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Visual Studio Installer Readme includes updated information for the documentation provided with the Release to Web version of Microsoft® Visual Studio® Installer. The information in this document is more current than the information in the Visual Studio Installer documentation.
For other issues on the Help system of the Visual Studio suite of products, go to:
MSDN™, the Microsoft Developer Network Readme (ReadmeDN.htm in the MSDN CD-ROM 1 root
directory).
Note Be sure all headings in the table of contents are expanded when you search this Readme for a topic.
Create Installer Projects with a Maximum of 800 Components
High Capacity Media Required When Including Microsoft Windows Bootstrap Loader in Installer Packages
Installing Loose Files Spanning Several Disks When the Installation Includes Cabinet (.Cab) Files
Product Information Module Signature Cannot Contain Spaces
Extensions in the Associations Editor Cannot Contain Periods
Visual Studio Installer supports a maximum of 800 components in an installer project developed for Microsoft® Windows 95 and Windows 98 applications. Installers containing more than 800 components will run successfully on Microsoft® Windows NT® platforms. However, because it is recommended that you create installers to run on Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT platforms, you should not exceed the maximum of 800 components in any installer project.
By default, Visual Studio Installer creates a new component for every file and registry entry you add to an installer project. If you must install more than 800 files and entries, you can group them together so some components contain multiple files or registry entries. Be careful doing this— you group files or entries together in a component, you must always ship them in the same component when you release a new version of your application.
The online documentation included with Visual Studio Installer states 1,600 as the maximum number of components per installer project. That information is no longer accurate. This readme contains the most up-to-date information.
Creating installer packages with the Microsoft® Windows® installer bootstrap loader for distribution on 3.5-inch disks is not supported in Visual Studio Installer. The Windows Installer self-installing .exe files included with the bootstrap loader are too large to fit on 3.5-inch disks. If you create an installer that includes the bootstrap loader and select 3.5-inch disks as the distribution media, Visual Studio Installer will display a "Disk is full" error message when you build the installer project.
To create an installer package that includes the bootstrap loader, you must package and distribute it on a higher-capacity media than provided with 3.5-inch disks— example, a CD-ROM. If you want to distribute your installer package on 3.5-inch disks, you cannot include the Windows installer bootstrap loader with your installer package.
If you are developing a Japanese, German or worldwide neutral installer which includes the Microsoft® Data Access Components (MDAC) merge module (mdac.msm file) in your installer project, Visual Studio Installer may not import the correct version of the MDAC merge module automatically. If Visual Studio Installer imports an incorrect version of the MDAC merge module, the installation program may display MDAC-related messages in the wrong international language at installation run time.
MDAC-related messages are contained within the MDAC merge module and are localized for Japanese and German versions of the MDAC merge module. The neutral mdac.msm shares common files with the localized MDAC merge modules, mdacjp.msm and mdacde.msm. The mdacjp.msm and mdacde.msm files are not satellites of mdac.msm; they are localized equivalents of mdac.msm. It is possible Visual Studio Installer will erroneously pick up the localized version of the MDAC merge module when creating a neutral installer with English dialogs or the neutral version of the MDAC merge module when creating a localized installer.
Examine your installer project file to make sure it contains only one MDAC merge module, the correct neutral or localized version. You can determine the correct version of the MDAC merge module from this table:
| Use this version of MDAC | For this type of installer project |
| MDAC.MSM (language-neutral version) | Language-neutral installers |
| MDACJP.MSM (localized for Japanese) | Japanese installers |
| MDACDE.MSM (localized for German) | German installers |
If Visual Studio Installer has imported an incorrect version of the MDAC merge module, you must delete that version and add the correct version of MDAC to your installer project.
Visual Studio Installer supports the distribution of an installation program spanning several media— example, multiple 3.5-inch disks. However, if an installation program spanning several media includes both compressed cabinet (.cab) files and loose uncompressed files, Visual Studio Installer can read the loose files only on the first distribution media (Disk_1 of several installation disks). If you include loose files on multiple distribution media, Visual Studio Installer may display a "source file not found" error message during installation, and the installation will fail.
