"Extract-only" command-line parameter

Hello,

I currently have a standard installer project for a driver package which performs a lot of custom actions. The installer also writes registry entries (these have been added in the “Write registry entries” menu of the PB IDE) and creates several shortcuts (also through the “Create shortcuts” menu of the PB IDE).

I just wanted to add a command-line switch like “/x” to perform an “extract-only” installation through the command-line, which would only extract files without any other modification to the system.

I added custom actions which bypass everything in the different Package Main Events I’m using. I have tried to add an “Exit” custom action in the “After File Extraction” event, but this seems to be already too late, since registry keys and shortcuts are created anyway.

  1. Is there a built-in feature which I’ve missed to achieve this more easily?
  2. When exactly do “Create shortcuts” and “Write registry entries” IDE actions occur? I guess this is somewhere between “Before File Extraction” and “After File Extraction”?
  3. Is there another way to conditionally bypass the “Create shortcuts” and “Write registry entries” IDE actions?
  4. I know there are also custom actions to write registry entries and create shortcuts, but I did not manage to do everything easily there at least for shortcuts. Moreover, this would be fastidious do change all this in the existing installer…

Thanks for your help.

No, there is no solution yet, because we don’t have an event that occurs between real file extraction and registry/shortcut creation. We’ll add it to the next PB release (2018).

OK, thanks for the quick reply, as always :slight_smile: . I think I’ll then wait for the next release, not to change too many things in the existing installer.