What’s New in InstallShield 2009 Express Edition

InstallShield 2019 Express Edition

New Features

InstallShield 2009 Express Edition includes the following new features.

Ability to Associate InstallShield Prerequisites with Features for Chaining Installations

InstallShield now enables you to associate InstallShield prerequisites with one or more features. This new type of InstallShield prerequisite is called a feature prerequisite. It is installed if a feature that contains the prerequisite is installed and if the prerequisite is not already installed on the system.

Including InstallShield prerequisites in your project enables you to chain multiple installations together, bypassing the Windows Installer limitation that permits only one Execute sequence to be run at a time. The Setup.exe setup launcher serves as a bootstrap application that manages the chaining.

The Redistributables view is where you add InstallShield prerequisites to a project and specify whether you want them to run before your main installation or be associated with one or more features in your main installation.

Previously, all InstallShield prerequisite installations were run before the main installation ran, and the InstallShield prerequisites could not be associated with any features. This type of prerequisite, which is still available, is called a setup prerequisite.

To learn more, see:

Billboard Improvements: Support for Adobe Flash Application File (.swf) Billboards and More Image Billboard File Types (.gif, .jpg, .jpeg), New Billboard Styles, and Ability to Preview Billboards

InstallShield includes several new billboard-related features that give you more flexibility and control over the look and feel of the file transfer portion of your installation:

Flash application files can consist of videos, movies, sounds, interactive interfaces, games, text, and more—anything that is supported by the .swf type of file.

The Billboards view in InstallShield is where you add billboard files, configure billboard-related settings, and preview billboards.

This feature applies to Express projects.

To learn more, see:

Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributables

InstallShield includes several InstallShield prerequisite files (.prq) for Windows Installer 4.5:

This feature applies to Express projects.

For more information, see Adding Windows Installer Redistributables to Projects.

Ability to Create Unicode Versions of the Setup.exe and Update.exe Bootstrappers

InstallShield now enables you to specify whether you want to create a Unicode version or an ANSI version of the Setup.exe setup launcher for a project. Previously, if your project included a setup launcher, InstallShield always built an ANSI version; it did not include support for building a Unicode version.

A Unicode setup launcher can correctly display double-byte characters in the user interface of the setup launcher, regardless of whether the target system is running the appropriate code page for the double-byte-character language. An ANSI setup launcher displays double-byte characters in the setup launcher dialogs if the target system is running the appropriate code page. However, it displays garbled characters instead of double-byte characters in those dialogs if the target system is not running the appropriate code page.

Use the new Setup Launcher Type setting on the Setup.exe tab for a release in the Releases view to specify whether you want to use Unicode or ANSI. Unicode is the default type for all new Express projects.

InstallShield also now enables you to specify whether you want to create a Unicode version or an ANSI version of the Update.exe update launcher for a QuickPatch package. Use the new Update Launcher Type setting on the Advanced tab in the Build Settings area of the General Information view to specify whether you want to use Unicode or ANSI. Unicode is the default type for all new QuickPatch projects.

Ability to Create a Log File for the Setup.exe Bootstrapper

A new /debuglog command-line parameter is available for the Setup.exe setup launcher for Express projects. Use this command-line parameter to generate a log file for debugging. For more information, see /debuglog.

New Microsoft .NET Redistributables Available

InstallShield now includes many new .NET-related InstallShield prerequisites that you can add to Express projects:

You can add any of these InstallShield prerequisites to your project through the Redistributables view.

For more information, see:

Ability to Compress Files that Are Streamed into Setup.exe and to Specify the Compression Level

If you build a release that uses a Setup.exe setup launcher, InstallShield now compresses files that it streams into the Setup.exe file. The default compression level that InstallShield uses offers a balance between file size and time that is required to extract the compressed files at run time. If you want to change the compression level or you do not want to use any compression, you can override the default level through a machine-wide setting.

By default, InstallShield does not compress any files that have a .cab file extension when it is streaming them into the Setup.exe file at build time, since .cab files are already a compressed type of file. You can modify this default compression exclusion list to include other file types or specific files as needed. The exclusion list is a machine-wide setting.

For more information, see Configuring the Compression Level for Files that Are Streamed into Setup.exe.

Support for Multi-Part .cab Files

The .cab file type has some limitations. For example, the maximum size of a single .cab file is 2 GB. In addition, some users have had trouble signing large .cab files and verifying the digital signature of large signed .cab files. To work around these limitations, InstallShield now has a new default limit of 600 MB for a .cab file. When InstallShield is creating the .cab files for your release and it reaches the limit, it splits the data into two or more .cab files, creating multi-part .cab files.

You can modify the maximum size limit if necessary. In addition, if you do not want InstallShield to create multi-part .cab files, you can configure it to create single .cab files.

