Setup Factory 6.0 - Last Minute Notes
Copyright © 2001 Indigo Rose Corporation.
All rights reserved.
Product Name: |
Setup Factory 6.0 |
Version: |
6.0.0.3 - (what has changed?) |
Release Date: |
February 6, 2002 |
Distribution: |
Commercial release. Unauthorized distribution prohibited. |
Table Of Contents
Contact Information
Getting Started
What's New in 6.0?
Key Features
Release History
Microsoft HTML Help
Adobe Acrobat PDF
Important Note for Users of Windows 95
Copyright & Trademark Notice
http://www.indigorose.com
support@indigorose.com
sales@indigorose.com
Thank you for using Setup Factory 6.0! The best way to get started quickly is to
read the User's Guide.
A shortcut to the User's Guide is located in the Start menu under Start ->
Programs -> Indigo Rose Corporation -> Setup Factory 6.0. (Click here to
open the User's Guide if you installed Setup Factory to C:\Program Files.)
If you have any questions, or need help with this product, please visit
http://www.indigorose.com.
- Actions
Only Setup Factory could integrate powerful scripting control into its
visual design environment in such a seamless manner. While most users will
never need to go beyond the visual side of Setup Factory, developers who
require absolute control will appreciate the extremely flexible "Action
Scripts" built into Setup Factory 6.0. Actions give you the flexibility of
advanced programming, without sacrificing the ease of use that Setup Factory
is famous for.
- Control Structures
Build advanced looping and testing structures with actions like IF, WHILE
and GOTO Label.
- Variables, Expressions and Operators
Use an unlimited number of variables to store data. Throw in full expression
parsing and mathematical evaluation, and you've got enough power to make
your installer handle anything you throw at it!
- String Functions
Parse, evaluate, manipulate and search through text files, text variables,
and other strings.
- Silent Installations
The /S command line option lets you perform installations without user
interaction.
- Download Files and Upload Data
Make it easy for your users to stay up-to-date. Built-in HTTP download and
web data submission make it easy to distribute files "after the fact."
- Enhanced Package Support
Package support has been completely redesigned, and sports a new, integrated
design interface. By assigning files to packages, you can give your users
greater control over what files are installed on their system. You can even
present your users with multiple levels of control, including the standard
Complete, Typical, Minimum, and Custom installation options. And there's
more good news for power users: now files can be assigned to multiple
packages!
- File Dependency Scanning
Quickly scan Portable Executable files to analyze their runtime
dependencies. With a negative import option, you can control which
dependency files are added to your project.
- ZIP File Extraction
Use the Unzip Files action to extract files from a Zip archive at run time.
- Full Control over Windows Services
Setup Factory 6.0 adds full support for Windows services, including
starting, stopping, pausing, querying, creating, continuing, and deleting
them.
- Full Control over Programs and Processes
With full shell execution support, starting or terminating programs and
processes is a piece of cake.
- Enhanced 3rd Party Runtime Support
Instantly add runtime support for many popular third-party
technologies.
- Enhanced Visual Basic Project Support
Core runtime support and advanced Visual Basic project file scanning make
creating installers for Visual Basic applications easier than ever.
- Updated Run-time Interface
The setup executable's user interface has been updated to the professional
and modern "Windows Installer" style.
- Design-Time Constants
Similar to variables, but instead of being converted to values at run time,
design-time constants get converted at build time. Like #define statements
in C++, you can use design-time constants to simplify your project
management.
- Enhanced Reporting and Logging Features
Keeping track of essential project details has never been easier. With
customizable HTML-based project reports and text-based install-time log
files, you'll have an accurate record of everything you need.
- Award-Winning Visual Design Environment
Organize your project quickly and efficiently using Setup Factory's
innovative, point-and-click development environment.
- Quick and Easy Project Wizard
The Project Wizard is the fastest and easiest way to get your installation
off to the right start. With the Project Wizard you'll have an installation
ready to go in minutes.
- Dynamic File Lists
Set up your project the way you see fit. When you're ready to build the
setup executable, your project is rescanned to include the most recent
versions of your files.
- Flexible OS Filtering
Target multiple operating systems with one installer. Sophisticated
condition and expression parsing lets you filter files and actions to
specific operating systems.
- Flexible Deployment Options
Distribute on any media size or format, including web, email, ftp, CD-ROM,
DVD, network drive or even 1.44MB floppy disks.
- Registry and System Modifications
A full suite of actions are supplied for reading and writing information to
and from the Windows Registry, INI files and text configuration
files.
- OCX/DLL and Font Registration
Register TrueType fonts and OCX/DLL files right from your
installer.
- Extensive File Handling Options
Complete version checking, file searching, copying, renaming, deleting,
attributes setting, and more.
- International Language Support
Setup Factory has built-in handling for every language supported by
Windows.
- Comprehensive Operating System Support
You don't want to mess around with reliability. Your install will run on all
32 bit Windows platforms. This includes everything from Windows 95, through
98, ME, NT4, 2000 and even Windows XP.
v6.0.0.3: February 6, 2002
New Features:
- Added several new Project Report templates.
- Added a new design-time constant: #CURRENTMONTH2# (a two-digit number representing the current month at build time, e.g. "01" for January).
- You can now choose to display a Calculating File Progress dialog, immediately before the Select Install Folder screen and right before the files are installed. This dialog helps provide a seamless interface to the user while disk space calculations are being performed. Otherwise, there can be a slight "pause" between screens where no interface is shown as the disk space calculations are performed. (This is usually only noticeable when a large number of files are involved.)
To enable the Calculating File Progress dialog, set the built-in variable %ShowFileCalcProgressDlg% to "TRUE" at the start of your installation. To disable the dialog, set %ShowFileCalcProgressDlg% to "FALSE".
%ShowFileCalcProgressDlg% is set to FALSE by default.)
- You can now control whether or not the Action Progress dialog is visible at run time by setting the built-in variable %ShowActionProgressDlg% to "TRUE" or "FALSE". If %ShowActionProgressDlg% is set to TRUE, the Action Progress dialog will be visible. If %ShowActionProgressDlg% is set to FALSE, the Action Progress dialog will be hidden.
%ShowActionProgressDlg% is set to TRUE by default.
- Setup Factory no longer calculates the CRC values of files on the CD-ROM tab that have "Disable CRC Check" selected. This will speed up the build process for those of you who have that option disabled for the majority of your CD-ROM tab files.
- You can now cancel the build process during the "Verifying archive files list..." and "Verifying CD-ROM files list..." stages.
- You can now set the state of a check box on a 12 Check Boxes screen to either checked (TRUE) or unchecked (FALSE) by setting the variable assigned to that checkbox to either "TRUE" or "FALSE". If the variable is set to TRUE, the check box state will be checked, and if the variable is set to FALSE, the check box will be unchecked.
- A "wait cursor" is now displayed while Setup Factory changes the properties of Multiple Files.
- Changed the default text for the uninstall’s unique Registry key from Product_Name to %ProductName%%ProductVer% to avoid creating conflicting registry keys for different products.
- The file list no longer updates the file vitals after a build. As a result, the list view is refreshed much faster after a build is complete.
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where using Design Time constants in the path to a screen image could cause Setup Factory to generate an error when the screen was previewed. Design Time constants will now work fine in paths to images when screens are previewed.
- Fixed a bug where an incorrect icon would be displayed in the file list when a Design Time constant was used as the path to a file.
- Fixed a bug where %SetupCmdLineArgs% would always be set to %TempLaunchDir% if no command line arguments were passed to the setup. Now %SetupCmdLineArgs% will be set to a blank string if no arguments are passed.
- Fixed a bug where %SetupCmdLineArgs% always contained a trailing space.
- Fixed a bug where no default radio button would be selected at run time if the "Default" field on the radio button screen’s custom tab was left blank. This bug also caused %RadioSelection% to always be blank and %RadioSelectionIndex% to always be 11. Now the default is set to the first visible radio button if the "Default" field is left blank. If no radio buttons are visible the default is set to the first radio button.
