InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide

Before You Begin
Chapter 6: Creating Installations
Before You Begin
The “Before You Begin” section of the InstallShield Help Library contains information that is helpful to
installation authors as they create new installation projects with InstallShield. The topics provide
background information on Windows Installer, the Windows logo program, and other areas of
installation development.
Introduction to Windows Installer
A Windows Installer installation program is distributed as an .msi package, which consists of a Windows
Installer database (.msi database) and related data files (.cab files, uncompressed data files, etc.). The
.msi databases, implemented as COM structured storage, contain dozens of tables that describe the
changes that are to be performed on the target system. For example, some of the .msi tables are:
• File, which describes the files to be installed
• Registry, which describes the registry data to be written
• Shortcut, which describes shortcut settings
Other .msi database tables describe the appearance and behavior of the installation’s user interface,
install and configure Windows services and ODBC information, determine characteristics of the target
system, and store icons and other binary data for use during installation.
From a developer’s perspective, perhaps the greatest change in Windows Installer installation programs
is that there is no explicit script to write. Instead, Windows Installer–based installations perform
standard and custom actions, where an action displays a dialog, queries the target system, or makes
changes to the target system. These actions are arranged into sequences, which are ordered collections
of actions.
Windows Installer includes a collection of application program interface functions, or APIs, dedicated to
managing product installations. Applications must call the Windows Installer APIs in order to take
advantage of features available with Windows Installer.
An integral part of Windows operating systems, Windows Installer provides a standard format for
component management as well as an interface for managing applications and system tools. Various
versions of Windows Installer are available as redistributables for Windows operating systems.
Although it is possible to create a Windows Installer package by editing .msi database tables directly, the
large number of tables and relationships among them makes doing so a formidable task. InstallShield
organizes the process of developing an installation for Windows Installer into various views, providing
graphical editors and wizards that shield the developer from much of the implementation detail that is
associated with .msi databases.
For more information on Windows Installer technology, see the Windows Installer Help Library.
Minimizing the Number of User Account Control Prompts
During Installation
One of the goals of Windows Vista and later, as well as User Account Control (UAC), is to allow users to
run as standard users all of the time. Elevation should rarely be required; if it does occur, it should occur
for as short of a duration as possible.
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