File Registration Information Inclusion and InstallAware

[Superfreak3]

Hi all,

Ok, this quetion(s) stems from the biggest problem I have had working with developing installs and that would be file registration and inclusion of such information in the install itself.

Currently we use a product that scans registration when added to the installations template and at compile time. At times, 'stuff' doesn't get to the registry properly and we have to sometimes add Custom Actions to register the files using regsvr32 or regasm.

With InstallAware, how is registry 'stuff' populated for included libraries, etc.

I guess it would be nice to know the best practices as they pertain to InstallAware for getting file registration information into the installations. Is it best to have source files local to the install build machine? Should the source files be registered on the install build machine?

Any ideas, information or points to such would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!

If I haven't mentioned before in earlier recent posts, we're looking to make a switch from one of IA's major competitor's products because it doesn't seem they are putting much development effort towards the software we use.

We are also evaluating one other product (InstallShield) and whichever is more user friendly will probably get the nod.

THANKS!!

[neillans]

Registering files that are self-registering, should be a matter of simply enabling the register file checkbox in the install file option for that specific file -- not that this is not possible if you are using Wildcards!
This simply fires regsvr32 internally.

[Superfreak3]

What about assemblies needing registration via RegAsm?

[neillans]

Had a look at the "Register Assembly" function?

[Superfreak3]

So there really is no automatic extraction of reg infor when adding files to the install or compiling the install is there? I should go through any files needing to be registered and mark them Register in the visual view. ??

What if I include an Assembly in Files. If I mark that as Register, what will happen? Or, do I need to use that Register Assembly option.

[neillans]

Correct - we do not actually flag all registerable files as "register" as this is not always what people want -- we follow the thoughts that we should not do things automatically in an industry where our users are knowledgable in what they want to do

For registering assemblies, please ensure you use Register Assembly in order to ensure correct registration.