be trying to choose an MSI Packaging tool as I couldn’t find many other people offering reviews: 1.1 GeneralĪdvanced Installer uses a similar 3 pane view to Installshield with main areas of functionality listed down the left hand side. During uninstall, when prompted to delete temporary files and settings, I click the NO button, but the registry key and folder I marked get deleted regardless. I've tried the Uninstall Cleanup wizard I've marked the registry key to be preserved on uninstall with a condition of ((AI_CLEAN_RESOURCES_UNINSTALL='1') AND (NOT UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE)) and the same with the folder I want to preserve. The registry key being preserved will contain values added by the installer and the user and the folder will also contain files added by the installer and the user. If they answer NO, I'd like to prevent the uninstall of an entire registry key (including contained values) and a folder (including contained files). During uninstall by the user, I'd like to prompt them whether to remove application settings. Here's what I'd like to achieve certain files, folders and registry keys are installed by the Installer.

Caphyon advanced installer removal