The Component Properties

General Properties

• GUID
  A globally unique ID for this component, version and language. Every component gets a default GUID at its creation, but you can change it anytime.
• Do not register this component with Windows Installer
  If this option is selected the component will have an empty GUID and thus it will not be registered. This means that the component cannot be removed, repaired or patched by the installer. This might be useful if you intend to service/uninstall the component yourself (using a custom action, for instance).
• Directory
  This component's directory. This field is not editable.
• Condition
  A Windows Installer condition which is evaluated and the result determines the installation of the component. If the condition is null or is evaluated to false, the component is not installed. Use the [ ... ] to edit the conditional statement.

Attributes

• Run From Source Only
  The component can only be run from source.
• Optional
  The component can run locally or from source.
• Shared Dll Reference Count
  Windows Installer increments the reference count in the shared DLL registry of the component's key file.
• Permanent
  This component is not removed during an uninstall.
• Transitive
  Windows Installer reevaluates the statement from the Condition field after a reinstall.
• Never Overwrite
  The component is not installed or reinstalled, if a key path file or a key path registry entry for the component already exists.
• 64-bit Component
  This component is marked as a 64-bit component.
• Disable registry reflection
  This option applies only to 64-bit systems with Windows Installer 4.0. If this option is not enabled for a component, Windows Installer makes the associated registry changes in both 64 and 32 bit registry views.
• Uninstall on supersedence (Windows Installer 4.5 or higher)
  The installation of a superseding patch can leave behind an unused component on the computer. In order to avoid this behavior you can set this option. The same effect can be obtained for all components by setting the MSIUNINSTALLSUPERSEDEDCOMPONENTS property to "1".
• Shared amongst packages (Windows Installer 4.5 or higher)
  This option tells Windows Installer that this component is shared amongst many packages so that when a package that contains this component is uninstalled WI will continue to share the highest version of this component (installed by other packages). It is enough that the shared component to be marked as shared in only one package installed on the system. If the DisableSharedComponent policy is set to "1", this flag is ignored for all components.

If registry reflection is disabled the changes are performed only in the targeted view.

Additional space

This section allows you to reserve an amount of disk space in any directory that depends on the installation state of a component.

Folder

Specify the destination directory.

Run Local

The number of bytes of disk space to reserve if the selected component is installed to run locally.

From Source

The number of bytes of disk space to reserve if the selected component is installed to run from source.

Qualified Components Groups

This section allows you to add the current component to a category of qualified components.

For example let's say you have several components that contain resource DLLs with the localized strings for your application. You can group these components into a single category, using the qualified components feature.

Adding the current component to a category.

Use the [ New ] button, the "New" list context menu item or press the Insert key while the focus is on the list control. The Edit Qualified Component And Group dialog will be displayed allowing you qualify this component.

Editing the qualified properties

Use the [ Edit ] button, the "Edit" list context menu item or press the Space key while the focus is on the list control. The Edit Qualified Component And Group dialog will be displayed allowing you to edit the qualified properties for the current component.

Removing the component from a category

Use the [ Remove ] button, the "Remove" list context menu item or press the Delete key while the focus is on the list control.

Isolated Components

When creating an install package you can specify that the installer should copy some files used by a certain application, in the same folder as the application rather than to a shared location. These files are used only by that application.

Using Isolated Components has the following advantages:

• The application will always use the original files, that is the files with which it was installed.
• The installation of other applications that use the same files, but with higher versions will not overwrite the original ones.

Isolating a component

Use the [ Add... ] button, the "Add..." list context menu item or press the Insert key while the focus is on the list control. The Component Picker will be displayed allowing you to select a component. The selected component will be isolated with the current one.

Removing an isolated component

Use the [ Remove ] button, the "Remove" list context menu item or press the Delete key while the focus is on the list control.

The Isolated Components feature is available for Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000 and later system versions.