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The setup wizard in Visual Installer

The Visual Installer installation software consists of two main parts: the visual editor and the setup wizard. In the visual editor you create your setup project; for example chooses which files to install and chooses which setup dialog boxes to show during the installation. The setup wizard is the setup program that shows these setup dialog boxes for the end-user and installs your files in end-user’s computer.

Setup wizard’s dialog boxes
There are many setup dialog boxes included in Visual Installer that can be showed in the setup wizard. There are for example dialog boxes that show information messages, asks for a destination folder / destination drive, asks for a license key, shows license texts (EULA texts), handles passwords, register the user etc. You can in an easy way choose which dialog boxes to include in the setup wizard / setup program.

Use your own texts and your own pictures
You can specify your own texts and your own pictures for the setup dialog boxes. You can also affect the behaviour for many of the setup dialog boxes. This makes it possible to fine-tune the setup wizard so it suits your needs.

More information
You can read more about the setup wizard and the setup dialog boxes that are included in Visual Installer on this web page:

> Setup wizard – Many ready-to-use setup dialog boxes included

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The Beatles ‘Love Me Do’ celebrates 50 years / Organize your Beatles songs

It has now been 50 years since the pop and rock group The Beatles released their first single Love Me Do. The single was released October 5, 1962 by Parlophone (EMI). The single’s B-side was the song P.S. I Love You. Both songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and was included in the album Please Please Me, which became their first album (it was released in 1963).

Organize your Beatles favorites
If you are a Beatles fan, or maybe have another favorite group or singer that have released many albums and singles, we have a great tool that you can use to organize your songs, music videos, images, documentary films, interviews and other information. With our tool CD-Menu Creator you can organize the information in a logical way and access information quickly and easily by navigating through a graphical menu interface.

CD, DVD, USB stick or hard drive
Whether you want to store the information on a CD, DVD, USB memory or on your hard drive you can use CD-Menu Creator. Through the program’s menu interface, you can access songs, videos, pictures, etc. in an easy way. If you for example want to start a music video, you just click on a button or a link in the menu.

More information about the program
More information about CD-Menu Creator is available on this page.

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Responsive Email Design: One newsletter for a smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop computer


In this blog post we wrote some words about how to design a newsletter so it can be read on a smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop computer without modifications. The email will adapt itself automatically to the width of the display / screen. This is called responsive email design and in the following blog post, written by Christian Vasile, you will find more details about how to utilize responsive email design to design a newsletter so it can be read on devices with very different display widths:

> Responsive Email Newsletter Design: Increase Mobile Readership

We also recommend you to read this article on our web site; it contains information about how to design an email newsletter for a mobile phone and smartphone:

> How to Create a Newsletter for a Mobile Phone & Smartphone

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Design for the email newsletter subscriber

Designers and marketers often make the mistake of concentrating on developing creative copy and layout for their email newsletters, not accounting for the entire experience of opening and reading an email. In an informative blog post Litmus (an email testing and email marketing analytics company) describes 8 crucial steps that a subscriber goes through when he/she interacts with an email newsletter. Litmus also provides tips on how to make those interactions successful.

You can read the full blog post, and see the full version of the picture above, here:

> 8 Email Design Factors That Influence Action

If you are a user of SamLogic MultiMailer we recommend you too read the blog post.

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Useful keyboard shortcuts in Windows 8

If you are using Microsoft Windows 8 on a computer that has no touch screen interface (for example a traditional desktop computer) you may find it hard to access some functions in the operating system. Things will be easier if you are familiar with some of the new keyboard shortcuts that were added to Windows 8. With these keyboard shortcuts you can handle apps, search for files, configure settings etc. more easily.

Article – New Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows 8
In this article on our web site you will find a list of useful keyboard shortcuts in Windows 8, that will help you to manage and master Windows 8 also on devices that have no touch screen interfaces:

> New Keyboard Shortcuts (Hot Keys) in Windows 8

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Paul Allen about Microsoft Windows 8

Paul Allen is a co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, along with Bill Gates, and for a few months he has used and tested a release preview version of Microsoft Windows 8, the latest operating system from Microsoft. He has run the operating system both on a desktop PC and on a tablet (Samsung 700T). In a blog post on his web site he gives us his opinion about the new Windows 8:

> Paul’s take on Windows 8

The blog post also contains some useful tips about how to use Windows 8; for example how to use the new Start screen (that replaces the Start menu) and the Charms bar. If you plan to upgrade to Microsoft Windows 8 we recommend you to read this blog post. Paul Allen explains what is good and bad in the new Windows 8.

