HOW TO : Skin the unskinnable - Status Dialog and pre requisite dialog

[thelabmonkey]

SOLVED! How to customize all of those dialogs that InstallShield will not let you skin or customize outside of the default initial settings in the skin.ini The screens that do not appear in the "Dialogs" pane that lets you customize dialog layouts and elements.

I was tasked with customizing and skinning an standard installscript project where the top half was just artwork... which meant all of the screens needed to have the elements moved to the lower half. For those of you who haven't tried this, let me tell you that there are a shocking number of screens that can not have their elements moved or be customized by any normal, sane methods.

After several frustrating, hair pulling, keyboard slamming days, I have scrounged and scraped solutions from the forums and internets and present some of them here for you. I hope this will help.

Q. How do I change the position of the progress bar in the Status Screen that comes up when files are copying over?
[LIST=1]

In the Installation Designer tab of your project go to User Interface -> Dialogs

In the next pane, right click for a context menu on Dialogs->All Dialogs and select "Import Dialogs From Resource DLLs..."

Import the _isresce.dll in your local InstallShield installation: ex. C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2012Spring\Redist\0409\i386\_isresce.dll

Look at your shiny new "DialogId_10305" dialog entry. That is our progress dialog.

Q. Customize the prerequisites, initialize, and language selection windows? Or get rid of the big computer icon?

[LIST=1]

Find C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2012Spring\Redist\Language Independent\i386\ISP\Setup.exe

Make a backup copy of this Setup.exe to revert back to for a different project.

In Visual Studio 2010 (or some other 'resource editor' do File->Open->File... and find the aformentioned Setup.exe. It will load as a resource editor

In the resources view that opens, open dialogs->130[neutral] (

Delete big icon side panel on the left, change title text elements, and move progress bar and descriptive text elements, etc

Someone said you can copy the setup.exe to your own project folder and add it as a resource, but I haven't tried that.

[OldBean]

Good Stuff, thank you for sharing.

[coly]

Thanks for your sharing.
But I cannot find out which form is Setup Prequisites dialog? 105 [Neutral]?
And if I want to add check box for each prequisite in Setup Prequisites dialog? How should I do?
Regards,

thelabmonkey wrote:
SOLVED! How to customize all of those dialogs that InstallShield will not let you skin or customize outside of the default initial settings in the skin.ini The screens that do not appear in the "Dialogs" pane that lets you customize dialog layouts and elements.

I was tasked with customizing and skinning an standard installscript project where the top half was just artwork... which meant all of the screens needed to have the elements moved to the lower half. For those of you who haven't tried this, let me tell you that there are a shocking number of screens that can not have their elements moved or be customized by any normal, sane methods.

After several frustrating, hair pulling, keyboard slamming days, I have scrounged and scraped solutions from the forums and internets and present some of them here for you. I hope this will help.

Q. How do I change the position of the progress bar in the Status Screen that comes up when files are copying over?
[LIST=1]

In the Installation Designer tab of your project go to User Interface -> Dialogs

In the next pane, right click for a context menu on Dialogs->All Dialogs and select "Import Dialogs From Resource DLLs..."

Import the _isresce.dll in your local InstallShield installation: ex. C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2012Spring\Redist\0409\i386\_isresce.dll

Look at your shiny new "DialogId_10305" dialog entry. That is our progress dialog.

Q. Customize the prerequisites, initialize, and language selection windows? Or get rid of the big computer icon?

[LIST=1]

Find C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2012Spring\Redist\Language Independent\i386\ISP\Setup.exe

Make a backup copy of this Setup.exe to revert back to for a different project.

In Visual Studio 2010 (or some other 'resource editor' do File->Open->File... and find the aformentioned Setup.exe. It will load as a resource editor

In the resources view that opens, open dialogs->130[neutral] (

Delete big icon side panel on the left, change title text elements, and move progress bar and descriptive text elements, etc

Someone said you can copy the setup.exe to your own project folder and add it as a resource, but I haven't tried that.

[SimonG]

3005 is the one that lists the prerequisites and 130 is the one that shows progress.

[monkeypirate]

Hi,

I'm just wondering if you know how to edit the text size/colour/font on dialog_10305.

For other screens I've created my own versions of each screen and edited the text using these commands:

CrtlSetFont(SCREENNAME, Font, iD)

However, I can't seem to find the base script/code to be able to change the fonts on this screen.

Any ideas would really help.

Thanks

[SimonG]

That's just the name of the custom dialog created in your project. What dialog is it based on?

[PlinyElder]

thelabmonkey wrote:

Q. How do I change the position of the progress bar in the Status Screen that comes up when files are copying over?
[LIST=1]

In the Installation Designer tab of your project go to User Interface -> Dialogs

In the next pane, right click for a context menu on Dialogs->All Dialogs and select "Import Dialogs From Resource DLLs..."

Import the _isresce.dll in your local InstallShield installation: ex. C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2012Spring\Redist\0409\i386\_isresce.dll

Look at your shiny new "DialogId_10305" dialog entry. That is our progress dialog.

So this has changed a bit in Installshield 2014. Here is how i do it.

[LIST=1]

Save My current project

Right Click All Dialogs and select Import Dialog from Resource Dlls...

Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2014\Redist\Language Independent\i386

Find the _isres_0x0409.dll

Open that file. Now it will take about 10 seconds for Installshield to process that dll file

Once its done you will have quite a few new dialogs added to your menu.

Look for the one called DialogId_10305.isd

Right click that dialog and select Export Dialog File...

Close your project and DO NOT save the changes

Open your project back up

Right click All dialogs and select Import Dialog

Navigate to the dialog that you exported earlier and click OK

If you get a Resolve Conflict popup select skip all and hit OK

You will now have your dialog listed as DialogId_10305 and you can rename it to what ever you would like


Does anyone know at what stage in Installscript that this dialog is called?

[hsanshu]

Currently my billboard images take up the complete width of the dialog. How can I leave margins from both sides of the dialog? Also I would like to add an extra image on the top of the Setup Progress Dialog and move the billboard and progress bar a little down. Is it possible?