I have the same projects for Advanced Installer 14.5.2, 14.8, 14.9. When build in 14.9, a warning appears, which is not present in 14.8 and 14.5.2: "The directory APPDIR is used by feature MainFeature, but there is no component that refers the directory".
Tell me why this message began to appear?
If it's my fault, then how to remake the project so that there is no warning?
Indeed starting with our 14.9 version of Advanced Installer this warning was added to avoid unpleasant situation when the APPDIR property is reset to default value on maintenance and uninstall mode. This happens when the following conditions are met:
1. no file resource is added under "Application Folder" directory (APPDIR property) from "Files and Folders" page
2. no component from "Organization" page is using the APPDIR property
3. at install time the "Application Folder" path is changed to a custom path, different than the default one set in "Install Parameters" page
When the above conditions are met, then when running the setup package on maintenance or uninstall mode the APPDIR property (Application Folder path) will be reset to the default path, thus the custom selected path at install time will be lost. This is due to a limitation of Advanced Installer.
To avoid this limitation we recommend you to use the APPDIR property at least for one component of your setup project, from "Organization" page.
Let us know if you have any further questions or doubts.
Daniel wrote:To avoid this limitation we recommend you to use the APPDIR property at least for one component of your setup project, from "Organization" page.
In the attachment to the message, there is a project 14.9. The "ProductInformation" component has the "APPDIR" property, but the warning still appears during build.
Investigating your AIp (project file) I can confirm you that the error message is triggered by the fact you do not have any file added under the "Application Folder" directory (right in the root of this folder) from "Files and Folders" page. In this case if during install time the APPDIR path is changed to a custom one (different than the default one), then on maintenance and uninstall mode the APPDIR path will be reverted to the default one. So, if your setup package make use on uninstall or maintenance of the APPDIR path, then this could generate an issue on uninstall/maintenance.
As a workaround solution you can try to add a simple/dummy file in the root of the "Application Folder" form "Files and Folders" page.
As a side note, in what regards our error message this is indeed misleading. You do have a component with the directory set to APPDIR, but this component includes only registry resources and thus the directory field is irrelevant for the above limitation. We apologize for the misleading error message. We will try to improve it in a future version of Advanced Installer, thank you for bringing this to our attention.