InstallAware IDE Options

Customizing Script Appearance

You may change the way your script looks in the script editor. On the MSIcode tab, in the Edit group, click Options to display the IDE Options window, and then:

• Select the Editor tab to change the script font and size.
• The Editor tab also lets you turn the Code Folding feature on and off.
• The Editor tab also includes Code Completion, which automatically emits closing statements for looping and branching constructs.
• Select the Color tab to change the way script commands are syntax highlighted.
• Select the Hints tab to show or hide balloon tips for potential error conditions, as well as general coding tips. The Hints tab also lets you enable or disable saving extra human readable TXT file accompaniments for each of your script files - while InstallAware script files are plain text, they are not human readable outside of the IDE. The TXT file accompaniments however are human readable - corresponding exactly to the script text as seen in the IDE - in plain text form, thus serving as a valuable aid in change tracking mechanisms. Note that these human readable files do not contain any project information and therefore cannot be re-opened inside the IDE.

Team Foundation Server/Visual Studio Team Services/Azure DevOps Services Integration

The InstallAware IDE is integrated with Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio Team Services, and Azure DevOps Services. If you have not already installed the associated integration features during your InstallAware installation, first run InstallAware setup again, and enable the desired features.

Click the InstallAware button, and then choose InstallAware Options. Switch to the Team Foundation Server tab to manage the integration:

• Check the Enable Team Foundation Server/Visual Studio Team/Azure DevOps Services integration box to enable integration with source control. Integration is enabled by default unless it is turned off.
• Choose your desired version of Team Foundation Server from the Available version(s) drop-down menu.
• For Team Foundation Server, InstallAware only lists those server versions for which you already have clients installed, or where clients are unnecessary, other versions are automatically listed.
• For Visual Studio Team Services, select either the 2015/VSTS or the 2017/2018/VSTS/Azure item from the Available versions(s) combo box to enable integration.
• For Azure DevOps Services, select the 2017/2018/VSTS/Azure item from the Available versions(s) combo box to enable integration.

Your changes take effect only after restarting the InstallAware IDE. InstallAware recommends you immediately restart the IDE after changing any of these settings.

Virtual Machines

The InstallAware IDE is integrated with VMware Workstation, VMware Server, and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine platforms. Click the InstallAware button, and then choose InstallAware Options. Switch to the Virtual Machines tab to manage the integration.

Please note that in addition to configuring the settings below for the InstallAware IDE, project-level settings are also necessary to run your setups in virtual machines.

VMware Workstation Virtual Machines Repository

This repository contains a list of your local VMware Workstation virtual machines. You may test your setups on all virtual machines listed in this section.

• Click Add Folder to add a location containing virtual machines to your virtual machine repository.
• Click Credentials after selecting one or more virtual machines in your repository to manage user accounts for logging on to the guest operating systems installed within the selected virtual machines.
• Click Clear List to clear all virtual machines from your virtual machine repository. You will need to rebuild your virtual machine repository following this action to enjoy virtual machine integration with VMware Workstation.
• Click Remove after selecting one or more virtual machines in your repository to remove them. The selected virtual machines will no longer be available for integrated virtual machine testing.

Microsoft Hyper-V Virtual Machine Server Repository

This repository contains a list of Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machine servers. You may test your setups on all virtual machines hosted on the Hyper-V servers listed in this section.

• Click Add Server to add a server containing virtual machines to your virtual machine server repository.
• Click Credentials after selecting one or more virtual machine servers in your repository to manage server accounts for logging on to the selected virtual machine servers.
• Click Clear List to clear all virtual machine servers from your virtual machine server repository. You will need to rebuild your virtual machine server repository following this action to enjoy virtual machine integration with Hyper-V servers.
• Click Remove after selecting one or more virtual machine servers in your repository to remove them. The selected virtual machine servers, and all of the virtual machines hosted on them, will no longer be available for integrated virtual machine testing.

In addition to virtual machines hosted on the servers listed in this section, the InstallAware IDE automatically includes your local instance of Hyper-V, designated as the Console node, under the Microsoft Hyper-V Servers node of the Project Manager window.

VMware vSphere Virtual Machine Server Repository

This repository contains a list of VMware vSphere virtual machine servers. You may test your setups on all virtual machines hosted on the VMware vSphere servers listed in this section.

• Click Add Server to add a server containing virtual machines to your virtual machine server repository.
• Click Credentials after selecting one or more virtual machine servers in your repository to manage server accounts for logging on to the selected virtual machine servers.
• Click Clear List to clear all virtual machine servers from your virtual machine server repository. You will need to rebuild your virtual machine server repository following this action to enjoy virtual machine integration with VMware vSphere servers.
• Click Remove after selecting one or more virtual machine servers in your repository to remove them. The selected virtual machine servers, and all of the virtual machines hosted on them, will no longer be available for integrated virtual machine testing.

VMware and Hyper-V Virtual Machine Requirements

You must satisfy the following requirements on all VMware Workstation, VMware vSphere, and Hyper-V virtual machines you wish to use with integrated InstallAware testing:

• Guest tools (integration tools) must be installed in the guest operating system.
• The guest operating system must be on the same network as the host operating system.
• A password protected user account must be defined on the guest operating system for tests to be run under.

Supported Operating Systems

• Windows XP 32 bit: Service Pack 3 or higher.
• Windows XP 64 bit, Windows Server 2003 32 bit, Windows Server 2003 64 bit, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (both 32 and 64 bit): Service Pack 2 or higher.
• Newer Windows versions: No service packs are necessary.

On an unsupported operating system, the Project Manager nodes for virtual machines will always be unpopulated even when you have added entries to your virtual machine repository.

Supported Hypervisors

VMware Workstation 8 and higher.

VMware vSphere Servers 5.5 and higher.

Microsoft Hyper-V Servers 2.x and higher.

Additional Hyper-V Requirement

The following requirement applies only to Hyper-V virtual machines:

• The InstallAware Hyper-V Tool must be installed inside the guest operating system. This tool is supplied inside your main InstallAware folder as Hyper-V.exe.

You may also manually undertake the following steps to meet the same requirement without using the InstallAware Hyper-V Tool:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
3. If the LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy registry entry does not exist, follow these steps:
   1. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
   2. Type LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy, and then press ENTER.
4. Right-click LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy, and then click Modify.
5. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

Extra

Enable Ataturk signature

Check this box to display the stylized signature of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk at the bottom of each of your scripts, as if personally signed by him.

Enable in-place find

Check this box to enable searching for text in the script editor without popping up a separate dialog box. The in-place search function also offers more features than the dialog box based approach.

Allow Multiple Instances of the InstallAware IDE

Check this box to allow the InstallAware IDE to use multiple instances, or uncheck it to allow only a single instance of itself.

There are no known issues running multiple instances of the InstallAware IDE side-by-side, and this can be a helpful technique to facilitate work on more than one setup project at a time; for example to copy/paste code between your projects.

Show full paths in the Project Manager window

Check this box to display full file paths on all relevant nodes of the Project Manager window.

While this may result in a cluttered appearance, it may help resolve mistakes regarding locations of project assets such as Include Scripts.

Disable IntelliScan (recommended for files referencing slow network paths)

Check this box to disable checking whether file paths are valid inside the script editor and elsewhere in the IDE.

This is recommended if you have a lot of files located on slow speed network locations, which would then slow down rendering your script.