Start screen

Charms bar

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Install your Visual Basic program with Visual Installer

Our setup tool Visual Installer has powerful built-in support for creation of installation programs for Visual Basic projects. If you develop software with Microsoft Visual Basic you can use Visual Installer to make a setup package for your application. Visual Installer is suitable for distribution of both commercial and non-commercial applications.

Supports Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET (2002-2012)
Visual Installer supports Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .NET (2002-2012). If you develop .NET applications you can let Visual Installer check that the end-user has the correct version of .NET Framework installed before the installation starts.

More information
You can read more about Visual Installer and Visual Basic on this page:
> Visual Installer can create a setup package for your Visual Basic project

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How to install files in the correct folder using Visual Installer

As described in this blog post, there exist two Program Files folders in a 64 bit computer with a 64 bit Windows. One folder is used as a storage place for 32 bit programs and the other folder is used as a storage place for 64 bit programs. And it is important that your program files are installed in the correct folder in a 64 bit system, otherwise there is a risk that your program will not function as expected.

Windows in different languages
If you create an application that may be installed in non-English versions of Windows it is important to know that the name of the Program Files folder may be different compared to the English version of Windows. For example in a Spanish version of Windows the name of the Program Files folder is Archivos de programa. In a Spanish 64 bit Windows, where 32 bit and 64 bit program files / binary files also must be placed in different folders, there will exist the following two folders on the user’s hard disk:

C:\Arquivos de Programas : For 64 bit files
C:\Arquivos de Programas (x86) : For 32 bit files

This can be compared with the folders in an English 64 bit Windows:

C:\Program Files : For 64 bit files
C:\Program Files (x86) : For 32 bit files

(more examples of localized folder names is available in this article on our web site.)

Use an environment variable
It is impossible to handle all of the above combinations by hard-coding the folder path to the Program Files folder. We also advise against any tries to do so. Instead you should use an environment variable in Visual Installer that has the name %PROGRAMFILES to handle this. By placing this variable in the beginning of a folder path, for example like this:

%PROGRAMFILES\SamLogic\Visual Installer

the %PROGRAMFILES variable will be changed to correct folder path, regardless of the bitness of the program files / Windows and regardless of the language of the Windows. This replacement will occur during the setup process in the user´s computer.

Easier to select a variable in Visual Installer 2012
In Visual Installer 2012 (version 9.5.15 or later) it is easier to select correct variable to the main folder of the setup project. We have added a button to the right of the Main folder text box:

If you click on this button (the button with three dots) the dialog box below will be opened:

Via this dialog box you can choose and include the %PROGRAMFILES variable, or another relevant variable, to the main folder of your installation project in an easy way.

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How Visual Installer handles 64 bit folders in Windows

In a 64 bit computer with 64 bit Windows installed there exists two Program Files folders and two System folders. The reason to this is that 32 bit binary files and 64 bit binary files must be placed in different folders. When you distribute and install a program it is important that you install your files in correct folders. 64 bit binary files must be installed in 64 bit folders and 32 bit binary files must be installed in 32 bit folders, otherwise your program may not work. It is not necessary to install data files with 64 or 32 bit data in specific folders; this is only important when binary / executable files are installed (for example EXE files and DLL files).

Our setup tool SamLogic Visual Installer handles all this automatically if you specify the bitness for your setup project in the 32/64 bit tab in the Setup options dialog box in the editor, and uses the %PROGRAMFILES and %SYSDIR variables when you specify destination folders for your installaton files.

The %PROGRAMFILES variable can be used in the Main folder text box in the File list tab in the Visual Installer editor. The picture below shows an example of usage:

And if a file should be installed to the System folder in Windows, you can choose the System directory (%SYSDIR) option in the Destination folder dialog box, as shown below:

If you use these variables in the way described above, your files will always be installed to correct folders in the system.

More information
More information about 32 and 64 bit folders is available in this article on our web site:
> Windows 64-bit: The ‘Program Files (x86)’ and ‘SysWOW64’ folders explained

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Visual Installer can show visually when a license key is correct

A useful feature in Visual Installer is the possibility to show visually for the user when he/she enters correct license key in the License Key setup dialog box. The user can see that the license key is correct before he/she presses the Next button. The picture below shows how it may look like:

As soon as the correct license key has been entered in the License Key dialog box, the text color of the license key is changed to green and a green check mark is shown to the right of the entered license key. This will simplify for the user when he/she for example enters a license key that is printed on a label.

This option can be turned on and off
You can turn on and off this option in Visual Installer’s editor. To turn this option on/off, open the Dialog boxes tab in the editor and click on the “…” button to the right of the License key option. Click thereafter on the More options button. In the dialog box that now is shown, you can turn this option on and off.