How to have an install feature unchecked by default?

[Binary_Poet]

I have a suite project that has a number of features shown (custom install). But one of the features I want to have unchecked by default so the user has to select it to install it..

Any idea how I can accomplish this?

[DebbieL]

If you want a feature to be deselected by default, use the feature's Condition setting to enter a condition that will evaluate as false. If the feature is visible in the feature tree (that is, if Yes is selected for its Visible setting), end users can override the default behavior by selecting the deselected features.

I hope that helps.

[Binary_Poet]

I just tried that ...

Condition = All
Paltform
OS Version = 5.0 (I hope there are no users still on that 😉

That shows it not checked, but if the user checks it, it will not install. I know the installer works fine

[DebbieL]

We cannot reproduce that behavior. Can you post a debug log, along with the Setup.xml file, so that we can take a look at it?

To generate a debug log, pass /debuglog to your Suite Setup.exe file when launching it from the command line.

InstallShield creates the Setup.xml file in the Iterm folder (a subfolder of the project's release folder).

Thank you.

[Binary_Poet]

As requested.

Thanks,

Steve

[DebbieL]

Thanks for posting the sample project. We have confirmed that this is a bug, and we've logged it as issue IOA-000065590. We don't have an estimated time for a fix, but we will update this community thread when more information is available.

Here's some more background: It looks like this is not working correctly because the unselected-by-default feature is actually a child feature of an unselected-by-default parent feature. When an end user tries to select the child feature, the UI shows that its parent feature is also being selected. However, the Suite engine doesn't know about that change to the parent feature's selection state, and it behaves as if the parent feature is not supposed to be installed. As a result of that, plus the fact that a child feature cannot be installed unless its parent feature is installed, neither the child feature nor the parent feature is getting installed.

I think if you select the child feature in that case, and then unselect and reselect its parent feature, the problem will go away, and it will work as expected.

Note that you could try removing the condition from either the parent feature or the child feature. If you remove just the condition from the child feature, the parent feature will still be unselected by default. The child feature in this case would be selected, and I think it would actually be disabled. However, the child feature will not be installed if the end user does not select the parent feature.

[Binary_Poet]

I appreciate the heads up...

Do you have any idea when the first updates will start coming out?

[BobVilla]

Was this bug ever resolved? Why doesn't the "checked by default" option just have a True/False option? I mean if you always want feature1 to always be selected, then why try to figure out some complex option from the dropdown that always comes out True or the reverse (False).

[MichaelU]

IOA-000065590 was fixed as part of SP1 (searching the release notes confirms this).

There is an easy option in the dropdown: with no children conditions, the group condition Any becomes true, None becomes false.