Upgrading Projects from InstallShield 2012 Spring or Earlier

InstallShield 2016

The following information describes possible upgrade issues that may occur when you upgrade projects that were created with InstallShield 2012 Spring and earlier to InstallShield 2016. It also alerts you to possible changes in behavior that you may notice between new InstallShield 2016 projects and projects that are upgraded from InstallShield 2012 Spring or earlier to InstallShield 2016.

General Information about Upgrading Projects that Were Created in Earlier Versions of InstallShield

If you use InstallShield 2016 to open an project that was created with an earlier version, InstallShield 2016 displays a message box that asks you if you want to convert the project to the new version. If you reply that you do want to convert it, InstallShield creates a backup copy of the project with a file extension such as .773 (for an .ism project) or .2012.4 (for an .issuite project) before converting it. Delete the .773 or .2012.4 part from the original project’s file name if you want to reopen the project in the earlier version of InstallShield. Note that you cannot open InstallShield 2016 projects in earlier versions of InstallShield.

You can upgrade projects that were created with the following versions of InstallShield to InstallShield 2016: InstallShield 2012 Spring and earlier, InstallShield DevStudio, InstallShield Professional 7 and earlier, and InstallShield Developer 8 and earlier. Note that projects that were created with InstallShield MultiPlatform or InstallShield Universal cannot be upgraded to InstallShield 2016.

Changes that Affect All Projects (New and Upgraded Projects)

This section describes changes that affect both new projects and projects that are upgraded from earlier versions of InstallShield.

Change in Requirements for Target Systems

InstallShield no longer supports the creation of installations for Windows 2000 systems. If end users have Windows 2000 on their machine and they try to run an installation that was built with InstallShield 2013, the installation may run successfully. Or, unexpected results may occur, unless the project includes launch conditions that prevent end users from running the installation on this legacy operating system.

For Basic MSI and InstallScript MSI projects, you may want to consider adding a launch condition that displays a message if end users are running your installation on a Windows 2000 system. For InstallScript projects, you may want to consider adding InstallScript code that uses the SYSINFO structure variable to check for Windows 2000 systems, and then display a message if appropriate.

Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI installations now require at least Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

InstallShield no longer supports the creation of installations for mobile devices. Thus, the Mobile Devices view, the Smart Device project type, the Palm OS Object, and the Windows Mobile Object are no longer included in InstallShield. If you try to upgrade a Smart Device project from InstallShield 2012 Spring or earlier to InstallShield 2016, InstallShield 2016 displays an error message and fails to open the project. If you upgrade a project from InstallShield 2012 Spring or earlier to InstallShield 2016, and if the project targets desktop platforms and contains other mobile device support, InstallShield removes the mobile device support during the upgrade and logs a warning.

Change in Requirements for Systems Running InstallShield

The minimum operating system requirement for running InstallShield, the Standalone Build, and the InstallShield Developer Installation Manifest (DIM) Editor is now Windows XP SP3 or Windows Server 2003 SP2. Previously, the minimum operating system requirement was an RTM version of either of these operating systems.

Changes for the Virtualization Pack

The Virtualization Pack is included as part of the standalone version of the Premier Edition of InstallShield. It is no longer available as an add-on for the Professional edition of InstallShield.

Repackager Project Conversion Tool No Longer Included

The Repackager is no longer included in the Premier edition of InstallShield. Repackager is now available only with AdminStudio.

Changes to the XML Schema for Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI Project Files (.issuite)

Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI project files (.issuite) are XML-based files. The underlying XML schema for the user interface part of the file has changed significantly in InstallShield 2016. Many attributes have been moved to child elements. Conditions, actions, and validations are fundamentally different: element collections are used instead of attribute strings. The new schema is more explicit about what is configured for the user interface of the installation.

If you create a new Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI project in InstallShield 2016, InstallShield automatically uses the new XML schema for the .issuite file. If you upgrade a project from InstallShield 2012 Spring or earlier to InstallShield 2016, InstallShield automatically updates the XML schema.

