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What is the difference between the Standard and Professional version of Visual Installer?

SamLogic Visual Installer is an easy-to-use installation tool that can be used to install software, documents, Excel sheets, videos, etc, and there exist two versions of the tool: Standard and Professional. In this blog post we will describe the difference between these two versions.

Visual Installer / Standard
The Standard version of Visual Installer is designed to handle smaller setup projects. It is also very suitable if you want to install documents, Excel sheets and videos, and other file types that are not software. The Standard version is very easy to use and no programming is ever needed.

Visual Installer / Professional
The Professional version of Visual Installer is designed to handle larger setup projects and it is specialized to install software. It is also more flexible than the Standard version of Visual Installer thanks to the powerful scripting language that is included in Professional. The scripting language will give you a great control over the installation and can be used to handle all special cases that may happen when dealing with complex installations. It is not necessary to use the scripting for most tasks, but if the normal settings are not enough for your installation project, you can always include powerful script commands that will handle these circumstances.

The Professional version is also necessary if you need to handle prerequisites during an installation. From Visual Installer / Professional you can run other installations during the installation process in a controlled manner. If you need to install 64 bit applications, you must also use the Professional version. The Standard version only support installation of 32 bit applications.

Summary – Major functions that are included only in Visual Installer / Professional
Below is a list with some major functions that are only included in Visual Installer / Professional:

– A script language that can be used for advanced installations.
– A project manager that keeps track of your created project files.
– Functionality to create multiple levels of menus with shortcuts in Windows.
– Functionality to install 64-bit applications.
– Functionality to handle prime number based license keys.
– Functionality to send messages to Twitter.
– A special tool, SamLogic Selector, which can create system dependent program starts.

See also
> SamLogic Visual Installer – Features
> Visual Installer’s Scripting Language
> Tips & tricks for SamLogic Visual Installer

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How to complete MSI installation #1 before #2 starts (when running multiple installations)

Sometimes it is necessary to run and complete one MSI installation before the next MSI installation starts. This may happens if your software is dependent of some specific prerequisites, also during the installation. One common problem is that one component can not be installed and registered in the system, in a proper way, before some basic components that it needs are installed first. The installation of these basic components must be completed first, otherwise the next installation may fail.

It is possible to create setup packages where one installation is completed before the next one starts, but this can normally be tricky to achieve. But with the new script command MSIEXEC that we have added to Visual Installer, this is very easy done.

The MSIEXEC command is used to install MSI packages and MSIEXEC has a parameter with the name %Wait that is useful when multiple MSI setup packages need to be installed, and they must be installed in a specific order. If you set this parameter to WAIT Visual Installer will pause its own setup process until the installation of the MSI package is completed. Thereafter the installation (for example processing of more script lines) will continue.

Example
Below we will show you an example of how to use the MSIEXEC command.

MSIEXEC

In this example Visual Installer will first install MSI file #1 (MySetup1.msi), waits until the installation of the MSI file is completed, and then install MSI file #2 (MySetup2.msi), and wait until this installation is completed, and then continue the rest of the installation.

(The script command MESSAGE can be used to inform the user what happens during the setup process. If the MSI installations are time consuming it can be a good idea to inform the user that another installation is running for the moment.)

More information about MSIEXEC
For more details about the new MSIEXEC script command, and for more examples of usage, see this tips & tricks page:
> Tip: Run MSI installation from script

See also
> Visual Installer: New script command that handles MSI installations

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Visual Installer: New script command that handles MSI installations

We have added a new script command to Visual Installer’s scripting language that handles MSI installations (Windows Installer installations). The name of the new script command is MSIEXEC and it is very flexible in its use. Via this script command you can for example start a silent or visible MSI installation, and you can choose whether Visual Installer should pause it’s own installation until the MSI installation is completed, or if the MSI installation and Visual Installer’s installation should be run in the same time (a parallel installation). And by combining the new script command with conditions, you can make Visual Installer run different MSI setup packages depending of the operating system.

