CODEWITHSUNDEEP
installshieldshortcutinstallscriptbasic-msi
Broots Waymb
Broots Waymb

Reputation: 4826

Running into issue creating shortcut on desktop

I've just created a custom dialog with a checkbox asking if the user wants to create a desktop shortcut. I used to always include a shortcut I'm not using the AskText() function as I plan on adding more pieces to this page later and want to simplify these few options to this one page.

I get an item on my desktop when I run, but it's not what I expect. The target seems to be pointing to a location on the desktop itself and not the actual executable. Also, this shortcut does not delete on uninstall (I'm assuming this needs to be handled separately anyway) and the shortcut needs admin rights to be manually deleted (which I don't want, for obvious reasons).

Below is my InstallScript code. It is in a custom action that was inserted after InstallFiles. 

function MyFunction(hMSI)

    STRING szProgramFolder, szItemName, szCommandLine, szWorkingDir;
    STRING szShortCutKey, szProgram, szParam, szIconPath;
    NUMBER nIcon, nResult;

begin
    szProgramFolder = FOLDER_DESKTOP;
    szItemName = "myProgram";

    szProgram = INSTALLDIR + "myProgram.exe" ;
    LongPathToQuote (szProgram, TRUE);
    szCommandLine = szProgram;

    szWorkingDir = INSTALLDIR;
    szIconPath = "";
    nIcon = 0;
    szShortCutKey = "";

    nResult = AddFolderIcon (szProgramFolder, szItemName, szCommandLine,szWorkingDir, 
      szIconPath, nIcon, szShortCutKey, REPLACE);

end;

I'm not quite sure where I'm going wrong here, although my knowledge of InstallShield (let alone InstallScript) is very limited.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1140

Answers (2)

yossiz74
yossiz74

Reputation: 929

As it turned out, this is a deferred custom action, hence the INSTALLDIR variable is not initialized (nor any other Windows Installer built-in variables). Change it to an Immediate-type custom action (and relocate it to an appropriate location in the execution sequence) and it should work.

Upvotes: 1

Michael Urman
Michael Urman

Reputation: 15905

To fix the shortcut's parameters, start by ensuring they are correct. Debug your function to verify you are actually passing what you want to. As commented, INSTALLDIR may not be available directly to an InstallScript custom action. A simple way to "debug" would be to add calls like MessageBox(szCommandLine, 0); to key points in your code. If you find you are passing something like C:\Program Files\Company\ProductmyProgram.exe, consider using the ^ operator to concatenate your paths: szProgram = INSTALLDIR ^ "myProgram.exe";.

To uninstall the shortcut, you have to understand that custom actions in MSI projects are not automatically reversed. So use a different approach. Either explicitly code up its removal during uninstall in another action, switch to pure InstallScript where logging will reverse your actions, or go with a proper MSI-based approach. For the last of those, define the shortcut in its own component, and give the component a condition that correlates to a property you set in your UI (or via AskText for now), or skip the condition and just use feature selection by putting the component in a child feature. Then Windows Installer will track and remove the shortcut for you.

Upvotes: 0

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