No software will be installed or removed. - Can I change this message?

[Ian.W]

When a user runs my installation kit when the software has already been installed, the installer blandly reports:

Installation Summary

No software will be installed or removed.

Is there a way to change this message to something more informative, such as "The software is already installed" when that is the case? 

The reason I ask is it regularly prompts concerned calls from people who think there is a problem with the installer.

I fear the answer is to poke around in the MSI kit with Orca, and if so I'll be submitting a product suggestion!

--Ian

[Mert_A.]

Actually, not even Orca meddling can change that message. It comes from inside one of our installer framework DLLs. I will file a request to have this message reconsidered, so that either we provide a better message, or allow its customization.

Mert A.
National Instruments

[Ian.W]

Thank you Mert!

[Ian.W]

Well, I've just been through a round of annoyed/confused users who were caught by this misleading message. They waste time going around in circles and trying all sorts of their own tricks, sometimes creating more problems.

And all along I can just say that I can't do anything about it, which is rather frustrating.

What DLL is the message in?

And can I hack the DLL with a hex editor and change some bytes to improve this message myself?

I'm that desperate.

Thanks,

Ian

[wally_666]

Am I the only one that things the Distribution Kit installers have been getting exponentially worse since CVI 5.5?

With CVI 5.5 the installer would fit on two floppies and was easily Emailed as a *.zip file.  Now I'm finding it nearly impossible to have a distribution kit below 10MB. 

What's worse the 8.x installer won't let two copies be installed into different directories (i.e.. Rename the original to say: installation_old) and then install an update (which may or may not be an improvement from my user's perspective).  This side by side testing was pretty helpful in the past.  When two copies of the code can't run simultaneously, I use the Windows second instance options to make the second copy fail silently.

[Mert_A. · Accepted solution]

After asking around, I have been informed that this string is actually part of the resources embedded into setup.exe (not a DLL). When you build a distribution, setup.exe is created by copying and renaming [program data]\National Instruments\MDF\BinRTE\msisetup.bin. I tried loading this file in a resource editor, but the strings appeared as garbage. I believe this may be due to compression.

Unfortunately, I can't further support or direct you in this approach. You may be able to find a 3rd party tool that allows you to decompress/edit the resource strings.

I looked into the status of the request I filed (#112285) when you first posted this thread, and it had been rejected. I have reopened it and linked this thread so that it may be reconsidered.

Mert A.

National Instruments

[Ian.W]

Thanks again for your answer and effort, Mert.

If anyone else can chime in with tips on getting at those compressed strings in the embedded resources, I'd be very grateful.

--Ian

[Ian.W]

Success!  I was able to use Resource Tuner to edit the string.

This will save me quite a few complaints, and some users quite a lot of frustration. Thanks, Mert!

--Ian

[Mert_A.]

Glad to hear it! I'm sorry it had to be such a direct, low-level solution.

Mert A.

National Instruments

[msaxon]

For what it's worth, the resource strings are also editable in Visual Studio (VS2008 tried, assume others will work as well).