InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide

Chapter 2: Getting Started
Installation Fundamentals
Table 2-1: Getting Started Road Map (cont.)
Level of Familiarity Top Help Topics
You are an intermediate-level or advancedlevel
user of InstallShield.
Installation Fundamentals
An installation, in its simplest terms, is the “package” used to install your files and programs onto your
user’s machine. It is a complete collection of the application files, as well as logic that interacts with the
installer engine. The primary task of any installation is to transfer the application files from the source
medium to the end user’s computer. The complexities of the Windows operating system make it
anything but simple to create an effective, coherent installation without the aid of a utility such as
InstallShield.
An installation is divided into three levels: products, features, and components. The following diagram
illustrates this hierarchy:
Figure 2-1: Installation Hierarchy
If you are familiar with InstallShield, you may want to review the
following topics:
• Errors and Warnings
A product is the highest level of organization in an installation project. A product is usually one main
application (for example, a word processor) and all of the files and data that the application requires; a
suite of applications may also be a product.
A feature is the smallest installable part of a product, from the end user’s perspective. As the designer of
an installation program, you usually allow the user to choose which features to install and which features
to leave on the source media. In a word processor product, the main executable may be one feature, and
optional dictionaries may be a separate feature. A feature should be self-contained, in the sense that a
feature should not require sibling features. For example, a thesaurus feature should not require a
dictionary feature that the user can choose not to install. However, you can design features to contain
subfeatures, which allow the end user finer control over which files and data to install.
Each feature in a project is made up of one or more components. A component is the smallest installable
part of a product. The Express edition of InstallShield creates components for you automatically. The
actual breakdown of features into various components is not visible anywhere within the InstallShield
user interface. In addition, components are invisible to the end user. Each component contains files (and
other resources) with similar properties. For example, all of the files in a component will be installed in
the same directory on an end user’s machine, and all of the files in a component should apply to the
46 ISE-1900-UG00 InstallShield 2012 Spring Express Edition User Guide