Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

[Tom Cairns]

I wondered if anyone had any particular experience with Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP. I have created a setup file that installs several shortcuts to a sub folder of the Windows Start Menu. This works fine on Windows ME but on Windows XP the shortcuts are nowhere to be seen, in fact all I have is the default folder it creates (named after the %ProductName% variable)and in there is the default uninstaller. I have tried telling my shrotcuts to go the location %SCFolderPath% put this does not work. I then tried to be clever and entered '%StartMenuProgramsNT%\%ProductName%', this didn't work.

Can anybody shed any light on this or point me to a tutorial that explains this?

Thanks.

[Darryl]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Hi,

I just tried to create a shortcut in the Start Menu to a folder on a Windows XP system and did not have any problem doing so.
I used the built-in variable %SCFolderPath% and it did place the shortcut where it was expected. What are the exact settings that you have for one of your shortcuts? You may also want to set the ON ERROR Action to "Abort Setup" and Verbose, to see if there was some error associated with it not creating this shortcut.

------------------
Sincerely,

Darryl Hnatiuk
Indigo Rose Corporation

[Tom Cairns]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Thanks for this. I followed your suggestion and I get an error for each shortcut 'Failed to create shortcut'. The error says that it is unable to create the file in the Documents and Settings\All Users folder.

I thought that the pathname may be too long at over 90 characters (*I'm getting desperate here*) but I shortened some of the folder names and the errors still occurred.

My exact shortcut settings are as follows:

Folder: %SCFolderPath%
Shortcut description: Read Me
Target File: %AppDir%\readme.txt
Comman line arguments:
Working directory: %AppDir%
Icon Index: 0
Run Mode: Normal

My shortcuts are created on the 'After Installing' Actions tab.


Can anyone think of anything else that may be causing this?

Thanks

Tom

[Darryl]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Hi,

What is the exact path you have %AppDir% set to at the time of the files being installed. If it is not written out onto the screen, place the variable there so you can see the expanded path. I would like to test the path that you are using in my shortcut.



------------------
Sincerely,

Darryl Hnatiuk
Indigo Rose Corporation

[pit]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Since you are trying to create files in the "All Users" area: can you manually create files there? (Are you logged in as Administrator?)

[Darryl]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Good question Pit! That could very well be the problem.

------------------
Sincerely,

Darryl Hnatiuk
Indigo Rose Corporation

[Tom Cairns]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Thanks for all these suggestions, appologies for taking so long to reply. I am logged on as the adminstrator (its the only account on the machine I'm using to test.

The %AppDir% path is set to
%ProgramFiles%\%ProductName% which (I believe is the default). Does this explain why the shortcuts are not working?

[pit]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Maybe your %ProductName% contains special characters not allowed in a file name. What exactly is the content of %AppDir% at the time you try to create the shortcut?

You could display it with a "Dialogs / Show message box" action immediately before the action creating the shortcut. Now try to create that shortcut manually - does that work?

Also, what is the exact value of your %SCFolderPath%?

[This message has been edited by pit (edited 11-28-2001).]

[Tom Cairns]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Thanks for these further tips.

My product is called 'Search Print and Learn Vol. 2' so I think this should be OK for illegal characters.

I am making a shortcut to files using the After Installing tab, so the files should be there already. I did just trying substituting the '%SCFolderPath%' with '%StartMenuPrograms%\%ProductName%' and it now works.

I used the 'Show Dialogs..' option to get pathname and then manually created the shortcut path. This worked a treat.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't use either of these bodges?

[pit]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

I did just trying substituting the '%SCFolderPath%' with '%StartMenuPrograms%\%ProductName%' and it now works.

So the problem is the value of %SCFolderPath%

I used the 'Show Dialogs..' option to get pathname and then manually created the shortcut path. This worked a treat.

Are you now referring to %AppDir%, %StartMenuPrograms%\%ProductName% or %SCFolderPath%?


[This message has been edited by pit (edited 11-28-2001).]

[Tom Cairns]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

I used Show dialog to give the path for %SCFolderPath%. I then entered that in manually and it worked.

I then tried entering the variable '%StartMenuPrograms%\%ProductName%' instead, and that worked too (this was entered as a variable, NOT a pasting of the resulting path).

Sorry for the earlier confusion.

[Mark]

Re: Setup Factory 6 and Windows XP

Hi,

Perhaps you could use the "Show Dialog" action to display the values of the following variables right before your "create Shortcut" action:

%SCFolderPath%
%StartMenuPrograms%
%ProductName%

And then post their exact values to the forum. That way we might be able to see why your shortcut creation is failing.

mark.


[This message has been edited by Mark (edited 11-29-2001).]