Dynamic Web Blocks

[KenRichard]

Hello!

We have a two step setup program. The user loads our server software from CD/DVD to a server computer. Then the user uses a web browser to download the client setup from the server.

The setup includes many multimedia files which are loaded on both the server and client workstations. My first thought is that the files are identical so we could use web blocks and share the blocks between the server setup and the client setup.

The problem is that the URL for web blocks is defined at compile time. I would like to change the URL at runtime so the files are downloaded from the customer's server (over the LAN) instead of from our company's web server (over the Internet).

A related issue: We want to distribute our data on multiple CDs or a single DVD. Can the web blocks span CD-ROMS? Or can the setup dynamically determine the blocks available on the installation media and install all of them?

Do you have any suggestions?

[MichaelNesmith]

Hi Ken,

You may use variables in the download url field. Variables will work in this field and their values will be resolved at runtime.

As for weblocks on CD/DVDs...if they already exist on a given media, they will be read from there directly. If not, they will be downloaded from the Internet. What you can do is manually divide weblocks between your discs, and then prompt for the user to insert the correct disc, before entering the weblocks that reside on that disc. That way, weblocks will always be read from the disk they are on, and setup will never attempt to download them.

[KenRichard]

Thanks for the quick reply. I ran a quick test and it looks like the web blocks are going to work for us.

[mittelhauser]

As for weblocks on CD/DVDs...if they already exist on a given media, they will be read from there directly. If not, they will be downloaded from the Internet.

I have a user who is unable to get my installer to work. He says

"I tried to install this but it failed with a message saying it can't download the necessary parts from the web. I'm running a vanilla XP machine behind a router and I have no outgoing connection problems whatsoever, no proxy setups etc. Any ideas?"

I provided him the URL to try a download using IE (to verify the net connection, DNS, etc) and he says:

"Well, the link works fine, the installer still doesn't. It doesn't even look like it's trying to connect because once I hit Next, the "Retry Download?" dialog comes up immediately - selecting either option and hitting OK just causes the dialog to pop up again. It's an admin account and %TEMP% is fine. I don't know if it matters but I have two vmware adapters and netbui installed on this machine, but I disabled both, made no difference. Checked with regmon/filemon, nothing there (except it tries to lookup Network Connections\\pbk that's not there - isn't that the ras phonebook? don't know if it's normal)... so any way I can download the components manually and have the installation go through without downloading? "

So, what I am wondering is how do you determine if the blocks "already exist"? Should he just download them and copy them to the same directory as the installer?

I am not in the office to test and figured you'd know the answer and might have a suggestion of why the "normal" way is failing for him when it has worked for 200+ other people in the last week.

Thanks!

-Jon

[Gizm0]

The InstallAWARE engine uses the IE engine and settings, to download files from the Internet,so if it worked by hand on IE, it SHOULD work on the installer too!

Reason that it might be failing are:

1) Connectivity issues, like packet loss, bottlenecks etc
2) Not enough space (?)
3) Other reasons causing the failure on the specific machine

Just try to delete the 7zip package that stucks the installer, from the Temporary Internet Files, and try again.

[Tinus]

Just try to delete the 7zip package that stucks the installer, from the Temporary Internet Files, and try again.

The fastest way to fix this: start Internet Explorer, select Tools/Internet Options... and click on delete temporary internet files.

[MichaelNesmith]

This should also be taken care of in the 6.01 build generated setups. Prior to 6.01, retrying web media block downloads did not clear the formerly downloaded file. Now, it does. The downside to the new approach is that as soon as "retry download" is clicked, any formerly (partially) downloaded content will be lost for that web media block file, resetting the download back to start. The upside to the new approach is that, whenever a broken download occured, chances were that the same broken download was saved as the "full" file, thus breaking setups and forcing a manual reset of the IE cache.

Hopefully now its best of both worlds...partially downloaded content will be kept until "retry download" is chosen for them, and when "retry download" is chosen, the download will always be reset to the beginning.