- Fixed a bug where having 300 IF/END IF or WHILE/END WHILE pairs on an action tab would cause the Setup Factory design environment to crash.
- Fixed a bug where the build would continue if you tried to cancel it during the CRC check. Now canceling the build during the CRC Check works as expected.
- Fixed a bug where, after you selected a project file to scan on the "Scan Visual Basic Project" dialog, the "Visual Basic Version" would always be set to Visual Basic 6.0. The radio buttons now function as expected.
- Fixed some internal links in the Help file so they now point to the correct pages.
- Fixed a bug where the Status Bar on the uninstall screen was not always visible. (If an action on the Before Uninstall tab did not need the Status Bar, the status bar was being hidden during the actual uninstall process.) Now the uninstall status bar is always visible.
- Fixed a bug where the wrong text was selected in an expression after a syntax error if the expression contained any line feeds.
- Fixed a bug concerning the Runtime Support where if the user hit Cancel, multiple copies of Runtime Support Modules could be added to their project.
- Fixed a bug where the Abort button was still enabled after the user aborted the build process.
- Fixed a bug where the Insert Text Line action would always add an extra blank line to the text file.
v6.0.0.2: December 12, 2001
New Features:
- Added better status information to the report generation status screen.
- Added a Download More Modules button to the Runtime Support screen which opens the Setup Factory Runtime Module download page on the Web.
- Added the ability to abort the report generation process.
- Made it so that if doing an Insert Text Line action and the file that you are inserting into doesn't exist, it will now create the file with your text line instead of returning an error.
- Added a new variable called %SetupCmdLineArgs% which is a string that contains the command line arguments passed to the setup program at run-time.
- Added functionality to allow check boxes on the 12 Check Boxes screen to be dynamically disabled or hidden. This is done by setting the check box's variable to CONTROL_DISABLE or CONTROL_HIDE before the screen is displayed.
- Added a Hide action details in log file option to the Settings tab of the General Design screen. If checked, the log file will not contain details about actions that are being executed, it will simply show the type of action and the result code.
- Added a feature where after a list item is dragged and dropped (such as in an Actions list) it is selected and highlighted in its new position.
- Added the Design-time Constants: #DATE#, #CURRENTMONTH#, #CURRENTDAY#, #CURRENTYEAR#, #CURRENTHOUR#, #CURRENTMINUTE#, #CURRENTSECOND#, #ISODATE#, #EUROPEANDATE# which can be used to store build-time information. See the help file for details about these constants.
- Added a feature where if you maximize the Setup Factory window, shut down the program and then re-start it, the design environment will maintain its maximized size.
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug during installation while registering fonts where the fonts took several seconds to register and then usually failed.
- Fixed a bug in the project file converter where the System Requirements OS conditions were getting an extra "AND" on the end of the expression.
- Fixed a bug in the project file converter where the language file settings were being set to the "Language" directory instead of the "Languages" directory as they should be.
- Fixed a few bugs that could occur in the Parse Path action when using UNC paths.
- Fixed a bug where a couple of messages in the uninstall were always in English and were not properly being read from the language file.
- Fixed a bug in the dialog that confirms the removal of a shared file during uninstall. The dialog was cutting off some of the text and therefore not displaying the full path of the file.
- Fixed a bug where installing a file with a corrupted file header (with a file date set too far in the past or future) could cause the setup to crash. Now if the file date and time values are out of range they are reset to the current system time.
- Fixed a bug where the design environment could crash under certain circumstances from the Serial Numbers tab of the General Design screen.
- Fixed a bug that only affected projects with many files (~1500+) where the Setup Factory environment could become corrupted and the GUI would cease to work properly.
- Fixed a bug where opening a new project when Setup Factory's window was maximied would cause the window to be resized so that it was no longer maximized.
