| Reference information | |
|---|---|
| Objects on this page | File, Folder, Shortcut |
| Related topics | Installing Files, Installing Shortcuts, Working with project pages |
The Files and Folders page defines the layout of your product's folders, files and shortcuts. It is organized much like Windows Explorer: on the left is a folders tree that closely resembles the actual Windows folders tree and on the right the contents of the currently selected folder are shown in a list. Below the two, the attributes of the currently selected object(s) are displayed.
When designing your installer, you create further folders as required by your product and add the product's files to the various predefined and newly created folders. Shortcuts to your product's files are also created on this page.
The folders tree on the left defines the layout of the folders on the target system. It is modelled after the folders tree on recent Windows versions (in particular, Windows 2000, XP, and later), but with some important differences:
Generally speaking, do not change the layout of the folders tree on the Files and Folders page even if you think that it doesn't match your Windows system exactly. The folders tree was carefully designed to be compatible across all Windows versions from Windows 95 to Windows 2003 and will adapt at installation time to the actual situation on the target system. It's best to consider the tree as an idealized version of the Windows folders tree and and to rely on the installer to make up any differences between the ideal and the reality of the target system.
Creating new folders is not a problem if you add them as subfolders of existing magical folders rather than using hard-coded locations that might work on your version of Windows, but not necessarily on the customer's system.
Although the layout of the Windows folders tree is fairly consistent between Windows versions, there are occasional differences. For example, the Windows folder might be called C:\Windows, C:\WINNT, or something different altogether. The Program Files\Common Files folder is usually called C:\Program Files\Common Files on English-language Windows systems, but C:\Programme\Gemeinsame Dateien in German and C:\Program Files\Fichiers communs in French (yes, part English, part French).
Magical folders are indicated with the "starry folder" icon shown
left. They are "magical" because they adapt automatically to the
situation on the target system. For example, the Documents and Settings
magical folder maps to the C:\Documents and Settings folder on English-language
Windows 2000 and later systems, but it maps to C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen
on German-language systems, to C:\Winnt\Profiles on Windows NT4 systems,
and to C:\Windows on Windows 9x.
The most important magical folders in the folder tree are shown in the following table. See Standard folders for a complete list.
| Magical folder | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Target System | Root folder on the target system. At installation time, it is set to the root folder of the disk volume with the largest amount of free space and read/write access, which may or may not be the same as the Windows Volume disk volume. |
| Documents and Settings | Root folder for the common ("All Users") and per-user profile information. Its actual location differs between Windows 9x and Windows NT-based systems. |
| Documents and Settings\All Users |
Root folder for common ("All Users") profile information, i.e., application data, shortcuts, and other information that must be maintained for the system as a whole rather than a particular user. Shortcuts that must be visible to all users should be stored in its subfolders, for example Desktop, Start Menu, and Start Menu\Programs. If your product must store system-wide application data, for example presets, templates, etc., it should do so in a product-specific subfolder of Application Data, such as Application Data\<Publisher>\<ProductName> |
| Documents and Settings\Current User |
Root folder for Current User profile information, i.e., application data, shortcuts, and other information that is specific to the installing user. Shortcuts that must be visible only to the installing user should be stored in its subfolders, for example Desktop, Start Menu, and Start Menu\Programs. If your product must store user-specific application data, for example user preferences or customizations, it should do so in a product-specific subfolder of Application Data, such as Application Data\<Publisher>\<ProductName> |
| Program Files |
Root folder for application programs and their support files. Your product should be installed in a product-specific subfolder. If your product shares files with your other products, they should go into the Common Files subfolder; if it uses files shared with other parties (including system files), they normally go into the Windows\System32 folder elsewhere in the tree. Any files stored under Program Files and its subfolders should be considered to be read-only. Do not store application data or user documents that must be written or updated in this part of the folders tree. Instead, use a subfolder under one of the Application Data folders in the All Users or Current User subtrees for any application data that may be modified (and rewrite your application to access the data there), and store user documents by default into Documents and Settings\Current User\My Documents. |
| Temp | Temporary files folder, used to store scratch files during installation and removal. If you store any files here, you should not rely on them to still be present after the next system restart; on many Windows systems, utilities clean up the Temp folder each time the system starts. |
| Windows Volume | Root folder of the disk volume that contains the Windows folder, which may or may not be the same as the Target System disk volume. |
| Windows |
Root folder for the Windows user files. It contains a number of subfolders for the Windows system and program files; on any actual Windows system, these subfolders may or may not be physical subfolders of the Windows folder. For example, some Windows configurations store the system files (System32 subfolder) on a shared network volume, even though the Windows folder itself is always located on a local disk. |
In addition to the visible folder names in the tree, each folder also has an alias. This alias must be unique across the entire Tarma ExpertInstall project and serves as a symbolic reference to the folder's installation path. You can use it with the same <name> syntax that you use for symbolic variables; for MSI installers you can use either the MSI syntax [alias] or the Tarma syntax <alias> (which will be automatically converted to [alias] when Tarma ExpertInstall builds an MSI installer).
Folder aliases are an extension of the symbolic path variables that Tarma
Installer 2.x used, although many of the symbolic names have changed in Tarma
ExpertInstall. Similar to Tarma Installer 2.x, you can use expressions such
as <ProgramFilesFolder>\<ProductName> to refer to symbolic
paths that will be resolved at installation time.
To make the folder aliases visible in the folders tree, right-click on any folder in the tree, then choose Show aliases. To revert to the normal view, execute the same command again.
In alias view the folder tree icons are shown ghosted, and instead of the folder names the folder aliases appear. Below are screen shots that illustrate this effect: on the left is the normal view, on the right is the same folders tree in alias view.
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Note: If you edit a folder name directly in the folders tree (using Edit > Rename or the F2 key), you change the folder's installation name. However, using the same command in alias view changes the folder's alias, not its installation name.
Each folder alias appears automatically as a pseudo-variable on the Product Variables page. The value of the folder alias variable is the folder's installation path, defined recursively as the alias of its parent folder plus the folder's own installation name.
For example, the Windows Volume\Windows\assembly folder in the screen shots above appears as the variable GlobalAssemblyCache on the Product Variables page (because its alias is GlobalAssemblyCache) and has the value <WindowsFolder>\assembly (its parent's symbolic path plus the installation name of the folder itself). You could use the expression <GlobalAssemblyCache> in turn to define other paths.
For MSI installers, these folder alias pseudo-variables are not written
to the MSI Property table. Instead, they are used as keys in the MSI
Directory table. The overall effect is the same, though; MSI allows
directory keys to be used as if they were property names in [name]
expressions and resolves them to the full folder path when used.
For a complete list of predefined folder aliases, see Standard folders.
The folder contents list pane on the right shows the contents of the folder that selected in the folders tree on the left. By default, the contents list is sorted alphabetically by file or folder name, with all folders appearing before any files. You can choose a different sort order by clicking on the corresponding column; clicking a second time on the same column reverses the sorting order for that column.
To change the width of a column, point the mouse cursor to the separator on the right of the column's heading, then drag it to the desired width. Double-click the separator to make the column wide enough to display the longest item in that column.
You can issue file- and folder-related command from both the folders tree and the the folder contents list, and also from the Files and Folders page's toolbar. Furthermore, some of the commands on the ExpertInstall's main menu bar and its toolbar also apply.
To issue a command, select the folders, files, or shortcuts to which the command must apply, then do one of the following:
Tarma Installer 2.x upgrade notesThe most important differences from the Project - Files page in Tarma Installer 2.x are:
For more information, see the topics Project - Files page and Project - Shortcuts page in the Upgrading from Tarma Installer 2 section.
| Menu | Folder |
|---|---|
| Desktop (common) | Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop |
| Desktop (installing user) | Documents and Settings\Current User\Desktop |
| Start menu (common) | Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu |
| Start menu (installing user) | Documents and Settings\Current User\Start Menu |
| Programs menu (common) | Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs |
| Programs menu (installing user) | Documents and Settings\Current User\Start Menu\Programs |
| Application program group (common) | Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\<ProductName> |
| Application program group (installing user) | Documents and Settings\Current User\Start Menu\Programs\<ProductName> |
| Startup menu (common) | Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup |
| Startup menu (installing user) | Documents and Settings\Current User\Start Menu\Programs\Startup |
| QuickLaunch toolbar (installing user) | Documents and Settings\Current User\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer |