InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide

Chapter 8: Organizing Files for Your Installation
Registering COM Servers
• The file can be self-registered if it supports self-registration. Note that self-registration is not as
reliable as having Windows Installer register and unregister the file with extracted COM
information.
The first method listed—extracting the COM information—is the recommended method.
Important: Some applications, like WinRunner, insert hook .dll files into the COM extraction engine. This causes COM
extraction to fail and displays the following message: “ISRegSpy detects following module %1 hooked into this process,
which causes ISRegSpy to malfunction. You need to shut the application down and restart COM extraction.” If you
encounter this message, shut down the application and restart COM extraction, as the dialog box instructs.
Do not select the self-registering property for .exe files that are not self-registering. To self-register an .exe file, you need
to launch the .exe file with the /regserver command. However, if the .exe file does not support the command-line switch,
the .exe file will be launched during extraction at build time.
Task To register a COM server with InstallShield:
1. In the View list under Specify Application Data, click Files.
2. Right-click the file you want to register and then click Properties. The Properties dialog box
opens.
3. Click the COM & .NET Settings tab.
4. In the Registration Type list, select the type of registration that you want to perform on the file.
5. Click OK.
Filtering Registry Changes for COM Extraction
To prevent InstallShield from extracting undesired COM data from a COM server (either at build or
design time), you can edit the Filters.xml file and specify the registry keys to be excluded. Filters.xml
is in the following location:
InstallShield Program Files Folder\Support
The file must remain in this location after you edit it to ensure that COM extraction works properly.
Tip: You can also use the Filters.xml file to control which files should be included or excluded during dependency
scanning. For more information, see Filtering Files in Dependency Scanners.
Excluding Registry Keys from COM Extraction
The element in the Filters.xml file is where you add subelements for each of the registry
keys that you want the COM extraction process to exclude. Any keys that are listed here will not be
uninstalled when your product is uninstalled.
By default, the element has subelements for common system registry keys that are required.
196 ISE-1900-UG00 InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide