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CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso
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cinstp17.zip
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CHIEF.FAQ
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1995-02-09
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CHIEF'S INSTALLER PRO: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
-------------------------------------------------
Please READ this file BEFORE contacting me with any questions!!
^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
1. Q: WHAT RESERVED WORDS (COMMANDS) DO I ACTUALLY *NEED* IN MY
WINSTALL.INF FILE?
A: Most of the commands in the INF file are optional. However, some
of them are essential. At the absolute minimum, you MUST have the
following;
$TITLE
$DISK1
$SPACE
$TARGET
2. Q: WHAT FILES IN THE CHIEF'S INSTALLER PRO PACKAGE ARE ABSOLUTELY
NECESSARY FOR AN INSTALLATION?
A: As with the commands, most of the files in the package are
optional. At the absolute minimum, you must have;
INSTALL.EXE
WINSTALL.INF
The installation will run perfectly well with these two files.
However, if you want the "banner" to be displayed, you must also
have WINSTALP.DLL. If you are using a language other than
English, you must have a copy of WINSTALL.DLL compiled with the
string resources translated to your language.
3. Q: WHY DO I ALWAYS GET A DIALOG TELLING ME THAT THE INSTALLATION
IS NOT COMPLETE WHEN I KNOW THAT IT IS?
A: The installer tries to match the figure in your $SPACE line with
the sizes of the files installed (to approximately 2% either way).
A substantial (more than 2%) discrepancy leads to this error
dialog. The solution is to make sure that your $SPACE information
is accurate, or to disable the end dialog by using the
$NO-END-DIALOG command.
Note that if you do not ensure the accuracy of your $SPACE line,
the progress "percent" meter will also not be accurate - and in
such cases, you SHOULD use $NO-END-DIALOG otherwise your users
will get a spurious error message which will confuse them into
thinking that the installation has failed.
The easiest way to calculate ALL your space requirements is to
run AUTOCALC.EXE, AFTER completing your INF file. You can then
use the figures that it supplies to replace the ones you had before.
Please NOTE question 7 (below) as well.
4. Q: I HAVE SPECIFIED CERTAIN FILES TO BE INSTALLED INTO THE WINDOWS
SYSTEM DIRECTORY WITH THE $SYSDIR COMMAND. WHY ARE THEY NOT BEING
INSTALLED?
A: The $SYSDIR and $WINDIR lines only specify the DESTINATION of the
files on those lines (the default is to install all files into the
directory pointed to by $TARGET). When you use $SYSDIR or $WINDIR
you still have to put those files on your $DISK lines, otherwise,
they will not be installed at all.
Another possible cause is that your files are compressed, and you
are putting their compressed names (with underscores and all) on
these lines. The only place where you should use the file names
with the underscores (if they are compressed with the -r switch)
is on the $DISK lines. In EVERY other place where you specify file
names, you MUST use the original names of the files (i.e., the
names of the uncompressed files, before they were compressed).
5. Q: IN WHAT ORDER SHOULD THE ENTRIES IN MY INF FILE APPEAR?
A: The whole INF file is read and processed at once. This means that
the order is which the reserved words appear is not important in
most cases.
However, note that $USER-OPTION lines MUST appear before $OPTIONAL
lines, and that any reserved word which is numbered (e.g., $DISK,
$USER-OPTION, $OPTIONAL) must appear and be numbered in the correct
numerical order.
6. Q: IN WHAT LANGUAGE IS YOUR INSTALLER WRITTEN, AND WILL YOU SUPPLY
THE SOURCE CODE (ON PAYMENT OF A FEE)?
A: Chief's Installer Pro is written entirely in Borland Pascal 7.01.
I am sorry I cannot supply the source code.
7. Q: AUTOCALC SEEMS TO BE GETTING THE DISK SPACE CALCULCATIONS WRONG.
WHAT GIVES?
A: There are many causes for wrong calculations by AUTOCALC. The
primary cause is indiscriminate use of wildcards in your INF
file. Other causes, which might be related to the one already
mentioned are:
[a] Mixing wildcards and full file names on $DISK, $SYSDIR,
$WINDIR, $TEMPDIR, and $OPTIONAL lines - this might
result in some files being processed more than once.
[b] Having files in the directories being processed by
AUTOCALC which files are not going to be on your
distribution disks.
The bottom line is this - if you are going to use wildcards on
your $DISK and/or $OPTIONAL lines, you need to think very
carefully about what you are doing. It is up to you to arrange
your lines so that no file is liable to be processed twice -
this is because AUTOCALC processes your INF file _exactly_ as
it finds it.
In my view, it advisable to AVOID mixing wildcards and full file
names on $OPTIONAL lines. The $OPTIONAL lines in SAMPLE4.INF
are a good example of what will cause wrong calculations by
AUTOCALC.