SUPPORTDIR

InstallShield 2018 » InstallScript Language Reference

During setup initialization, the installation locates a folder on the target system into which it can copy temporary files and files that were compressed into your installation. The installation sets the value of SUPPORTDIR to the fully qualified path for that folder.

In addition, files that you add to the Language Independent (or language-specific) file list in the Support Files/Billboards view of InstallShield are decompressed into SUPPORTDIR when the installation initializes, and they are deleted when the installation is complete.

To access a particular support file in an InstallScript project, use the SUPPORTDIR variable directly and then append the file name to the SUPPORTDIR value to obtain the complete path of the file. Following is an example of InstallScript event code:

prototype STRING GetSupportFilePathIS(STRING);

function STRING GetSupportFilePathIS(szSupportFile)

begin

    return SUPPORTDIR ^ szSupportFile;

end;

Note • The value of the InstallScript variable SUPPORTDIR is not shared among InstallScript Object scripts or between InstallScript Object scripts and the main installation script.

Project • Note that the value of the InstallScript system variable SUPPORTDIR is not the same as the value of the Windows Installer property SUPPORTDIR.

In event-driven InstallScript, the SUPPORTDIR system variable points to the folder that contains support files.

In Basic MSI or InstallScript MSI projects, each InstallScript custom action initializes its own engine. Each engine does not know where the primary SUPPORTDIR is, and each engine does not extract its own private copy of the support files. For instructions on locating the extracted support files from a custom action, see Placing Files in the .msi Database and Extracting Them During Run Time.

See Also