Generating InstallAnywhere Log for Install, Uninstall, and Build in InstallAnywhere 2011 And Later

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Summary

How To generate the InstallAnywhere Log for Install, Uninstall, and Build in InstallAnywhere 2011 and later.

Synopsis

This article discusses how to generate an install/uninstall/build log to capture what is occurring during an installation/uninstallation/build, primarily for troubleshooting purposes.

Discussion

Generating an InstallAnywhere Standard Installation Log:

Follow these steps in the InstallAnywhere IDE with your project open:

1. Navigate to the Project > General Settings > Log Settings Section. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, navigate to Project > Log Settings.
2. Under Log Settings section, set Enable Logging to Yes. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, check the Enable Logging checkbox
3. Check the Install checkbox.
4. Under Log Format, select the Plain text format option.
5. Build the project.
6. Run the installer.

Note 1: Plain text format is selected by default, not XML format.
Note 2: These steps will create an installation log in plain text or XML format. The installation log file is created in the installation directory, under a Logs subdirectory, with the default filename $PRODUCT_NAME$_InstallLog.log or $PRODUCT_NAME$_InstallLog.xml.

Generating an InstallAnywhere Standard Installation Log That Includes the Verbose Installation Debug Output:

Follow these steps in the InstallAnywhere IDE with your project open:

1. Navigate to the Project > JVM Settings > Installer Settings View > Optional Installer Arguments Section.
2. Specify the following value in the Additional Arguments field:
   • -Dlax.debug.level=4 -Dlax.debug.all=true
3. Navigate to the Project > General Settings > Log Settings Section. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, navigate to Project > Log Settings.
4. Under Log Settings section, set Enable Logging to Yes. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, check the Enable Logging checkbox.
5. Check the Install checkbox.
6. Under Log Format, select the Plain text format option.
7. Set Include debug output (stderr and stdout) to Yes. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, check the Include Debug Output (stderr and stdout) checkbox.
8. Build the project.
9. Run the installer.

Note 1: Verbose debug output refers to more detailed debug output that can be generated by an installer.
Note 2: Plain text format is selected by default, not XML format.
Note 3: These steps will create an installation log in plain text or XML format. The installation log file is created in the installation directory, under a Logs subdirectory, with the default filename $PRODUCT_NAME$_InstallLog.log or $PRODUCT_NAME$_InstallLog.xml.

Generating an InstallAnywhere Standard Uninstallation Log:

Follow these steps in the InstallAnywhere IDE with your project open:

1. Navigate to the Project > General Settings > Log Settings Section. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, navigate to Project > Log Settings.
2. Under Log Settings section, set Enable Logging to Yes. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, check the Enable Logging checkbox
3. Check the Uninstall checkbox.
4. Under Log Format, select the Plain text format option.
5. Build the project.
6. Run the installer.
7. Run the uninstaller.

Note 1: Plain text format is selected by default, not XML format.
Note 2: These steps will create an uninstallation log in plain text or XML format. The uninstallation log file is created in the installation directory, under a Logs subdirectory, with the default filename $PRODUCT_NAME$_UninstallLog.log or $PRODUCT_NAME$_UninstallLog.xml.

Generating an InstallAnywhere Standard Uninstallation Log That Includes the Verbose Uninstallation Debug Output:

Follow these steps in the InstallAnywhere IDE with your project open:

1. Navigate to the Project > JVM Settings > Installer Settings View > Optional Installer Arguments Section.
2. Specify the following value in the Additional Arguments field:
   • -Dlax.debug.level=4 -Dlax.debug.all=true
3. Navigate to the Project > General Settings > Log Settings Section. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, navigate to Project > Log Settings.
4. Under Log Settings section, set Enable Logging to Yes. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, check the Enable Logging checkbox
5. Check the Uninstall checkbox.
6. Under Log Format, select the Plain text format option.
7. Set Include debug output (stderr and stdout) to Yes. For InstallAnywhere versions earlier than 2013, check the Include Debug Output (stderr and stdout) checkbox.
8. Build the project.
9. Run the installer.
10. Run the uninstaller.

Note 1: Verbose debug output refers to more detailed debug output that can be generated by an uninstaller.
Note 2: Plain text format is selected by default, not XML format.
Note 3: These steps will create an uninstallation log in plain text or XML format. The uninstallation log file is created in the installation directory, under a Logs subdirectory, with the default filename $PRODUCT_NAME$_UninstallLog.log or $PRODUCT_NAME$_UninstallLog.xml.

Generating a Build Log:

Command Line Build Log

The build output when running a command line build can be redirected by setting the following two properties in the build.lax file. The build.lax file is found in the InstallAnywhere HOME where InstallAnywhere is installed.

lax.stderr.redirect=\\tmp\\buildconsole.txt
lax.stdout.redirect=\\tmp\\buildconsole.txt

Setting the properties as shown above will generate a file named buildconsole.txt in the specified directory (C:\\tmp) in Windows. If only a filename is specified as shown below, then the file will be created in the same directory containing the build.lax file.

lax.stderr.redirect=buildconsole.txt
lax.stdout.redirect=buildconsole.txt

GUI Build Log

The build output when running a GUI build, through the InstallAnywhere Advance Designer, can similarly be redirected to a file by setting the lax.stdout.redirect and lax.stderr.redirect properties (mentioned above) in the InstallAnywhere.lax file. This file is found in the InstallAnywhere installation directory, where InstallAnywhere is installed.

Note: You will need to restart the InstallAnywhere IDE after making the changes in the InstallAnywhere.lax file.