- Fixed a bug where answering No to the build confirmation dialog could cause the program to appear to hang.
- Fixed a bug on the Select Drive screen where the amount of free disk space would be displayed even if the option to show the disk space was turned off.
- Fixed a bug where the open command would fail if you tried to use Edit | Open File on a file with a Design-time Constant in its source path.
- Fixed some grammatical and small technical errors in the Help file (Command Reference).
- Fixed the Visual Basic 5.0 and 6.0 runtime support modules so that no longer cause the core Visual Basic files to be removed on uninstall.
v6.0.0.1: November 29, 2001
New Features:
- Added a "Show Setup Factory logo on splash screen" option to the
Settings tab of the General Design dialog. This allows you to disable the
Setup Factory logo on the setup executable's initializing screen if
desired.
- You no longer need to put double-quotes around variables in expressions.
- Internal quotes and backslashes need to be escaped when they're used in
literal strings inside an expression. In Setup Factory, the escape sequence
for a quote is \" and the escape sequence for a backslash is \\.
For more information, see Important
Changes.pdf in your Setup Factory\Docs folder.
Note: You only have to use \" for quotes and \\ for backslashes in
values that you type directly into expressions. You don't have to use the
escape sequences anywhere else. For example, strings that you store in
variables don't need to be escaped—even if the variables are used in
expressions.
- Added the Write to Log File action. See the Help file for details.
- When you add a new IF or WHILE action to an action list, Setup Factory
will automatically insert a matching END WHILE or END IF action for you.
- The User Notification Mode now defaults to None on the On Error tab when
you add a new Read File Information action to a list.
- Changed the Insert Variable hotkey on edit fields from Ctrl+I to Ctrl+B.
Ctrl+I can now be used to insert a tab character in a multiline edit field.
(Inserting a tab is the default behaviour of the Ctrl+I hotkey in a
mulitline edit field).
- When adding or pasting items into an action list, Setup Factory will
automatically adjust indentation for you to help maintain a reasonable
indent level.
- When using a Verify Serial Number screen, you can now pre-set the
serial number variable's value and it will show up as the default value in
the password field.
- The Scan Now button is now the default button on the Scan
Dependencies screen.
- When you select a file using the Browse button on the Scan
Dependencies dialog, it now immediately scans the file you
selected.
- When moving list items up or down using the buttons at the bottom, Setup
Factory now ensures that the item being moved stays in view, automatically
scrolling the list if necessary.
- Changed the URL for the online ordering link in the Help menu.
- Added a tool to calculate the CRC value of a file. You can access this
tool by selecting Tools | Calculate
File CRC from the Setup Factory program menu.
- Syntax checks are now performed on all expressions during the pre-build
tests at build-time.
- If you assign a new value to %SysLanguage% at run time, Setup Factory
will automatically re-read the appropriate language file. This allows you to
ask the user which language they want to use for the installation from a
screen, or to change the language being used at any time during the
setup.
- The Delete Files action will now try to remove all directories involved
if wildcards are used in the Source field and the Recurse
subdirectories option is enabled.
- The setup log file now logs which screens were displayed.
- The After Uninstall actions now happen after the uninstall data
files have been deleted. This allows you to accurately detect whether any
files were left over in %AppDir% after the uninstall, and perform thorough
clean-ups after uninstalling.
- Added several new languages.
- The Status window now has the focus after a build is completed.
- Setup Factory no longer displays an error message if the installer fails
to register a font. Instead, a message is written to the setup log file (if
setup logging was enabled).
- Made several changes to the Help file.
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where the condition evaluator would put up message boxes
when evaluating real numbers.
- Fixed a spelling error that appeared in the status screen when building
a report.
- Selecting an item while previewing the 12 Radio Buttons screen no
longer changes the default item for that screen.
- You no longer have to move the mouse in order to make the wait cursor go
away when the status screen has completed its operation. The standard arrow
cursor is now re-enabled automatically.
- Fixed a bug in the project converter: conditions
that were based on a check box value now compare to "TRUE" or "FALSE"
instead of "Checked" or "Unchecked".
- Fixed: if the default radio button was not found on a 12 Radio
Button screen, no radio button would be selected. Now, the first radio
button is selected if the button listed as the default does not exist.
- Fixed: if the default install type was not found on a Select Install
Type screen, no items would be selected. Now, the first item is selected
if the install type listed as the default does not exist.
- Fixed: the %DAOPath% would sometimes leave the DAO*.DLL filename on the
end.
- Fixed a small error in the log file text for the Find String action.
- Fixed a bug on Windows 95a where the %MyDocumentsDir% variable might be
set to an empty string. Now, if it can't be determined or isn't supported,
%MyDocumentsDir% defaults to "C:".
- Fixed: if more than one icon (*.ico) file was added to the project, all
of the icon files would appear to have the same icon on the Setup Factory
main screen.
- Fixed: if you deleted a package from the Packages dialog, it
would not be removed from the list of packages on the Custom tab of the
Screen Properties dialog for the Select Packages screen. It is
now removed properly.
- Fixed: if a file belonged to a package and you deleted the package from
the Package Manager, the package would not be removed from the file's
properties on the main screen.
- Fixed: the top of the setup log file said Setup Factory 5.0
instead of 6.0.
- Fixed: the Before Installing actions were being performed after
the decision of whether or not to install the files had been made, so you
could not affect a file's installation status from that action list. The
Before Installing actions are now performed before the decision to
install the files has been made.
- Fixed a bug where the Select Packages screen was not determining the
system language at the right time.
- Fixed: the uninstall would sometimes still show the wait cursor when the
setup had completed, until the mouse was moved.
- Fixed: the German screens had the incorrect language ID in their screen
conditions.
- Fixed: the Save As button was not disabled while operations were
taking place on the status screen at design-time.
- Fixed a bug where the user interface would not appear until the project
file was fully loaded and files were scanned if a project file was opened
buy double-clicking it.
- Fixed: the Delete File on Reboot action did not always work
properly on Windows 95/98/ME.
- Fixed: too many parameters in a Submit to Web action could cause the
design environment to crash.
- Fixed minor errors in some language files/screens.
v6.0.0.0: November 19, 2001
- First release of the product.
Setup Factory 6.0 uses Microsoft HTML Help as its online help system. All
the components necessary to display HTML Help are installed with any of the following:
- Microsoft Office 2000
- Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later
- Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP
If you are having trouble accessing the help system, either install one of the
applications noted above, or run the hhupd.exe program. The hhupd.exe program
can be found on the Setup Factory 6.0 CD-ROM in the "UTILS" folder, or it can be
downloaded from the Microsoft web site at:
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/downloadDetails/Hhupd.htm
Setup Factory 6.0 uses the Adobe Acrobat PDF format for the electronic version
of its User's Guide. In order to view the User's Guide, you must first install
the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. This software can be found on the Setup
Factory 6.0 CD-ROM in the "UTILS" folder, or it can be downloaded from the Adobe
web site at:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html
Setup Factory 6.0's design environment (NOT the run-time client) require updated
COM and common control libraries to run properly. If you are using the original
release of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950) or Windows 95B (OSR2) and the Setup
Factory 6.0 program does not run properly, you will need to install these
components. You can find the install programs for these components in the
following places:
Common Control Library
- The file 50COMUPD.EXE on the Setup Factory 6.0 CD-ROM in the "UTILS" folder.
- On the Web at: http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ieplatform/ie/comctrlx86.asp
DCOM95
- The file DCOM95.EXE on the Setup Factory 6.0 CD-ROM in the "UTILS" folder.
- On the Web at: http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom95/dcom1_3.asp
Setup Factory 6.0, the Setup Factory 6.0 logo and all related files and
documentation are Copyright © 2001 Indigo Rose Software Design Corporation.
All rights reserved.
Setup Factory 6.0 is a trademark of Indigo Rose Software Design Corporation. All
other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned are the property of their
respective owners.