General Information Settings

Enter the name of the product. For information on how the product name is used, see Specifying a Product Name.

Enter a GUID that uniquely identifies this product. To have InstallShield generate a different GUID for you, click the Generate a new GUID button ({...}) in this setting.

Since this code uniquely identifies your product, changing the product code after you have already distributed your release is not recommended.

For more information, see Setting the Product Code.

Specify the value of the Windows Installer property INSTALLDIR, which indicates the destination directory where most of the files of the product will be installed at run time. The default value is as follows:

[ProgramFilesFolder]My Company Name\My Product Name

Instead of hard-coding a path, you can enter a directory property as part of the path. To select a directory property, click the ellipsis button (...) in this setting. This enables you to select the appropriate directory from a list, or to create a new directory within a predefined directory. Separate further levels of subdirectories with a backslash—for example, [ProgramFilesFolder]MyApp\Bin.

Windows Logo Guideline: To comply with the Windows logo program, your product's default destination should be a subfolder of the Program Files folder ([ProgramFilesFolder]), which can vary depending on the system's locale and user settings.

For more information, see Setting the Default Product Destination Folder (INSTALLDIR).

Specify the default destination folder for all of your application's database files.

Note: When you are specifying a destination folder for your application's database files, you cannot include a space after the closing square bracket (]), or before or after a backslash (\). For example, the following paths are not valid:

[ProgramFilesFolder] \MyApp\Bin

[ProgramFilesFolder]MyApp\ Bin

It is important to note when using an installer folder property such as DATABASEDIR that you are specifying a default value. An end user could change this value by setting a property when launching Msiexec.exe at the command line or by selecting a new destination folder for a feature in the Database Folder dialog.

Specify how the Windows Installer property ALLUSERS should be set in your project. The ALLUSERS property specifies whether Windows Installer should attempt to perform a per-machine or per-user installation. Valid options are:

On Windows Vista and later systems, if User Account Control is enabled and the user does not have administrative privileges, the user must be able to provide administrative credentials in order to install the product.

On other systems, if the user does not have administrative privileges, the installation displays an error message and exits.

The default value for all new projects is ALLUSERS=1 (Per-machine installation).

Note: The value that you specify here for ALLUSERS could be overwritten at run time. For more information, see Per-User vs. Per-Machine Installations.

Specify the type of database that you are creating. For a product installation, the default value is Installation Database, which is the recommended value.

The value that you enter is used on the Summary tab of the Properties dialog box that is displayed if you right-click the Windows Installer database and then click Properties.

Specify your company name.

The value that you enter is used on the Summary tab of the Properties dialog box that is displayed if you right-click the Windows Installer database and then click Properties.

Enter any comments about your product. A typical value for this setting is as follows:

This installer database contains the logic and data required to install MyProduct.

The value that you enter is used on the Summary tab of the Properties dialog box that is displayed if you right-click the Windows Installer database and then click Properties.

Indicate whether you want to show your product's entry in Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel. Available options are:

Specify whether you want to disable the Change button for your product's entry in Add or Remove Programs. The Change button enables end users to change installation options after the product has been installed. End users can remove or add features as needed.

Specify whether you want to disable the Repair button for your product's entry in Add or Remove Programs. The Repair button enables end users to run the Windows Installer repair option if any files have been deleted or corrupted.

Enter a general URL for your company or product—for example, http://www.installshield.com.

On some versions of Windows, the publisher name on the Support Info dialog box is a hyperlink to this URL. The Support Info dialog box is displayed when an end user clicks the support information hyperlink for your product's entry in Add or Remove Programs.

Enter the URL that you would like end users to visit for technical support information for your product. This URL is displayed for your product's entry in Add or Remove Programs.

Windows Logo Guideline: If you want to meet the requirements of the Windows logo program, you must enter a valid URL.

Enter the name or path of the Readme file for your product. As an alternative, you can link to a Readme file located on the Internet by specifying a valid URL.

On some versions of Windows, this information is displayed on the Support Info dialog box for your product's entry in Add or Remove Programs.

Note: You do not need to use a backslash (\) between a directory identifier that you select from the list and the file or folder name. For example, [INSTALLDIR]MyFolder\Readme.txt is a valid path format.

Specify whether you want to include an ISO/IEC 19770-2 software identification tag in your installation. If you select Yes, use the other tag-related settings in this area of the General Information view to specify the identification information that is not already specified in other areas of the General Information view.

Enter a unique ID that identifies the specific version of this specific product. To have InstallShield generate a different GUID for you, click the Generate a new GUID button (...) in this setting.

Note that InstallShield uses the value that you enter as part of the name of the tag file (TagCreatorID_UniqueID.swidtag). Therefore, the ID that you enter must not contain any characters that are invalid for file names.

Enter the registration ID of the organization that created the tag. This ID helps to differentiate between different legal organizations that have the same creator name but are in different countries.

The convention for the registration ID is as follows:

regid.YYYY-MM.ReversedDomainName,division

The registration ID consists of the following parts:

Note that InstallShield uses the value that you enter as part of the name of the tag file (TagCreatorID_UniqueID.swidtag). Therefore, the ID that you enter must not contain any characters that are invalid for file names.

Enter the registration ID of the organization that created the software. This ID helps to differentiate between different legal organizations that have the same creator name but are in different countries.

This setting is optional. If you leave this setting blank, InstallShield uses the value of the Tag Creator ID setting for the software creator ID.

The convention for the registration ID is as follows:

regid.YYYY-MM.ReversedDomainName,division

The registration ID consists of the following parts: