Problems installing a windows explorer extension

[ChrisGue]

Hello,
I use the AI enterprise (7.1.3). With my software a dll for the windows explorers context menu is installed.
For this the the windows epxlorer process needs to be terminated.

This causes is many cases problems:
1.
It seems the installation is only able to shut down ONE explorer.exe. But there can be be several instances of exeplorer.exe running, I have seen systems with 7 instances.
Then the installation stops with this
"The setup was unable to automatically close all requested applications. Please ensure that the applications holding files in use are closed before continuing with the installation."
And most user are stuck with that.
So, how to terminate all explorer.exe?

Well, I can add e.g. 10 custom action to shut down explorer.exe. But then I have to add a custom action to restart the explorer.exe, which is not good, because one some machines it then starts the explorer.exe with the administrator account and not the users account. Though the user then have the Administrators desktop.

Maybe there is a better solution.

2.
When upgrading to a new version of my software, it seems first the old verison is uninstalled and the new one is installed. So, the explorer needs to be stopped and started afterwards again, even when the explorer component has not been changed with the new version.
So, is there a way, that during updating to a new version then windows explorer components are not uninstalled and then installed again, when the files are the same?


Thanks,
Chris

[Daniel]

Hello,

1. To make sure the explorer is launched/restarted under the same user that has started the installation setup, then you can schedule the restart explorer custom action after the "Install Execution Stage" -> "Finish Execution" action group.

2. For this you can use an "Install new version first and then uninstall old version" upgrade order in "Upgrades" page. However please note that this option will work only if the files' components don't change from the old version to the new one (their names and GUIDs remain the same). Also, please note that there are some known problems which may occur when using the "Install new version first and then uninstall old version" upgrade option.

All the best,
Daniel

[ChrisGue]

Thanks for your reply.

1. This does not work, when the installation is started with "run as", e.g. when the user cannot elevate privileges and another account is required to install software.
In this case an option might be to log off the current user or prompt to restart the system. For this I need to detect if e.g. (at least) 2 users are logged in, and if so show a dialog box to restart the system (or logoff). How can I do this?


I do not see "Finish Execution". the latest is 'Install Finalize'. Is this because I use AI 7.1.3? Might an update solve the problem above?


2. when activating the option 'Install new version first ..." then a warning is shown:
"Your project contains some predefined AI custom action that are not compatible with this upgrade order:
- LZMA
So what does that mean and how to solve it?

Chris

[Daniel]

Hello,

1. This does not work, when the installation is started with "run as", e.g. when the user cannot elevate privileges and another account is required to install software.
In this case an option might be to log off the current user or prompt to restart the system. For this I need to detect if e.g. (at least) 2 users are logged in, and if so show a dialog box to restart the system (or logoff). How can I do this?

If the setup is launched elevated from the beginning, then I think the only option you can use will be to prompt for a system restart at the end of the installation.

I do not see "Finish Execution". the latest is 'Install Finalize'. Is this because I use AI 7.1.3? Might an update solve the problem above?
The "Install Finalize" is indeed the last action in the "Finish Execution" group in our latest version. However, an AI upgrade to our latest version won't be useful for your particular requirement.

2. when activating the option 'Install new version first ..." then a warning is shown:
"Your project contains some predefined AI custom action that are not compatible with this upgrade order:
- LZMA
So what does that mean and how to solve it?

This happens because you are archiving your installation files using our LZMA compresion support. The related upgrade order cannot be used alongside the LZM compression. To avoid this restriction you can go to "Media page -> and choose another archiving option.

All the best,
Daniel

[ChrisGue]

This happens because you are archiving your installation files using our LZMA compresion support. The related upgrade order cannot be used alongside the LZM compression. To avoid this restriction you can go to "Media page -> and choose another archiving option.

CAB files is selected and not LZMA, so why is this message? How to solve this?

And why has the compression algorithm anything to do with "Install new version first and then uninstall old version"?

[Daniel]

Hello,

CAB files is selected and not LZMA, so why is this message? How to solve this?

Can you please send us the .aip (project file) to support at advancedinstaller dot com so we can investigate its settings?

And why has the compression algorithm anything to do with "Install new version first and then uninstall old version"?

This was by design in our older versions of Advanced Installer.

All the best,
Daniel