Releases and INI file Observation

Perhaps this is Working As Designed, but I found it surprising. We use the Release feature extensively for different versions of our products. Each release changes variables such as [INSTALLDIR] and [EXENAME], etc.

We build an INI file similar to the following:

[PgmPathData]
XYZ Program Path = [INSTALLDIR]
[NOTES]
Install1 = DBSYSTEM.DB
Install2 = IDAPI.CFG
Version = [Vers]
Product = [CMS_PRODUCT]
Version = [CMS_PRODVER]
EXE Name = [EXENAME]
My Documents = [MY_DOCUMENTS]
ProdGUID = [PRODUCTGUID]
Release ID = [SB_RELEASEID]
Server Manifest = [SRVRMNFST]
SYS = [SYS]
UnInstall = [UNINSTALL]

We were surprised to find that the [INSTALLDIR], [EXENAME], [PRODUCTGUID], [SB_RELEASEID] and [SRVRMNFST] variables were being expaned using the default values from the General Information tab, not from the Release Properties screen. I thought the Release Properties were resolved first before anything else happened so that items in the script (including INI definitions) would use the Release versions instead of the General Properties versions.

We can get around this by defining private variables with the desired values but that means duplicate work and increases the odds of changing a general variable such as [EXENAME] in the Release Properties screen without changing the corresponding private variable.

Any thoughts?
-O. D. Williams-

Hello,

The attached "ReleaseTest.sb6" test project works fine here.

If you compile the "New Release 1" Release and then exeute it, it creates the following INI:

[PgmPathData]
XYZ Program Path= c:\Release1ExeDir
[NOTES]
EXE Name= Release1Exe.exe
My Documents= C:\Documents and Settings\Friedrich Linder\My Documents
ProdGUID= {7E0D0B40-527A-11DE-6784-481221B418BE}
Release ID= New Release 1
Server Manifest= [SRVRMNFST]
SYS= C:\WINDOWS\system32
UnInstall= c:\Release1ExeDir\Uninst_ReleaseTest.exe

The information from the "Release Properties" are used.

Friedrich

Your sample program works as expected here at home on my XP machine. Monday I'll try it at the office on the Vista clean machine where we built the other program that did not seem to work as expected. I'll let you know the results. I can't see anything obvious that you have done that we did not do...:confused: Thanks.

-O. D.-