Dynamic Install Location 1

[FeersumEndjinn]

Hi all,
I'm just starting with Wise for Windows Installer 5.2, new job, new installer. Previously worked a lot with Installshield for Windows (1.5, 2.0) and InstallShield Developer 7.0(ish).
The problem that I've encountered already with Wise is setting of dynamic installation locations. This was pretty simple with InstallShield - a component or feature could have it's destination field populated with a property, which I could set with custom actions during the installation itself.
So far I have not found a way to replicate this with Wise. The problem is that the installation will vary greatly from machine to machine. There are a number of registry keys I can read to obtain the locations for the files to be installed, but seemingly no way to pass this on to the component or feature to get it to install it's files anywhere other than the initial hard-coded directory value.

I'm convinced that there's something obvious that I'm missing, but damned if I can find it.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[techkate]

Well, maybe you could try this.

In the Component Table (and also in the Component Tab if you right-click the component and choose 'Details') there is a 'Directory' field. Although you cannot pass a value to this field (that I know of), you could create entries in the Directory table. You would populate each Directory during the installation, say during AppSearch.

For example, you can create a Directory in the Directory Table called 'Data' (give the additional fields some generic values). Then, give a component called 'Customer Database' a directory value of 'Data'. When the Data directory is changed to 'C:\Program Files\MyApp\Data', the 'Customer Database' component will then be installed to 'C:\Program Files\MyApp\Data'.

 

[FeersumEndjinn]

k8e - many thanks. I had a bit of a play with that and it seemed to work like a charm.