New Predefined Path Variables for Built-in DLL Custom Actions

InstallShield includes two new predefined path variables in projects: ISRedistPlatformDependentFolder and ISRedistPlatformDependentExpressFolder. The default values for these folders refer to subfolders in the InstallShield Program Files Folder\Redist folder, which contains 32-bit versions of built-in InstallShield custom action DLLs. If you create a new InstallShield 2016 project or upgrade an InstallShield 2012 Spring or later project to InstallShield 2016, InstallShield automatically includes these two predefined path variables in your project. In addition, InstallShield also uses these path variables in paths such as the source location of built-in InstallShield DLL custom actions; this applies to new projects as well as upgraded projects. Previously, InstallShield used either of the following locations as the folder that contained the DLL files: <ISProductFolder>\Redist\Language Independent\i386 or <ISProductFolder>\Redist\Language Independent\i386 Express. This change is noted for informational purposes.

Automation Interface Changes

If you use the automation interface with InstallShield or the Standalone Build, update your existing code to reflect the new ProgID: IswiAutoAutomation Interface Version.ISWiProject. The Standalone Automation Interface uses the same ISWiAutomationAutomation Interface Version.dll file that InstallShield uses, but it is installed to a different location.

Note that if you install the Standalone Build on the same machine as InstallShield, the last ISWiAutomationAutomation Interface Version.dll file that is registered is the one that is used.

Changes that Affect New Projects but Not Upgraded Projects

This section describes changes to InstallShield that may affect new projects but not projects that are upgraded from earlier versions. Note that you may need to make manual changes to upgraded projects.

Changes to the Default Wizard Format for the Suite/Advanced UI and Advanced UI Wizard Interface

If you create a new Suite/Advanced UI or Advanced UI project in InstallShield 2016, the default value for the Wizard Format setting is Glass, a new option. If you upgrade a Suite/Advanced UI or Advanced UI project from an earlier version of InstallShield to InstallShield 2016, InstallShield does not change the value of the Wizard Format setting; it leaves whatever value was selected in the earlier version of InstallShield.

You can configure your project to use to a different wizard format if appropriate. To do so, change the value of the Wizard Format setting that is displayed in the Wizard Interface view when the Wizard Pages node is selected.

For more information, see Selecting the Format for the Wizard Interface.

Changes to the Font Color of Navigation Button Text in Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI Installations

In some scenarios, if you upgrade an Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI project from InstallShield 2012 Spring or earlier to InstallShield 2016, the text on the navigation buttons may no longer be legible: the colors for the text and the buttons may not have enough contrast. This may occur if light font color is specified for the text style that is used for navigation button text, and if the target system’s colors are configured to use a light color for buttons on windows.

Beginning with InstallShield 2016, Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI installations no longer ignore the font color that is specified for the text style of text that is used on navigation buttons. Thus, when you upgrade your Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI project to InstallShield 2016, you may need to adjust the color of the text style that is used for the navigation button text. To do so, in the Wizard Interface view, click the Wizard Pages node, and note the text style that is selected for the Navigation Text Style setting. Then, find that text style under the Styles node in this view, and adjust its settings as needed.

In InstallShield 2012 Spring or earlier, Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI projects ignored the text style color for navigation button text. At run time, the installation used the font color that Windows used for navigation buttons; the color was typically black.

New Support for Shell Properties of Shortcuts

The Shortcuts view in InstallShield now has built-in support for setting several Windows Shell properties of shortcuts:

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9F4C2855-9F79-4B39-A8D0-E1D42DE1D5F3, 9

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Windows Installer may generate errors if one or more of these property names (instead of the GUID and property ID) are used in a package that is run on a version of Windows that does not have support for these properties.

If you used the Shell Properties setting in InstallShield 2012 Spring or earlier to configure Shell properties for a shortcut, and you upgrade the project to InstallShield 2016, InstallShield does not automatically replace the property names with the appropriate GUID and property ID combinations. To quickly switch to the GUID and property ID combination, consider deleting the old configuration in the Shell Properties view after upgrading your project, and then using the new support to reconfigure one or more of these properties. As an alternative, you can manually override the entry with the appropriate GUID and property ID. To learn more about the built-in support in InstallShield, see Setting Shell Properties for a Shortcut.

This support is available for the following project types: Basic MSI, DIM, InstallScript MSI, Merge Module, MSI Database, MSM Database, and Transform.

See Also

What’s New in InstallShield 2013

Upgrading from Earlier InstallShield Versions

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