Add-On Components

After creating your customized browser package, you'll want to post it to sites from which users can download it. You specify these sites in Stage 3 of the IEAK wizard. You can also specify where your users get any new components or component updates. These are called Add-on Components.

When the user clicks Help, and then clicks Product Updates in the browser, the browser opens the Add-on Component URL. This also happens when the user clicks Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, clicks Internet Explorer 4.0, and then selects Add a component to Internet Explorer.

Note
If you do not specify an Add-on Component URL, the default URL is automatically determined by combining the first download site you specified and either Addon95.htm or Addonnt.htm. For example, if you specified http://webserver1/directory as your first download site, the Add-on Component URL on a Windows 95 computer would be http://webserver1/directory/addon95.htm unless you specified otherwise in the wizard.

If you specify an Add-on Component URL in the wizard, both Windows 95 and Windows NT computers will point to the URL you specified.

Sample Add-on Components Web pages

The IEAK Resource Kit contains a sample Add-on Component Web page, Addon.htm, which you can customize. This page is located in the \Program Files\IEAK\Reskit\Addons\HTML folder. This page also links to the files Head.htm, Main.htm, and Info.htm.

Copy these files to your download location or to the location you specify, then edit them in a text editor or an HTML editor.

The following is a description of the four sample files in the \Reskit\Addons\HTML folder:

• Addon.htm: Frameset that references these two files:
• Head.htm: Header frame for title
• Main.htm: Main frame with install scripting and link to Info.htm
  • Info.htm: Information about all of the available components

The focus here is on Main.htm, which contains the necessary HTML and scripting. Main.htm has three parts:

• Install scripting
• Table of check boxes, component names, and sizes
• Active Setup ActiveX control

Making it work

To make the scripting work as is, make sure that you have set up your files as follows:

• IE40cif.cab and Actsetup.cab should be on a Web server, and L_cif_Address, in the Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VB Script) should point to this folder location. (These .cab files can be found in \Program Files\IEAK\Download\%Language%.)
• The .cab files of the components you want to install should be on a Web server, and L_cab_Address (in VB Script) should point to this folder location.
• The table should contain only the components you have downloaded from Microsoft and want to provide.

This is all you need to make the Add-on Component page work for Windows 95 components. To include Windows NT components, look up the correct name in IE40.cif and add a check box with that name to Addon.htm.

If you are an expert Web-page author, you do not need to use the template provided in the IEAK.

Information for expert Web-page authors

Two scripting languages are used in Main.htm: JScript and VB Script. The JScript code contains the function Install(). This function is called when the user clicks the Install button at the bottom of the page and controls the flow of the install process. Install() makes calls to several VB Script subroutines.

The scripts use the name property (part of the input tag) of the check boxes to read the IE40.cif file. This file is contained in the IE40cif.cab file and is opened by the Window_onLoad() subroutine.

Note
There may be different names for Windows 95 and Windows NT components. This information can found in IE40.cif.

To find out whether a component is already installed, you can use the IsComponentInstalled() VB Script subroutine. Use this syntax:

IsComponentInstalled(ComponentID):
Where ComponentID is the same as the check box name and the value in IE40.cif.

Return:

• 0 = Component not installed
• 1 = Component already installed
• 2 = Component installed, but newer version available
• 3 = User Security lockout: No status determined