This is probably more of a 'share the frustration' post than anything
specifically wpkg-related, but very keen to hear if anyone has a workaround?
I have an application (Samsung MagicInfo Premium Authoring tool - the user
tools for our digital signage system) that needs to be installed in the same
folder on each machine as the data files that it creates contain hardcoded
paths to content files stored in the local install directories. If you open
these files on a different architecture to the machine that created them, the
files aren't in the same place ("Program Files" vs "Program Files (x86)") so
won't open correctly.
Most of our PCs are currently running x86, but a couple of us (myself included,
and I'm the one who creates the initial content template and then hands off to
other people to maintain and edit) are running x64 and the intention is that in
future staff PCs will be replaced/migrated from XP to Windows 7 x64.
I have extracted the MSI from the InstallShield installation source, and it
does support the INSTALLDIR property via the msiexec command line. However,
Windows is being too clever. It will let me install to c:\foo, but if I tell
it to install to c:\Program Files\foo, it silently modifies that so that it
installs to c:\Program Files (x86)\foo instead.
Is there any way to forcibly install a 32-bit app into c:\Program Files on an
x64 machine?
Is the only option going to be the slightly messy approach to install to a new
directory in the root of c:? That will mean having to modify the existing data
files that have already been authored, but will only have to be done once,
before we create too many more.
I have also considered creating a symlink or junction within \Program Files to
point to the subdirectory in \Program Files (x86) - that works in that it would
allow a data file created on an x86 machine to be opened on an x64 machine but
still won't work the other way round unless I create an unnecessary "Program
Files (x86)" directory tree on all of the x86 machines too.
Has anyone dealt with a similar problem? I think the fault is largely with the
application, but really it would have made more sense if Windows always used
the same standard path for existing 32-bit apps which may or may not be aware
of architecture issues, and created a new path for 64-bit apps which would
always have been expecting to be 'special' and architecture-aware. But that's
a rant for another occasion.
Ta,
Steve.
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