This functionality applies to Express projects. In addition, it is applicable only if you are building a compressed SingleImage release in which all of the files are embedded in the single-file .msi package or the Setup.exe setup launcher.

For more information, see Configuring the Maximum Size for .cab Files.

Support for Installing IIS 7 Web Sites on Windows Server 2008

InstallShield now lets you create and manage IIS 7 Web sites and virtual directories on Windows Server 2008 systems. This functionality is available in Express projects.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express SP2 Prerequisite Available

InstallShield now includes an InstallShield prerequisite for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2. You can add this InstallShield prerequisite to Express projects.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Support

InstallShield is now integrated with Visual Studio 2008, enabling development of installations and products within the same Visual Studio interface.

Ability to Convert Visual Studio Setup Projects to InstallShield Projects

InstallShield now lets you convert a Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studio .NET 2003, or Visual Studio .NET setup project (.vdproj) to an Express project (.ise).

To learn more, see Converting or Importing Visual Studio Projects into InstallShield Projects.

New FlexNet Connect 11 Redistributables Available

InstallShield includes support for FlexNet Connect 11. Use the Update Notifications view in InstallShield to include one of the two FlexNet Connect 11 merge modules—one has the Common Software Manager, and the other does not.

Enhancements

InstallShield 2009 Express Edition includes the following enhancements.

Best Practice Dynamic File Linking

When you add or modify a dynamic file link in your project, you can now specify which component creation method you want InstallShield to use: a new best practice method, or the previously available one-component-per-directory method.

A component is the smallest installable part of a product. The Express edition of InstallShield creates components for you automatically.

When best practices for component creation are followed, InstallShield creates a separate component for each portable executable (PE) file in the dynamically linked folder and sets each PE file as the key file of its component. This method of component creation, in combination with the streamlined QuickPatch package functionality, enables you to create patches according to Windows Installer component rules.

Previously, any time that you added dynamic file links to a project, InstallShield automatically created one component for all of the dynamically linked files at build time. However, if your dynamic file link included PE files, Windows Installer best practices for component creation were not followed.

By default, InstallShield considers the following file types to be PE files: .exe, .dll, .ocx, .vxd, .chm, .hlp, .tlb, and .ax. You can modify this list through the File Extensions tab on the Options dialog box.

The best practice dynamic file linking applies to Express projects.

To learn more, see:

Ability to Install IIS Web Sites Without Virtual Directories

InstallShield now includes support for installing IIS Web sites without any virtual directories. This support is available for all new Web sites that are created in InstallShield.

Previously, InstallShield did not include support for installing Web sites without virtual directories. Therefore, if a Web site in an installation did not have any virtual directories, the Web site would not be created at run time.

Note that if you upgrade an InstallShield 2008 or earlier project to InstallShield 2019 Express Edition, and the project already contains a Web site, the Web site cannot be installed if it does not have any virtual directories. In order to be able to install the Web site without virtual directories, you must manually delete it from your InstallShield 2019 Express Edition project, and then re-add it to your project as a new Web site.

This enhancement applies to Express projects.

To learn more, see Creating a Web Site and Adding an Application or a Virtual Directory.

Simplification of QuickPatch Packages

InstallShield now offers the ability to build streamlined QuickPatch packages, which typically have fewer new subfeatures and built-in InstallShield custom actions than those built in earlier releases of InstallShield. A new Streamline QuickPatch setting on the Advanced tab in QuickPatch projects lets you specify whether InstallShield should create this new simpler type of QuickPatch package.

For more information, see:

Ability to Password-Protect Patches and QuickPatch Packages

InstallShield now has new password settings that let you password-protect QuickPatch packages. These settings are on the Advanced tab of QuickPatch projects.

If you password-protect a QuickPatch package, any end user who wants to install the package must enter a case-sensitive password to launch your update.

To learn more, see the following:

Ability to Use the /v Command-Line Parameter More than Once to Pass More than One Parameter from Setup.exe to the .msi File

If you want to pass more than one argument from Setup.exe to Msiexec.exe, you can use the /v option multiple times at the command line, once for each argument. Previously, the /v option could be used only once, and all parameters were passed through this instance.

This enhancement applies to Express projects.

For more information, see Setup.exe.

Predefined System Searches for the .NET Framework

InstallShield has several new predefined system searches:

If your installation requires any of these, you can use the Requirements view or the Installation Requirements page in the Project Assistant to add these system searches to your project. When end users launch your installation, Windows Installer checks the target system to see if the requirements are met; if they are not met, the installation displays the error message that is defined for the system search.

This enhancement applies to Express projects.

See Also

Upgrading Projects from InstallShield 2008 Express Edition or Earlier

Upgrading from Earlier Versions of InstallShield

What Was New in Earlier Versions of InstallShield Express Edition

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