Installing multiple products with one project
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:58 am
I decided to use InstallAware because its script is great to customize the installers.
I am having 5 different products. The installer for all the products should be the same except installed files, product name, product code, version and some other properties.
I wanted to create one InstallAware project that would be customized by compiler variables.
After some searching on your forum I created a project and 5 batch files to build the setup with different compiler variables.
I have used compiler variables for Product Code and Version and set them into Project properties UI Page.
The setup run without problems when installing the first product. But when installing the second product I got an error in the "Apply Install" step - a message box with "Error" text is displayed and the installer terminates. The log file shows error code 1603 - very common problem as seen on your forum.
After a few more days and almost giving up I have found out in Orca that all 5 installers are using the same UpgradeCode!!! I came from Visual Studio Setup projects and there UpgradeCode uniquely identifies all version of one product - it must be different for different products! I searched documentation and forum and did not find any clue how to set UpgradeCode. Than just by chance I found the following:
The entered UpgradeCode is the code that is the same for all my products - as seen in Orca.
That was a breakthrough - after I have added a new compiler variable to specify UpgradeCode, the installers for all the product start to work.
This screenshot shows the final version of the settings:
This solution works for me. I hope it is the correct way of creating installers for different products and with similar user interface and licensing logic.
If it is the correct way, I would really advice you to improve documentation for this (maybe with a blog post with included sample project).
Now that I have found out the solution, I am wondering what the UpgradeCode means - now I have 3 product guids - ProductCode, RevisionCode and UpgradeCode? Could you please clarify this.
Andrej
I am having 5 different products. The installer for all the products should be the same except installed files, product name, product code, version and some other properties.
I wanted to create one InstallAware project that would be customized by compiler variables.
After some searching on your forum I created a project and 5 batch files to build the setup with different compiler variables.
I have used compiler variables for Product Code and Version and set them into Project properties UI Page.
The setup run without problems when installing the first product. But when installing the second product I got an error in the "Apply Install" step - a message box with "Error" text is displayed and the installer terminates. The log file shows error code 1603 - very common problem as seen on your forum.
After a few more days and almost giving up I have found out in Orca that all 5 installers are using the same UpgradeCode!!! I came from Visual Studio Setup projects and there UpgradeCode uniquely identifies all version of one product - it must be different for different products! I searched documentation and forum and did not find any clue how to set UpgradeCode. Than just by chance I found the following:
- InstallAwareUpgradeCode1.JPG (59.66 KiB) Viewed 3024 times
That was a breakthrough - after I have added a new compiler variable to specify UpgradeCode, the installers for all the product start to work.
This screenshot shows the final version of the settings:
- InstallAwareUpgradeCode2.JPG (35.98 KiB) Viewed 3024 times
This solution works for me. I hope it is the correct way of creating installers for different products and with similar user interface and licensing logic.
If it is the correct way, I would really advice you to improve documentation for this (maybe with a blog post with included sample project).
Now that I have found out the solution, I am wondering what the UpgradeCode means - now I have 3 product guids - ProductCode, RevisionCode and UpgradeCode? Could you please clarify this.
Andrej