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Installing Self-Registering Files

InstallShield 2015

The installer uses “traditional” self-registration to register your self-registering files when the files are marked as self-registering and (in a Windows Installer–based project) they are in a component that has the COM Extract at Build property set to No. The files are unregistered when they are uninstalled. The self-registration functions supported are DllRegisterServer and DllUnregisterServer.

Before setting a file’s Registration property, make sure the file is self-registering. According to Setup Best Practices, there should be only one .dll file, .ocx file, or .exe file per component.

Tip: The recommended method for installing self-registering files with Windows Installer is to write the registration information to the .msi database tables (Class, ProgID, and others). Instead of marking a file as self-registering, you can use the component’s advanced settings, extract the COM information at build time, or extract the COM information when you add a file in the Files and Folders view in order to register the ProgIDs, type libraries, and so on. Using the advanced settings works whether you are installing the file in the installation or advertising it for “just-in-time installation.” A further advantage is that the file can be unregistered if the installation fails.

Even if you set the component’s COM Extract at Build property to No, any information that is contained in the COM Registration advanced setting will nonetheless be registered during installation. You might want to check the COM Registration advanced setting and the component’s registry data to verify that the entries are intentional and do not conflict with those made by the self-registration functions.