Build Multi Language MSI Only

[centracon]

Building a Multi Language MSI works good so far, but ...

in my company we build setups with data filling a whole DVD very often.
Gigabytes are packed/copied for each supported language and at the end only the "all" folder is taken.

I'm missing a second checkbox/radiobutton to select "Multi Language only".

Thanks in Advance,
Markus

[Mihai]

Hi Markus,

The multi-language package build process requires transforms from the base language package to all the other languages. After all the transforms have been generated they are embedded in the base language MSI from the "all" folder.

So every language package must be build in order to create every required transform. What could be skipped is the creation of the CABs / the directory structures. We added that feature on our TO DO list.

All the best,
Mihai

[good]

I take it this is not yet in 3.9. Hopefully we will see it in 4.0?

We sign our installer EXE files, so it's tedious to manually sign all these files that we don't use. And our install is only in 5 languages. People with more multilingual support will have worse problems. Skipping as many steps as possible in a "multilingual only" option, especially .EXE creation, would be a great addition.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Michael

[Ionut]

Hi Michael,

I take it this is not yet in 3.9. Hopefully we will see it in 4.0?

I am afraid not, but I have increased its priority.

We sign our installer EXE files, so it's tedious to manually sign all these files that we don't use.

Advanced Installer has the ability to digitally sign the install files it creates (EXE, MSI and CABs), provided they are not embedded in other files. So why don't you use AI to sign these files?

Regards,
Ionut

[good]

Hi Denis,

We are using AI to sign the EXE files, but it prompts for a password each time. This is not a problem once, but getting prompted 6 times seems a bit much.

Thanks,
Michael

[Ionut]

Hi Michael,

We are using AI to sign the EXE files, but it prompts for a password each time.

What tool are you using to sign your files: "SignTool" or "SignCode"? If you are using "SignTool", does your ".pfx" file have a password? (you can determine this by leaving the checkbox "The digital certificate has a password" unselected - the build process will fail if a password is required)

Regards,
Ionut

[good]

Hi Denis,

We're using SignCode.

Thanks,
Michael

[Ionut]

Hi Michael,

We're using SignCode.

In this case, the password dialog is displayed by the "SignCode" tool and since this program must be invoked several times, this is the reason for the multiple password prompts.

AI caches the password for ".pfx" files (because "SignTool" receives this password as a command-line argument). Therefore, you could create a ".pfx" file from the ".spc" and ".pvk" files, using either "pvkimprt.exe" or "pvk2pfx.exe". Then you will be prompted for a password only once.

- "pvkimprt.exe" can be downloaded from this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=EN

- "pvk2pfx.exe" is available as part of the Platform SDK; the latest version of the PSDK can be downloaded from this URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

The following page may provide additional information:
http://www.pantaray.com/signcode.html

Then, in the "Digital Signature" tab select "SignTool.exe" as the program to be used for signing (with the generated ".pfx" file).

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Ionut

[good]

Hi Denis,

I got back to this issue this week. Thanks for the advice about SignTool - it does just what I need!

Thanks again,
Michael

[Jim Beveridge]

It's possible to use SignCode without requiring a password by using the "cn" command line option. This post is therefore a "feature request" to add support for "cn" to AI.

Once you have used PVKIMPRT to read the SPC and PVK files into the cert store, you can reference the certificate by name from the cert store without needing the SPC or PVK files or the password. Here's an example:

Code: Select all

\Tools\SignCode\signcode -cn "Connected Software Inc" -n "My Cool App" -t http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timstamp.dll CoolApp.exe

I've successfully used this technique for the last two years in our automated build script. The only gotcha is that you have to uninstall old certificates so that there's only a single certificate in the cert store with the given name.

[st279]

Hi

Is there any progress on fixing the issue of only creating the 'all' directory rather than a directory for each language?

Also, could there be a command line option to specify which languages to be built?

Thanks

Sian

[gigi]

Hi Sian,

Is there any progress on fixing the issue of only creating the 'all' directory rather than a directory for each language?

I'm afraid that this feature is not yet implemented. We have it on our TODO list (I increase its priority) and will be available in a future version of AI. I'm afraid I cannot give you an ETA for how.

Also, could there be a command line option to specify which languages to be built?

I add this on our TODO list. Thank you for your suggestion.

Regards,
Gigi
______________
Gheorghe Rada
Advanced Installer Team
http://www.advancedinstaller.com