Debugging an Installation on Any Computer

InstallShield 2013 » InstallScript Debugger

In order to find bugs that are occurring only with certain hardware or software configurations, you may need to debug your installation on a system other than your development machine. In that case, it is not necessary to install InstallShield on that computer.

To debug the installation on a debug machine, instead of on your installation development machine:

1. Compile and build your installation on the development machine.
2. Move copies of the following files from your development machine to the debug machine.
InstallShield Program Files Folder\System\ISDbg.exe

This is the executable file for the InstallScript Debugger.

InstallShield Program Files Folder\System\SciLexer.dll

This file must be present on the debug machine in the same folder as the ISDbg.exe file.

InstallShield Program Files Folder\Program\0409\ISDbg.chm (for the English version of InstallShield) or InstallShield Program Files Folder\Program\0411\ISDbg.chm (for the Japanese version of InstallShield)

This is the help file that you can optionally copy to the debug machine so that you can access the InstallScript Debugger help from within the debugger.

3. Register the ISDbg.exe file by passing it the /REGSERVER command-line parameter.
4. Copy your project file and your project folder to the debug machine. This should include your built setup disk images (Setup.exe and media and support files from the Disk Images\DiskN folders).

Tip: If the project files on your development machine are accessible to the debug machine over a network, you can skip step 4.

5. Launch Setup.exe with the /d command-line parameter to debug the installation and provide the location of the debug symbols (.dbg) file. For example, if Setup.dbg is in C:\Test, type the following statement at the command line:

setup /d"C:\Test"

Note that if your installation, script, and debug files are all in their original location on the development system, you do not need to specify the path to the debug file—use the following:

setup /d