MSIEXEC

We have added a tip page to the tips & tricks section of our website that explains in detail how to use the new script command. You can open the tip page by clicking on the link below:
> Tip: Run MSI installation from script

To use this script command, you must have Visual Installer 2014 / Professional version 10.0.15 or later installed in your computer.

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SamLogic’s tools adapted to Windows 8.1

All of SamLogic’s programs, and other tools, are now adapted to the new Microsoft Windows 8.1. But the software also work fine with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and some other older operating systems. If you want more information about a specific product, you can click on a link below:

Programs
> CD-Menu Creator – AutoRun menu designer program.
> USB AutoRun Creator – AutoRun USB stick creator.
> Visual Installer – Installation software / setup tool.
> MultiMailer – Newsletter / e-mail marketing software.

Product suites / Bundles
> Media Tools – Program bundle with 5 tools.
> USB Menu Creator – Program bundle with 3 tools.

We have also tested our component libraries in Windows 8.1, and they are fully compatible. If you want to test a program you can visit the web page below:
> Download a Demo / Free Trial

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Visual Installer 2014: How to change user interface

In the previous blog post we informed about Visual Installer’s new user interface and the possibility to change visual theme for the user interface. In this blog post we will show how to change visual theme for the user interface.

If you want to change the visual theme for the editor, follow these steps:

1. Start Visual Installer
2. Open the Special menu
3. Choose the Editor options menu item
4. Open the Application window’s style combo box

Application window's style

5. Select the style / theme that you want to use
6. Click OK

Below you can see some samples of the visual themes included in Visual Installer 2014:

STYLE: Theme Silver 1
Theme Silver 1

STYLE: Theme White 1
Theme White 1

STYLE: Theme Blue 1
Theme Blue 1

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Visual Installer 2014: Run program as administrator

Sometimes a program must be run with administrator rights in the system. This gives the program more privileges, which sometimes is necessary to make a program function as expected. In Visual Installer 2014 you can set an installed program to run with administrator privileges in an easy way.

To make an installed program to run with administrator rights you can right-click on the program in Visual Installer’s file list and choose the Run as administrator menu item in the menu that is shown. Thereafter you can select the Run program as administrator option in the dialog box that appears and press OK (see picture below).

Run program as administrator

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Visual Installer 2014: Post messages to Twitter

You can now send Twitter messages (tweets) directly from Visual Installer. We have added this functionality to Visual Installer 2014.

This is useful for example when you upload an update or upgrade of your software to your website using the built-in FTP function in Visual Installer. In the same time you can inform your customers about the new version of your software (including a short description, version number and a download link) via Twitter.

Below is a screen dump of the Send Message To Twitter dialog box in Visual Installer 2014. This dialog box is used to send tweets to Twitter. You can open this dialog box via the File menu in the Visual Installer editor.

Visual Installer now supports Twitter

More information about the Twitter function in Visual Installer is available on this web page.

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Visual Installer 2014: New variables and new script commands

We have added 3 new variables and 2 new script command to Visual Installer 2014. The variables can be used to handle shared files and shared settings, and the script commands can be used to change permissions for folders on the hard disk during the installation process.

THREE NEW VARIABLES
Three new variables were added to Visual Installer 2014. Below they are described briefly:

%SHAREDDOCUMENTS : Can be used to install shared documents.
%PUBLICDIR : Can be used to install shared files (documetns, images, videos etc.).
%APPDATADIR_ALLUSERS : Can be used to install shared settings.

TWO NEW SCRIPT COMMANDS
We have also added two new script commands to Visual Installer 2014. They can be used to change permissions for hard disk folders. Below are the script commands described briefly:

SETPERM : Changes permissions for an existing folder on the hard disk.
XCREATEDIR : Creates a folder on the hard disk with specified permissions.

More detailed information about the script commands is available on this information page and on this blog post. The picture below shows how the SETPERM command can be used to set read, write and execute permissions for a hard disk folder during the setup:

SETPERM