Best Method For Large Applications (Autodesk)

[shank]

Hi all,

Just wanted to get some tips on how any of you would do large applications like autodesk?
It has several small files, the task of repackaging it is easy enough, but is this the method you would choose?

The application suite also gets patch files from the company every now and then, and these patches do not work as it says the application cannot be found, when installing via a repackaged msi.

The MSI definitely installs a hell of a lot faster in comparison to their package, but if i could get the updates to work that would be gold, or if there is a much better method to doing these type of applications.

Cheers

[Daniel]

Hello,

The only option so that future updates released by the original setup manufacturer be compatible with your repackaged setup will be to repackage the updates too. However, when you want to repackage a patch the imported project should be manually edited so that be patch compatible with your original repackaged project. More exactly, you will have to make sure that all the patch rules are fulfilled by the original application repackaged project and by the patch repackaged project.

We have an improvement on our TODO list so we have out of the box support to repackage application updates so that they be backward compatible with the original repackaged application setup. We will update this thread when this improvement will be out.

All the best,
Daniel

[shank]

Thanks for that,

Does that mean the patch that i reauthor will be of a large size as well?

[Daniel]

Hello,

No, the patch you rebuild won't have a larger size, but you will need to do a lot of project manual editing work. Basically these are the steps you need to perform currently:

1. repackage the original app setup and import the capture into an AIP (setup project - e.g. importedOriginalSetup.aip)
2. repackage the app patch and import the capture into an AIP (e.g. importedPatchSetup.aip)
3. starting from the "importedOriginalSetup.aip" follow our "Patch Authoring" article steps to create a new "UpgradedOriginalSetup.aip" project which will contain the resources of the "importedOriginalSetup.aip" plus the resources captured in the "importedPatchSetup.aip". The resources captured in the "importedPatchSetup.aip" must be manually added and configured in the "UpgradedOriginalSetup.aip" so that they fulfill all patch creation rules (i.e. components have the same GUIDs, the MSi use the same name, same ProductCode, etc)

We will try to automatize the setp 3 from the above in a future version of Advanced Installer.

All the best,
Daniel

[Dan]

Hello,

This feature has been added in version 14.4 of Advanced Installer released on October 26st, 2017.

Best regards,
Dan