System searches and Conditions

[prostetnic]

I am running a system search for the registry subkeys of office. I have created 3 searches for the keys office\8.0 office\10.0 and office\9.0

My problem is that thes are only subkey and contain no actual values. I want to use this as an install condition for a PPoint plugin. I perform the search and have a conditional statement of:

NOT OFFICE10 OR NOT OFFICE9 OR NOT OFFICE8

also tried
NOT OFFICE10 AND NOT OFFICE9 AND NOT OFFICE8

can someone gimme a hint here? Problem is they are always NOT because there is no values...I would like to store maybe the subkey name or something in it..

[prostetnic]

Hmm,

I set the install condition OFFICE8.

If I set the registry key 8.0 it doesn't install and if i delete it then it does..Ok next logical step i make the Install condition NOT OFFICE8 now it installs irrelevant of whether or not the key is installed.???? what gives?

as a side note..why can't i read the value of the key (Default) ?

I am playing now with different things..I have created a new value called Default adn given it a value, this can be read into a condition, but if i give (Default) a value..it can't.

[TsungH]

I will verify the value of OFFICE8, I believe it's a NULL string regardless of registry key existence.

System Search is an automated process (or UI) to fill out information to tables required by AppSearch action. Here is an excerpt from RegLocator table,

Note that it is not possible to use the RegLocator table to only check for the presence of the key. You can, however, search for the default value of a key and retrieve its value if it is not empty.

For complete information, please refer to AppSearch table and RegLocator table.

[prostetnic]

bugger.

that is my problem..it is a null value. I do not really want to do a full system search for the Powerpoint.exe file as this could take a LOOONNNGGG time on a 120 gig HDD.

OK the a BITTE(not sure how I say that in English ;)) on Installshield. can we get into the next version that when a system search for a registry key is a null value it can simply write a 1 or true into the search variable? I cannot see this is too hard to do?

[TsungH]

The (LaunchCondition) behavior is defined by MS. The operation is performed by MSI service, more specifically LaunchCondition action. It will not be possible to intercept and change the result during execution of the action.

In a hypothetical world, even if the returned NULL string is changed to something else, say 1 or any other value, how does LaunchCondition action differentiate if the value is a "real" 1, or modified NULL string?