Run Program attributes (Tarma)

Enter the path to the program to run or document file to open, or click ... (browse) to open the Select Installation File or Folder dialog box that allows you to select a file.

To open a web page, specify the fully qualified URL including the protocol specifier, for example http://www.tarma.com/. You can also enter any other path or protocol that the Windows Shell on the target system knows how to handle.

Enter folder path from which the program must start, or click ... (browse) to open the Select Installation Folder dialog box that allows you to select a folder.

Enter the arguments for the program. Be sure to enclose any arguments that contain (or might expand to contain) spaces in quotes, for example "argument with spaces" or "<INSTALLDIR>".

Check this box and enter the localizable prompt text to have Tarma Installer prompt the user before the action is run; clear it to run the action without prompting.

If you use this option, then the prompt is displayed in a dialog box with (localized versions of) Yes and No buttons. The action is executed if the user clicks Yes and skipped if No is clicked. You should phrase your prompt accordingly.

Enter the conditional expression that determines if the action will be executed, or leave empty for unconditional execution.

Click this button to open the Select Installation Platforms dialog box that allows you to select the Windows versions on which the action must be executed. This platform selection acts as an additional condition for the action.

Select the action's execution mode from the drop-down list. The following choices are available:

Select the desired visibility of the external program from the drop-down list. The following choices are available:

Enter the name of a secondary process to wait for, or leave empty to wait only for the Target path process. This option only has effect if Time out is checked. It is useful if the external program starts a secondary program that must complete before the installer continues.

Note: If you specify a secondary process, then the Time out value applies to the total running time of both processes. Tarma Installer first waits for the Target path process; after it terminates, it then waits for the remainder of the Time out period until the secondary process terminates.

Select the exit code handling from the drop-down list. The following choices are available:

The effectiveness of this option depends on the way the external program is programmed. It is customary that successful completion of a program is indicated by an exit code of zero, and failure by a nonzero exit code. However, not all programs comply with this convention. Furthermore, the Run Program action itself may set a nonzero exit code if it cannot start the external program or if the time-out period expires before the program terminates (see Exit codes earlier in this topic).

Before you use the Exit code option, we recommend that you convince yourself that the external program in question returns an appropriate exit code. If you want to use the program's exit code to terminate the installation or control the execution of subsequent actions, we suggest that you set the Exit code option to Ignore and use one of the following alternative approaches:

• To terminate the installation if the external program returns a nonzero exit code, insert a MessageBox action immediately after the current Run Program action. Set the MessageBox action's Condition to LastExitCode <> 0 and set its Fail mode to Fail if run. Enter an appropriate error message in its Message field.
• To execute or skip any subsequent actions depending on the external program's exit code, use the conditional expressions LastExitCode = 0 or LastExitCode <> 0, respectively, in the subsequent actions. Please note that the LastExitCode variable will be overwritten by the next Run Script, Run Program, and Uninstall Product action.

Check this box and enter the time-out period in seconds to execute the action synchronously; clear it to execute the action asynchronously. If the action is executed synchronously, the installer will wait for it to complete; for an asynchronous action, the installer starts the action and then immediately continues.

Note: If the time-out period expires before the external program terminates, the installer continues with its next action. However, the external program itself is not terminated; it will remain active in the background until it terminates of itself or is forcefully terminated by the user or the system.

Check this box to skip the action if the installer is running in silent mode (/q command line option; TsuQuiet > 0); clear it to run the action in all modes.

Check this box to use the Windows ShellExecute function to run or open the external program or document file; clear it to run the program directly. This option is required if Target path specifies a non-executable file, for example a text file, HTML file, or web page. It is optional for executable files; in that case we recommend clearing this option.