Category: Tips

Visual Installer supports installation of VB6 applications, and most VB6 applications use ActiveX components. An ActiveX component is an easy way to give applications access to powerful functions in a library or to put well designed visual objects on the application interface.

Visual Installer can install ActiveX components. If you import a VB6 project to Visual Installer (via File – Import Visual Studio project – Visual Basic 6.0 project) all ActiveX components in the Visual Basic project will be added automatically to Visual Installer’s file list. But you can also add additional ActiveX components manually, in this way:

1. Choose the List – Add – Add files menu item in Visual Installer’s menu.

2. Browse to the ActiveX component you want to add.

3. Select the ActiveX file and click on Open.

4. The following dialog box is now shown:

5. Choose a destination folder for the ActiveX.
Normally is System directory used as destination folder for ActiveX files in VB6 projects. If you don’t find other information about the destination folder, select the System directory option.

6. Now click OK.

The ActiveX component has now been added to Visual Installer’s file list. It will be automatically registered during the setup process. Registration is an important part when installing ActiveX components, and Visual Installer will do it for you.

Sometimes ActiveX are dependent on DLL files
Mostly ActiveX files can be distributed alone, but sometimes they are dependent on additional DLL files. If you add an ActiveX file manually (as described above) and you get problems in another computers when running your application, you should check the documentation for the ActiveX, if also DLL files must be distributed in the same time. You can add the DLLs to the file list in the same way as described above. The destination directory for the DLL file must be the same as the ActiveX file.

See also
> How to create an installation for a VB6 application (tip)
> How to install and register an ActiveX component (general article)

There is a built-in script language available in Visual Installer. The script language is very versatile and with the script commands you can do different kind of file operations and other types of operations during an installation.

One common operation is to copy or move files during an installation. There are commands available in Visual Installer’s script language that can do this. If you need to copy or move many files at once, you can use the MCOPY and MMOVE commands for this purpose. Below is the syntax of these two commands described:

   
You can use wildcards with the %Source parameter. Example: “%DESTDIR\Data\*.txt”. The code examples below show how to use these two commands with wildcards etc.:

Example 1 – Copy many files at once
Copies all files in the %DESTDIR\Data folder to the %DESTDIR\NewPlace folder:

MCOPY %DESTDIR\Data\*.*, %DESTDIR\NewPlace

Example 2 – Move many files at once
Moves all text files in the %DESTDIR\Data folder to the %DESTDIR\NewPlace folder:

MMOVE %DESTDIR\Data\*.txt, %DESTDIR\NewPlace

   
More information
For more information about Visual Installer’s script language, see this web page:

> Advanced Tips & Tricks for SamLogic Visual Installer

If you are going to distribute a Microsoft Access database with your Visual Installer installation project, you probably want to install a corresponding Access runtime engine also, in your end-users’ computers. By installing an Access runtime engine, the end-users do not need to have the full Access version installed in their computers.

Installing an Access runtime engine can be done from Visual Installer during Visual Installer’s own installation process.

We have published a new tip on our website that describes how to do this:

> Tip: How to install Access Runtime from script

The Visual Installer editor contains 6 main tabs: File list, Design, Dialog boxes, Registry, INI files, and Components. But some of these tabs can be hidden if you never use them.

The following tabs can be hidden: Registry, INI files, and Components.

To hide a tab, you can choose the Special – Editor options menu item in the Visual Installer editor. Thereafter you can click on the Tabs tab in the dialog box. And now you can select (check) the tabs that you want to hide. See the picture below for an example:

Finally, click OK to save the settings.

Now will the tab(s) that you selected in the Editor options dialog box be hidden in the editor.

Sometimes it can be useful to check if Microsoft Office is installed in a computer during an installation. There are conditions available in Visual Installer’s script language that can be used for this. The conditions in the script language can examine the following:

• check whether Microsoft Office is installed in the computer or not
• check if the installed Microsoft Office is 32 bit or 64 bit

This can be useful if you for example:

• install files that require that Microsoft Office is installed in the computer
• install files that require a specific bitness of Microsoft Office (for example 32 bit Office)
• want to install different files depending on the bitness of Microsoft Office

How to check if Office is installed
If you want to check if Microsoft Office is installed in the end-user’s computer you can use the IF OFFICEINSTALLED condition in Visual Installer’s script language for this purpose. If you want to check the opposite, if Microsoft Office is not installed in the computer , you can use the IF NOT OFFICEINSTALLED condition instead.

Below you can see how these two conditions can be used:

How to check Office bitness
There are 32 bit and a 64 bit versions of Microsoft Office available, and if you distribute executable files or components that co-operate with Microsoft Office (for example with Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access) the bitness of the executable files or components that you install must often be the same as the bitness of the installed Office.

To handle this in a smooth way, you can use a another condition in Visual Installer’s scripting language. The name of the condition is IF OFFICEBIT=?? where ?? can be 32 or 64. For example IF OFFICEBIT=32, which checks if a 32 bit version of Office is installed.

Below you can see how this condition can be used:

Another example
Below is another example, where the conditions above are combined. First the script lines checks if any version of Office is installed in the computer, and thereafter the script lines starts an installation with the same bitness (32 bit or 64 bit) as the installed Office:

If no Office application is installed in the system, an information message box is shown (line 4) and the installation stops (line 5).

See also
> Visual Installer’s Scripting Language
> Check if the operating system is 32 bit or 64 bit

With the CD-Menu Creator menu designer tool you can create a graphical menu interface that contains more than 40 buttons in one menu window. This allows your customer to open many documents, applications or sub menus from the same menu page, but sometimes it can be difficult to make all buttons fit in one menu window in a proper way. Luckily there are some tricks that you can use and we will explain them below:

1. Place the buttons in 2, 3 or more columns
With CD-Menu Creator you can create a menu interface where the buttons are placed in columns. You can place them in 2, 3 or more columns. The picture below shows how it may look like with 2 columns of buttons:

Information about how to arrange the buttons in columns is available in this tip:
> Tip: How to create a menu interface with 2 or 3 columns with buttons

2. Use clickable links instead of framed buttons
Another solution is to use clickable links instead of framed buttons. Links takes less space than buttons. The picture below shows how it may look like:

To use clickable links in a menu, choose the Text only option in the Style combo box in the Buttons tab in CD-Menu Creator.

3. Shrink button height and distance between buttons
You can also change the height of the buttons, so they take less vertical space. The vertical distance between buttons can also be reduced, so they are placed more close to each other.

The height of the buttons in a menu can be changed in the Height text box in the Buttons tab in the CD-Menu Creator editor. Information about how to shrink the distance between buttons is available in this tip:
> Tip: How to adjust the button’s position in the menu window

But what to do if you need even more buttons?
Sometimes one menu window is not enough – no matter how you arrange the buttons. The solution then is to split the buttons (or clickable links) in two or more menu pages; for example a main menu and couple of sub menus. Luckily there is an easy way to do this, and the following tip shows how:
> Tip: How to create multiple menus – Two levels of menus

Bonus tip: Create button groups with titles
If there are some free space available in a menu, it can be a good idea to group the buttons in a logical way and add titles to the groups. This will make it easier for a user to locate a specific button. You can read more about button groups and group titles below:
> CD-Menu Creator: You can now create button groups with titles
> Tip: How to create button groups with titles