To include both uncompressed loose files and .cab files in an installation package, make sure all loose files will fit on the first installation media.
The Microsoft Windows installer misinterprets the backslash (\) and many double-byte character set (DBCS) characters when they are included in the registry key or name of the registry value that is also an installer component key. If an installer project contains such a registry key or name of a registry value, the installed application reinstalls itself every time a user launches the application from a shortcut.
To avoid this reinstallation problem, do not use the backslash (\) or DBCS characters in a registry key or name of any registry value that is also an installer component key.
Visual Studio Installer supports the distribution of installation programs including compressed cabinet (.cab) files. Every .cab file includes an overhead space for the required overhead information about the files in the .cab file. This overhead limits the minimum size you can specify for the distribution media size.
If you set the media size project property too low, without accounting for the overhead space, the .cab files will exceed the media size, and may fail to install correctly. The size of the overhead depends on the number of files you install, but will not exceed 100 kilobytes (KB) for setups containing 800 files or less (the largest number of files you can install with Visual Studio Installer).
To prevent problems related to media size requirements for .cab files, specify a distribution media size of 100 KB or larger. (You set this property in the Build Tab of the Project Properties dialog box.) A media size setting of 100 KB or larger accounts for the .cab file overhead space, and eliminates related problems.
To successfully run the Visual Studio Installer setup program, you must have at least one of the following Visual Studio products already installed on the target machine:
Additionally, Visual Studio 6.0 Service Pack 3 (VSSP3) must be installed on the target machine prior to running the Visual Studio Installer setup program.
Product Information Module Signature Cannot Contain SpacesWhen creating a Merge Module project, the default Module Signature property is set to the same value as the project name. If this name contains spaces you will be prompted with an error message stating that the Module Signature is invalid.
The help topic for this error message states that the Module Signature may contain letters, digits, underscores (_), or periods (.). It should also state that it cannot contain spaces.
To correct this error, replace any spaces in the Module Signature property with underscores (_).
Extensions in the Associations Editor Cannot Contain PeriodsWhen entering file associations in the Associations Editor you cannot use a leading period for file extensions. For example, instead of entering (.doc) for Word Document type, you must enter (doc).
Using a leading period in a file extension will result in a failure to register the association on target machines.
Online documentation for this Web release of Visual Studio Installer has not been integrated into the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Library. Some capabilities, such as F1 help with error message dialog boxes and online hyperlinks to MSDN Library content, are not available.
See the following sections for detailed information.
| To locate | See |
| Content referencing the MSDN Library | Accessing the Current Online MSDN Library |
| F1 help from error message dialog boxes | Navigating to Error Message Documentation |
| Visual Studio Installer standalone documentation | Opening Visual Studio Installer Standalone Documentation |
Because the documentation for this Web release is not yet integrated into the MSDN Library, references to important related MSDN content are offered as search keywords.
To locate information referenced to the MSDN Library, such as information about the Microsoft Windows installer, search for the specific reference and path mentioned in the Visual Studio Installer documentation. You can access the most current version of the MSDN online library at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/.
If you want to view Visual Studio Installer documentation and the MSDN library, you must run each in a separate window.
Context-sensitive (F1) help is disabled for error messages presented in dialog boxes.
To locate online documentation for an error message presented in a dialog box you can either:
or
In this web release, Visual Studio Installer documentation is provided as a standalone HTML Help (.chm) file. You can open the documentation by:
or
If you cannot open the Visual Studio Installer online documentation, you can download Microsoft HTML Help 1.2 at http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/htmlhelp/default.asp. After downloading HTML Help 1.2, follow the steps listed above to open the documentation.
Some help topics contain references to related content in the MSDN Library. Depending on the version of the MSDN Library that you are searching the path given in the documentation may be incorrect.
If the topic you are looking for can't be found using the path:
Platform SDK
Setup and Systems Management Services
Setup
Windows Installer
Programmer's Reference
Use the following path:
Platform SDK
Management Services
Setup
Windows Installer
If you are using a version of the MSDN Library older than July 1999, neither path will exist. In this case you will need to access the online version of the MSDN Library at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/.