InstallAware

Good day,

I have added the following Application Runtimes to my Setup :
Microsoft Windows Installer 4.5
Microsoft MDAC Refresh 2.8 with Service Pack 1
Microsoft XML Parser 6.0.7zip
Microsoft .NET Framework Client 4.7zip
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7zip
Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008 R2 (x86).7zip

All these I have modified within the [DEFINE WEB MEDIA BLOCK] to exclude from Build, for the simple reason that I want to make the final build as small as possible. What I would like to do is have all of these downloadable from the Internet, however this would require that I upload the 7zip runtimes to the internet.

My question is this, are these 7zip files not already on the internet from InstallAware, and if so can I not just point my downloads to those URLs?
This will save space on our Online Environment as in South Africa Online storage space can become quite expensive

Thanks

By the way, Using InstallAware 11

Other questions

1. I have noticed that when I use "Web Deploy" deployment, I get a basic exe which a separate 7zip file per optional component...
Is there no way with a Web Deploy to get an MSI that contains the 7zip files internally

2. I have noticed that when I use "Single File" deployment I get an MSI that is 180mb in size. I assume that this is the case as it is adding the Application Runtime 7zip files directly into the MSI. Is there any way to disable that, and force that should an Application Runtime be required that it always accesses the internet to download, and thus not store it within the Single File MSI.

Thanks

Hey,

These 7zip are not uploaded to an InstallAware server. These change a lot, and we therefore decided to leave the location of these up to the setup authors.

As per your second post, you got it all right, except opposite

In a Web Deploy, you will have those 7zip created because they are the web media blocks.
In a Single File Deploy, you would have a resulting EXE that contains all the data, well, in a single file
InstallAware doesn't use MSI, rather EXE's that package the MSI's internally.

So, "Is there no way with a Web Deploy to get an MSI that contains the 7zip files internally"? There is - a single file deployment.
"Is there any way to disable that, and force that should an Application Runtime be required that it always accesses the internet to download, and thus not store it within the Single File MSI." Yep, use web deploy, upload the 7zip files to a selected URL and specify that URL in the Web Media Blocks section in the Design tab.



So the

Hey there,

So, "Is there no way with a Web Deploy to get an MSI that contains the 7zip files internally"?

There is - a single file deployment.

This is a misnomer actually.

My issue was that when generating an installation, only Feature Independant content
was being added to the Web Upload executable, and all other Components were compressed within
7zip runtimes and added to the installation as a WEB MEDIA BLOCK which would allow their download from the internet should
the end-user want to install the specific components.

This functionality that I wanted was that only Application Runtimes (etc : .net, SQL) be donwloadable, and all
features and components be placed within the Web Upload executable.

Well I decided to rip apart the MSICode, as any developer should, and noticed that Feature Independant are prefixed
with an OFFLINE BLOCK and Components with a WEB MEDIA BLOCK. This then gave me the idea to
convert the WEB MEDIA BLOCK prefixes around the Components to OFFILE BLOCK prefixes.

Once this was done, the 7zip runtimes that were being created for the Components have now been dropped and
rather added to the Web Upload executable, which is the functionality that I desired.

Thanks

Well hit me sideways and call me Susan,

Even tho changing the Web Media Blocks to Offline Blocks, does indeed grow the Executable by the size of the individual Component 7zip files, and also no longer generates the 7zip files, when you try to install it, it crashes on you telling you that it has no access to the files within those Components.

How upsetting... Anything that can be checked now?

Hey,

Yep - you got it right. I would recommend reading this article, it will explain this subject further.

As you said, the OFFLINE block is what actually goes into the EXE.
Its important to remember that you can only close or end a block by a declaration of another. Consider this example:

[DEFINE WEB MEDIA Feature 1]
Feature 1
Feature 2
[OFFLINE CONTENT]
Feature 3
[DEFINE WEB MEDIA Feature 4]
Feature 4
[OFFLINE CONTENT]
Feature 5


In this example, Feature1.7zip will contain features 1 and 2, Feature4.7zip will contain feature 4 and the rest will be contained in the EXE.