I don't understand when should I create a component for a dll, exe, ocx file and when not. What the adventage of component over a regular dll that is linked to a certain path ?
2.Answer to your second question – it is dynamic file linking; it is a traditional method of installshield. It was introduced before the best practice (point 1).
Sorry, I'm a little confused. I am creating an install with several 'features' available for install. Each of these features had many .dll files...I am confused on if I am supposed to have 1 component that has the many .dll files for each feature (that was the route I was going). Or according to your documentation links you provided, it seems like Install Shield prefers we have 1 component for every .dll file...I guess I don't see the advantage of the components then in this scenario. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
You don't say what kind of install you're planning to do. If it's an MSI-based, then it's not a "preference" of InstallShield, it's a rule for Windows Installer. For versioned files (like dlls) Windows Installer updates based on the version (and language) of the key path of a component. The key path for a file is usually the file itself. That means that if you had, say, files a.exe, b.dll and c.dll in a component, with, say, a.exe as the key file, you couldn't update b.dll or c.dll unless you updated a.exe. Only a version number change in a.exe would trigger that component to be updated, and a component is always updated as a unit.
You might want to read through the Windows Installer documentation on how to set up components and how WI determines what to update for a better understanding of the rules you need to follow to assure that future upgrades will work smoothly.
