the setup of Pdfcreator has three new issues (apart from using the Inno engine that is):
* The help menu says to specify /NoToolbar as a command line parameter to not install the toolbar. However this parameter has no effect, the toolbar still gets installed. After looking at the source code, the only unattended way to not install the toolbar seems to be to specify an INF-file via /LOADINF=pdfcreator.ini with the content:
[Setup] Toolbar=0
* After setting Toolbar=0, the toolbar didn't get installed anymore, however the setup files of the toolbar are still being copied in the installation folder. This seems odd.
* When running the setup with the parameters /SILENT /SP-, the installer still opens a popup to ask the user if an old version should be removed. IMHO the setup should actually be silent when started with the /SILENT switch and not interact with the user. At the moment you have to specify /VERYSILENT to get rid of that popup, however then you don't see the progress bar anymore and the installation is completely invisible.
However in my understanding /SILENT means "don't ask any questions/don't say anything" whereas /VERYSILENT means "be completely invisible / don't show anyhing". Equivalent to the MSI parameters /passive and /quiet.
I see three possibilities how an installation can take place: 1. Run the setup in an interactive way, with the help of wizards / popups / whatever. 2. Run the setup in a silent way, so that the user still sees what's going on but doesn't have to take any action, ie can let the setup run unattended. 3. Run the setup in the background, so that the user doesn't see anything at all.
I don't see a reason to provide an option inbetween the ones above, where the installer asks *some* questions but not all. What's the usecase of that? If you have to sit in front of the PC and babysit the setup, then you can run it interactively anyway, without /SILENT.
I am sorry that the help file is wrong on that point. We had planned to add this switch but it did not make it into this release. The Toolbar setup is copied anyway to allow the later installation if the user wants to do so, but nothing is installed at that point.
Regarding the silent/very silent option: The makers of Inno Setup intentionally have both types where silent still allows some questions and we agree, as removing some software is something the user should be asked about unless he is very sure what he is doing, which will be done by adding "VERYSILENT" ;-)
Installed 1.1.0 with switches below:
PDFCreator_setup.exe /forceinstall /DontUseYahooSearch /notoolbar /silent
however, toolbar and yahoosearch installed.
Tried even without /silent, but no success:
I’m prompted with toolbar and YS checkboxes.
…Found out that these things have to be included in custom install inf file
Toolbar=0
DontUseYahooSearch=0
instead of using command line parameters.
Now it works, yipee.
Although, if these commandline parameters are no longer available, they shouldn’t be displayed when I run
PDFCreator-1_1_0_setup.exe" /?
Please fix it.
(and also, it would be nice to display the full list of parameters, but it is a little more important not to include those not working)
Well, DaneKan seems to have it! (And thanks!) Running it with an .inf file with only the following text:
```
[Setup] Toolbar=0
```
...works with PDFCreator 1.2.0. Just tested it (a few times) on Win7 Professional x64, and neither the pdfforge spyware toolbar, nor Yahoo search, are installed, but PDFCreator is.
I didn’t test to see whether adding other text in the .inf file (to specify components, printer name, etc.) made any difference, but I *did* test a hybrid approach using command-line switches, and this seems to work great. Here’s how I’m doing an unattended install of PDFCreator 1.2 on our systems now (this should all be on one line, obviously):
"PDFCreator 1.2.exe" /silent /loadinf="PDFCreator.inf" /printername="Create as a PDF" /components="program,ghostscript, languages,languages\\english" /tasks="!desktop_icon"
I’m seeing the same problems oskarma is seeing — with PDFCreator 1.2.0, the command-line switches /NoToolbar and /DontUseYahooSearch don’t do anything.
What is the new procedure for not installing the toolbar?
oskarma, I just d/l and installed 1.2 with the following
setup.exe /VERYSILENT /loadinf="PDFCreator.ini"
with pdfcreator.ini containing only:
[Setup]
Toolbar=0
I didn't include or even test the Yahoo line you have because as far as I can tell it doesn't seem necessary (please someone correct me if it's doing something that isn't obvious, but I checked and don't see any Yahoo! toolbars installed and default search engine remains in tact).... with this, it installs silently and without the toolbar. By default in the newer installations (1.x +?) I think when you uncheck the "toolbar" the other option is unchecked regardless...
I tried this on a Win 7 system out of the box without issue it installed silently, and I re-ran it multiple times and it reinstalled fine.
On 2 XP systems, one with 0.97 and another 1.0 version already installed, I tried and with the /verysilent it started throwing permissions errors when it looks like setup is trying to delete / replace MSCOMCTL.ocx. I'm prompted with an abort/retry/ignore no matter what level of silence I'm in. ..Hitting 'ignore' seems to actually install the updated version though. On one of these systems the old uninstall path is invalid so uninstalling failed, another I uninstalled and then ran the reinstall and it's telling me the printer name already exists--the uninstaller ran successfully but oddly didn't actually delete the PDFCReator printer nor some of the .dlls, then when I re-run I'm getting errors overriding those files (pdfcmnnt.dll for example). Will have to try a few more machines to see if if it's the same story there but it seems like /verysilent is working w/out toolbar unless there's an already installed version and then it's just crapping out for other reasons.
Thanks bozzac all for your important information. Here when I install it through above mentioned ini file; it automatically uncheck "Create an entry in the Windows Explorer context menu".