InstallShield has put out a
White
Paper on converting from version 5.5 to version 6.x. Although that paper is helpful and fairly accurate as far as it goes, it is incomplete. Here are some additional changes that you may need to look out for.
- The keyword
void, which is required on some function prototypes, is
not documented. The keyword is needed if the function contains a RETURN with no value.
- When defining arrays in
typedefs, the syntax has changed from brackets to parentheses (but not in the online help and
web site documentation).
IS5: szElement String [40];
IS6: szElement String (40);
- The built-in variable
MODE is now read-only, as stated in the migration white
paper. However, the online help says that you can change it. (The
web site documentation is silent on the subject.)
- If you are migrating custom dialog source code, keep these points in mind…
- In IS5.5, the source code was provided. It is not provided for IS6.2, though the dialog sampler continues to provide
filenames. You can get a good start with the IS5 source code, but because some dialogs don't exist in IS5 (e.g.
SdComponentTree),
you need to write source code from scratch.
- In IS5.5, one could
#include sddialog.rul and one's custom sd*.rul
files would automatically be used. In IS6.2, these files must be
explicitly #included.
- You need to remove references to
nSdDialog.
- You may need an additional function call to set the text in the white banner; I can no longer find any documentation on this.
- The migration white paper says that we can
continue to use the Windows 95-style dialogs and to look at the help to
learn how. Although the answer is in the help, you can't find it via the Index tab. In any case, you can get to it
here.
- In IS5.5, a typical value of
SUPPORTDIR was c:\temp\_istmp1\_istmp0. Now they look like c:\temp\{2f1301df-7a0a-4c64-899d-cce8b8685fb2}. Also, in IS5.5, if you added additional files to SUPPORTDIR, they would be deleted at the conclusion of the setup and in any event, the entire directory would be deleted. Neither of these functions happens in IS6.2.
- In IS5 the function
LaunchAppAndWait
returned 1 for success. In IS6 this has been changed to 0 to make it consistent with other functions. But the docs haven't been updated.
- In IS5, the function
SdFinishReboot
would not return if the user decided to reboot. In IS6.2, the function returns in all cases; the reboot does not occur until the script exits.
- In IS5, you could create a directory such as "c:\Projects\Migration\Media\Default\Disk Images\Test" and it would not be touched by the IDE. However, In IS6.2, if you do this it will be deleted when you rebuild the media.
- In IS5, opening a file via
OpenFile
would do so in a mode that allowed other processes to access the file. In IS6, the file is opened with exclusive access. This may also be the case with
CreateFile
Last updated: May 22, 2001 *
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