Isolating Components

[fredddy]

We are looking into ways of reducing the amount of time spent resolving conflicts for in house written applications when packaged using WISE. One suggestion being investigated is to simply isolate every dll (including those normally written to the system32 directory) into the programs own directory.

If anyone has any views on this idea, good or bad, I would be greatful to hear your comments.

Rgds,
Freddy.

 

[Shadowpp]

Isolated components (also known as side-by-side DLLs)allow different versions of shared system files to be run from the application directory. In the past, application installs would overwrite shared systems file in the System directory with newer or older version causing other applications to break.

Windwos Installer enables application packages to copy shared files (commonly shared DLLs) of an application into the application directory rather than to a shared location. This private set of files (DLLs) are then used only by the application. This functinoality provides the following advantages:

- The application always uses the versions of the shared files with which is was deployed.

- Installing the application does not overwrite other version of the shared files by other applications.

- Subsequent installations of other applications using different versinos of the shared file cannot overwrite the files used by this application.

To create an isolted component:
- In Setup Editor, go to the Components Tab

- In the Components Window, find the primary application executable and expand the list.

- Right-click on the component in which to create an isolated component, select New - Isolated Component

* As a general rule, isolated components should be associated with the primary application executable in the application package.

- Select the appropriate shared system file from the drop down list then click OK when done.

Hope this helps