X2 version broke Load Feature Selection. No fix from IA

[spicymikey]

Hi everyone,

I have a serious issue that I assume others have as well. If you use the "Load Feature Selection" function in IA X2 you probably have noticed that the txt file it creates to store the config keeps growing each time a customer reinstalls or updates your software using their Installer. Eventually the installer fails with Out Of Memory error once the file gets large enough.

I opened a ticket with IA at the end of May. Francesco investigated it and said they can reproduce the problem but have no fix. I never heard back from them since. Not a good sign for a software company to leave a major feature broken with no fix or even an ETA for a fix. But, it is what it is.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10327

So, I'm adding this new post now to try and get possible ideas from the community at large. Has Anyone found an easy solution around this? This is an important feature we use and Francesco from IA's only solution was to write our own script. Not even sure how I would do that from within their tool. Not even sure it's really possible.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mike,

I fully understand your problem and of course we apologize for the inconvenience.

Anyway since you're a developer like all of us, you should know that sometimes, due the nature of our job, it can be necessary to solve problems using alternative ways.

That said and because InstallAware includes a rich script Language which permits to do almost everything, the problem you are having can be resolved using a custom approach.

For your convenience and for all other users as well, I have released a very small and simple project, in order to release an alternative way to Load/Save Features command.

With the sample, I use a custom INI file to store and load the value of some variables. Specifically the sample stores and loads, the value of TARGETDIR and USERCOMPANY pre-defined variables. This occurs at runtime and respectively, when the installation is completed or when the installation is going to be updated (a previous version of the same product is already installed). The appoach permits to keep track of the value of those variables across different versions of the same product ( ... "Load/Save Features" emulation)

The sample uses two dedicated scripts at this purpose and obviously, both can be modified in order to store/load any other possible variable and of course, including those you use to manage your features selection.

Hope you like it.

Regards

[spicymikey]

Thanks Francesco. I'll take a look at it and try it out. I appreciate you writing this for us. I am not an expert in your tool the way you are. Ask me to write something like this in .NET with C# and I could probably do it in an hour. But I had no clue what to do and was also holding off waiting to see when this feature would be fixed in X2.

Thanks in advance for the workaround. I'd still rather use the builtin feature for obvious reasons, so if it is eventually fixed, please let us know.

Mike

[spicymikey]

Just applied the X3 update yesterday Francesco. Good news. The Load/Save Features command works again! Wish you would have mentioned that it was slated to be fixed in the next version coming out in July. Would have saved a lot of time and aggravation. I would have just waited. At any rate, all's well that ends well, so thank those who saw this as a priority and got it fixed in X3

Mike

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mike,

... unfortunately I have been informed about the fix only once I received the first beta .

Regards

[spicymikey]

Yes, too bad for us both. But it does seem to work now so I'm happy for that!