Nils
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2018 11:55 am

Issues with installing Prerequisites

Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:24 am

I have some issues when it comes to prerequisites. In case one is not installed properly, e.g. user pressed (accidentally) cancel when prompted to install, it seems the prerequisite is handled as if installed. Installing it afterwards through modify in maintenance is not working.
In case the prerequisite was unchecked in everything OptionalFeatsDlg everything works as expected. The feature shows up as not installed and can be installed through modify.

Furthermore shouldn't the checkboxes of prerequisites marked as 'skip' in the PrerequisitesDlg be unchecked by default? Some users where actually confused thinking a checked box means the action 'skip' will be triggered.

Catalin
Posts: 6542
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:49 am

Re: Issues with installing Prerequisites

Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:35 pm

Hello and welcome to our forums,
I have some issues when it comes to prerequisites. In case one is not installed properly, e.g. user pressed (accidentally) cancel when prompted to install, it seems the prerequisite is handled as if installed.
In order to avoid this behavior, you can uncheck the "Continue with main installation even if the prerequisite is not installed". This will stop the installation process in case mistakes are being made and the prerequisite is not installed.

Furthermore shouldn't the checkboxes of prerequisites marked as 'skip' in the PrerequisitesDlg be unchecked by default?
This happens if "Install Conditions" are evaluated to "true" (i.e. if the prerequisite is already installed). The action is changed from "Mandatory" to "skip", so the setup will know to continue with the installation, even if "Continue with main installation even if the prerequisite is not installed" is unchecked. Indeed, it would be useful to change the action name from "skip" to "skip because already installed / present".

There is one way to install a feature-based prerequisite. When all the conditions from the "Install Conditions" tab are evaluated as false, and the other one is when you check the feature that contains the prerequisite in the "OptionalFeatsDlg".

Hope this helps!

If you have any further questions or doubts, don't hesitate to contact me and I'll gladly assist.

Regards,
Catalin
Catalin Gheorghe - Advanced Installer Team
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Nils
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2018 11:55 am

Re: Issues with installing Prerequisites

Fri Jun 29, 2018 9:13 am

Thanks for the quick response! Unchecking "Continue with main installation even if the prerequisite is not installed" makes the feature mandatory and it is meant to be optional. Ending the whole installation process if a feature was not installed properly or canceled would be perfectly fine it is still optional.
To me it seems a little weird that a feature that got canceled/failed during installation shows up as being installed when starting "Modify" in maintenance.

Catalin
Posts: 6542
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:49 am

Re: Issues with installing Prerequisites

Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:01 am

Hello,
Unchecking "Continue with main installation even if the prerequisite is not installed" makes the feature mandatory and it is meant to be optional
Unfortunately, this is a design limitation of Advanced Installer.
To me it seems a little weird that a feature that got canceled/failed during installation shows up as being installed when starting "Modify" in maintenance.
If a "Feature-Based" prerequisite is added to a project, a new "Feature" is created in "Organization" page from the "Package Definition" group which will create a simple registry entry in case the feature is selected for install. Even if the installation process of the prerequisites you wish to install is canceled, the registry entry is still created, which leads to the feature appearing as "Installed" when the setup is ran with "Modify" option in the maintenance mode. Unfortunately, this is another limitation of Advanced Installer.

Thanks for your feedback. In the upcoming future, maybe we will try to improve this functionality splitting the "Continue with main installation even if the prerequisite is not installed" option into two separate options, one of them being "Mandatory" prerequisites and the other one being "Rollback if installation of the prerequisite fails".

Regards,
Catalin
Catalin Gheorghe - Advanced Installer Team
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