I'm just running into a roadblock and although I've looked through some of the posts I still can't figure out what to do. I'm still learning to ropes to MSI installs and this one stumps me.
Basically after I display the traditional 'DestinationFolder' dialog I'm displaying a dialog that lets the end user choose where they can save their data (either an existing folder or create one if it didn't exist.
So I took the 'DatabaseFolder', changed the text box property to [localappdatafolder], and at this point I'm not sure what to do next. When I run the install, this dialog shows me the localappdatafolder location. If I click the change button though it displays the INSTALLDIR, and if I continue on and browse to a different folder and select it, the dialog still shows the localappdatafolder selection. I'm confused. Can anyone help me with this one?
I guess my other question would be, is there a document online that has a good listing of Microsofts best practices for Vista? If I'm trying to set a data folder, it might as well be in a valid location 🙂
Sounds like you are nearly there. Here are some common issues:
1. Make sure you have a property (localappdatafolder) in your Property Manager with a default folder value. Sounds like you already have one of these.
2. On the dialog you are using, make sure you set your dialog text to show your property value. It originally may say [INSTALLDIR] - You will want to reset the value to [localappdatafolder]
3. On the "Behavior" of the dialog, go to "ChangeFolder" (PushButton) and change the argument for the "_BrowseProperty" event to be "localappdatafolder".
4. Make sure you have your "localappdatafolder" defined in the "Directory" table of the direct editor. Set the Directory_Parent to "TARGETDIR" and the DefaultDir to "."
5. It is a good idea to add a System Search to look for a default location which will set your property "localappdatafolder" before you ever get to the wizard page. This will do 2 things: Pull a default value to the property which will keep it from failing, as a directory table entry must resolve to a valid path, and secondly, it may keep your user from having to even hit the browse button, if the path is already correct.
