The name of the product I'm working on is called "My Product 2014." This is what I have specified for Product Name in General Information. We also build "My Product 2014 A" and "My Product 2014 B" and "My Product 2014 C" and so on, and as such I have several different Product Configurations in the Releases view. My goal is to make my Installshield project file easy to update for future versions, so, for example, the next version may be "My Product 2016" and so on. So, ideally, what I'd like to do is create a property or string called CURRENT_VERSION and set its value to "2014" and then replace the Product Names for each configuration with "My Product " + [CURRENT_VERSION] + "A" and "My Product " + [CURRENT_VERSION] + "B" and so on. This way I'd only have to change that one property or string in the string table with the current version and all the ProductNames would automagically get updated.
This does not work when I create a property or string in the string table. All I get is the string literal "[CURRENT_VERSION]." Is this possible or should I just keep dreaming?
It seems that I can attack this problem from a different direction, automation. I can accomplish some if not most of what I want by building my releases with IsCmdBld.exe and passing the value of ProductName on the command line. This seems to work pretty good. So now I would just modify one variable in my build script to reflect the current version. I'm thinking this could also handle my INSTALLDIR where the value needs to be "MyProduct" + CURRENT_VERSION.
However, I still have an issue with the Title and Subject values as these are strings from the string table. Maybe I can set these string values to be "My Product " + [ProductName].
If I remember correctly, InstallShield by default uses ProductName as the name of built .msi file. Per Changing the Product Code, .msi filename change will require major upgrade. I haven't personally tried this, I am not sure if .msi filename will take on the new value of updated ProductName property.
For Subject and Title in Summary Information Stream (SIS), you will probably need to use InstallShield automation layer on SIS.
