Category: Tips

One useful function in the Visual Installer setup package creator is the possibility to add version information to a self-extracting setup package. You can for example add version number, product name, company name and copyright text. The version information can be seen in Windows Explorer and in other places in Windows.

Where in Visual Installer can the version information be entered?
You can enter the version information in the Version information dialog box in Visual Installer. The dialog box can be opened via the Special – Version information menu item in the Visual Installer editor. The screen dump shows how the dialog box looks like:

In this dialog box you can also find an option (a check box) with the text Save version information also in the self-extracting setup package and if you select this option, the version information that you enter in this dialog box will be stored in the setup package file. If the option is not selected, no version information will be stored in the setup package.

The version information can be viewed in Windows Explorer
If you have chosen to add version information to the setup package, the information can be shown in Windows Explorer and other places in Windows. For example, when the mouse pointer is above the filename in Windows Explorer, a tip text with the version information is displayed (as shown in the picture below):

Also the Details tab in the Properties dialog box in Windows Explorer contains this information (the dialog box can be opened by right-clicking on the filename and choosing the Properties menu item). The picture below shows how the information is shown in the Details tab if the text that was entered in this blog post’s first picture is included in the setup package:

Version number
If you want to add a version number to the setup package, you must use 4 numbers when you specify the version number; for example: 1.2.0.5. Both commas and semicolons are allowed to use as a delimiter. So it is also ok to enter the version number like this: 1,2,0,5.

If you use more than or less than 4 numbers for the version number (for example 1.2) the version number is not stored in the setup package. If you want a version number like this to be stored in the setup package, you can extend the version number with zeros and enter the version number in this way: 1.2.0.0.

Read also
> How to create a self-extracting setup package

Sometimes files need to be registered in the system during an installation. They need to be registered so they can be located by software and to function properly. In our installation tool Visual Installer we have built-in functions that do this registration process.

When you install files the files are normally registered in the order that they appear in Visual Installer’s file list. But sometimes this may create a problem, if one file is dependent of another file, and they are registered in the wrong order. To handle a situation like this there is an option in Visual Installer that allows you to register files in a particular order.

How to change registration order of files
To change the registration order of a couple of files, you can first choose the Register files menu item in the List menu in Visual Installer.

The Register files dialog box is now shown (see the picture below). In this dialog box you can specify the registration order by entering one file path per line. Each line must contain an installation path to every file that you want to have registered in another order than the default order. You can use variables in the file path (for example: %SYSDIR\MyDLL1.dll).

Line number 1 is registered first. Then line number 2. Then line 3. Thereafter line 4. Etc.

All files that you specify in the Register files dialog box are registered before any file in the file list is registered. So the list in Register files dialog box is handled first.

More information
Additional information is available in Visual Installer’s Help documentation. Click on the Help button in the Register files dialog box to obtain more information.

More tips
More tips for Visual Installer are available on this web page.

I guess that you sometimes when using Visual Installer are in the situation that you need to add more files from a source folder that already has been used in Visual Installer’s file list. Browsing to the same source folder again can be time consuming when using the “usual” way.

To simplify and speed up this process you can instead use a menu item in the local (right-click) menu in the File list tab in Visual Installer. The name of the menu item is Add more files from same source folder and the picture below shows where in the menu you can find this choice:

If you right-click on a file in Visual Installer’s file list and thereafter choose the Add more files from same source folder menu item, the Add files dialog box in Visual Installer will be opened with all files in the same source folder as the selected file listed. Via this dialog box you can add more files from this source folder to Visual Installer’s file list.

See also
> Using the Add tree function in Visual Installer
> How to view source paths in the file list in Visual Installer

Christmas is fast approaching and it’s time to send Christmas cards to friends, acquaintances, customers and other contacts.

With our e-mail newsletter tool MultiMailer, you can both create your own Christmas e-cards and send them easily as e-mails. You can create your Christmas e-card either by using ready-to use e-card templates/examples or by using MultiMailer’s built-in visual e-card wizard. Read more in this blog post:

> Create your own Christmas e-card with MultiMailer

In this blog post that we posted last week on our blog we described how to run a program after that an installation (created with Visual Installer) is completed. It is also possible to show a document (for example a PDF document) after the installation, and below we will describe how to do that.

In the tip below we assume that you want to give the user an opportunity to open a PDF document with the name ReadMe.pdf. Reading the document is optional, but if the user want to read it, it will be opened when the user closes the last installation dialog box in the setup wizard. Below are the tip steps:

1. Select the document file in the installation project’s file list (ReadMe.pdf in our case).

2. Right click over the selection.

3. Choose the Show this document after installation menu item in the local menu that appear.

4. The dialog box below is now shown:

5. Confirm that the file path (at Document) is ok.

6. Select the Show check box in the ‘Installation completed’ dialog box option.

7. Check that the text at Check box text is ok.

8. Click on OK.

When your user run the installation, there will be a check box in the last installation dialog box, where the user can decide if he/she wants to read the document or not. See the picture below for an example of how it may look like:

If the check box is selected, the document that you specified will be opened and shown when the user closes the installation dialog box (for example by clicking on the Exit button).

The dialog box that is shown at step 4 above can also be opened via the Special menu in Visual Installer’s editor.

See also
> How to run a program after an installation