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kirants
Level 5

Setup.ini location

Is there a variable ( or any other way ) of getting to the location of the setup.ini extracted out of setup.exe ?

I see that when setup.exe is run, first the MSI in the exe is extracted to a location in Windows\Downloaded Installations ( which is indicated by SRCDIR ). The setup.ini is extracted to a folder created at runtime to C:\Documents and Settings\{user}\Local Settings\Temp ( indicated by FOLDER_TMP ) and the setup.ini and the other files like _ISMSIDEL.INI go to another temporary folder created in the same location. Now, I don't know of any variable that holds this location. Any way to get to this ? Right now, if I need to get to this location I have to use a kludgy way to iterating through all folders and locate the INI.
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(10) Replies
kirants
Level 5

*bumpty bump*
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mberterm
Level 7

Look in the help library at the article titled Windows Installer Property Reference.

There are only a few Special Folder Properties (those properties that define where files are stored or installed on the target system) and the path to Setup.ini is not among them.

There might be a better way ... why are you looking for Setup.ini?
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kirants
Level 5

Thanks for the reply.

Why I need the location is a long story which can be found here 😉 http://community.acresso.com/showthread.php?t=182791

Gist is , I need to have a fixed installer with just a small change in contents of an XML file. It is more like a unique installer per customer sort of thing , as an example. The trick I am using is to change the setup.ini inside of setup.exe to hold these custom values and then read them in during install and apply that data on to the installed XML file. In that thread, I have listed a script that will help me get to the INI file, but that is long winded and I don't like it, hence looking for a better way. If you think this is fraught with problems, I would appreciate how else I can achieve this.
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kirants
Level 5

*bumpty bump*

Anyone ?
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Not applicable

What type of project are we talking about, you refer to an MSI, but variables like SRCDIR are InstallScript project specific.

Devin Ellingson
Software Developer
Acresso Software
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kirants
Level 5

Thanks for the reply. It is a Basic MSI type project.
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mberterm
Level 7

On one front, IOC-000074491 has been submitted requesting an MSI propety to the path of Setup.ini.

Another thought is to pass the property value on the command line when launching the installation and/or set a default value in the Setup.ini, the CmdLine line item (as seen in the Releases view 'MSI Command Line Arguements' property).
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kirants
Level 5

mberterm wrote:
On one front, IOC-000074491 has been submitted requesting an MSI propety to the path of Setup.ini.

Thanks. Does this mean, it will be available in a later service pack and/or version ?

Another thought is to pass the property value on the command line when launching the installation and/or set a default value in the Setup.ini, the CmdLine line item (as seen in the Releases view 'MSI Command Line Arguements' property).

Unfortunately that is not an option since we don't want the installer users to be passing wrong values. Adding entries to CmdLine item in the releases view is also not an option since those , if I understand right , are overridden by anything passed in via command line ( command line is something we do support, but we don't want clients passing in the configurable items as command line since we want control of it )
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MichaelU
Level 12 Flexeran
Level 12 Flexeran

Thanks. Does this mean, it will be available in a later service pack and/or version ?
There are no guarantees. In this particular case, as cool as this use of setup.ini is, I'm personally not in favor of it. In my view, setup.ini is an implementation detail of InstallShield, and I do not want our options limited later if we should find a reason to change setup.ini to setup.xml.

But we'll see.
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kirants
Level 5

Personally, I see it as a dirty hack too and would very much like to get away from using setup.ini for the purpose at hand. However, as of now, and with my limited experience with InstallShield, that is as far as I can get to have something in place. Thanks for the headsup. I'll continue investigating other formal approaches to do this..
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