Author: samlogic

You may already know that if you press the F5 key on your keyboard or choose the List – Refresh List menu item in Visual Installer’s editor, the contents of the file list (in the editor’s File List tab) is refreshed.

When a file list is refreshed, file dates and size information etc. is updated. If a file is missing at a source file path, you will be informed about that.

If you want to have the file list refreshed automatically when a project is opened, this is also possible. If you choose the Special – Editor options menu item and select the Update file list automatically option in the dialog box that is shown (see the picture below)

the file list will be updated automatically when the .VIP project file is opened.

Normally when a user runs an installation, the installer will ask for a destination folder. A default folder name and folder path is shown, but the user can usually change the folder name and the folder path, and enter his/her own.

But there are situations when the folder name and folder path must stay unchanged, but the user should have the possibility to change the drive letter.

In Visual Installer we have a special setup dialog box that is designed for this purpose. You can include this dialog box in your installation by checking the Drive option in the Dialog boxes tab in the Visual Installer editor.

If you check this option, the following setup dialog box will be shown in the installation:

In this dialog box the end-user can change the drive letter, but not the folder path. The folder path is shown for the end-user, but it is a read-only field. He can not change the path.

The CD-Menu Creator editor contains 8 main tabs, from where the most of the work to create a menu interface is made from. The last (the rightmost) tab is the Version tab.

In this tab you can enter version information for your menu project. For example company name, product name, product description and version number. In this tab you can also see the date when your menu was last created. This text field is updated automatically, so you don’t need to enter any information here.

Some of the text fields in the Version tab can also be used as variables in menu interfaces. That includes the following text fields: Company, Product Name, Product Description, and Version Number. More information about these variables is available in this tip.

Before you actually create an installation package on your hard drive or USB stick, with Visual Installer, you can test it. You can step through all setup dialog boxes in your project and simulate an installation of you files. The tip below explains how to do it:

1. Start Visual Installer.
2. Open a current Visual Installer project or create a new one.
3. Open the File menu.
4. Choose Test on the menu.
5. In the dialog box that is opened, click on the Start simulation button.

Now the simulation will start.

The simulation will look like a real installation, but no files are copied and no folders are created. The Registry will also remain untouched. There will be no changes in the computer at all, so you can run it safely to test your installation.

More tips
More tips for Visual Installer are available here:
> Tips & tricks for SamLogic Visual Installer

Sometimes it is necessary to change source folder paths for a group of files in Visual Installer’s file list. This is necessary if for example some files have been moved to another folder location or if you change computer and the folder paths that are used in the new computer are different. But luckily, this is very easy done in Visual Installer. In the tip below we show how to do this.

How to change source folder paths for a group of files

1. Start Visual Installer and open your Visual Installer project file (.VIP file).
2. Open the List – Replace – Replace source folders menu item (see picture below).

3. Enter the existing folder path and the new folder path in the dialog box that is shown.

4. Click OK in the dialog box to do the replace operation.

Now every folder path that match the criteria will be updated in the file list.

To make sure that folder paths are correct spelled and really exists on the drive, you can hit the F5 button. If the folders do not exists, Visual Installer will show a warning message and show which files in the file list that have wrong folder paths.

See also
> How to view source paths in the file list in Visual Installer