Setting a Feature’s Destination

InstallShield 2015

Project: This information applies to the following project types:

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Basic MSI

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InstallScript MSI

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MSI Database

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Transform

Each feature and subfeature can have a different destination location for its files. The default value for a new feature’s Destination setting is INSTALLDIR, which is set in the General Information view.

Windows Logo Guideline: According to the Windows logo program requirements, the default destination of your product’s files must be a subfolder of the Program Files folder or the end user’s Application Data folder, regardless of the language of the target system.

To change the feature’s destination folder:

In the View List under Organization, click Setup Design or Features.

Select the feature whose destination you want to change.

In the Destination setting, select one of the options from the list, or click the ellipsis button (...) to select or create a directory.

If you want the destination to be configurable at run time, the destination folder that you select must be a public property (containing all uppercase letters).

Note: You can leave the feature’s Destination setting blank.

Other Destination Folder Considerations

Changing Feature Destinations at Run Time

If you want to change a feature’s destination directory at run time based on the end user’s feature selection, you can use Windows Installer custom action type 35. For more information about changing a directory’s target location, see Changing the Target Location for a Directory in the Windows Installer Help Library.

Feature’s Remote Installation Setting

Setting the feature’s Remote Installation setting to Favor Source (or to Favor Parent when the subfeature’s parent feature is set to Favor Source) means that the feature’s files will not be installed on the target system, regardless of the feature’s Destination setting.

Component’s Destination Setting

Each component also has a Destination setting. If the feature’s Destination setting and the component’s Destination setting have different values, the component’s Destination setting overrides the feature’s. The feature’s Destination setting is optional, but the component’s Destination setting is required.

INSTALLDIR as Default Destination

The assumption behind using INSTALLDIR as the default Destination property for all features and components is that all of your application’s files should be installed to the same root folder. As a result, when an end user changes the destination folder for any of the features in the CustomSetup dialog, the destination folders for all of the features that are set to be installed to the path contained in INSTALLDIR also change.

Note: If the component’s destination is set to something other than INSTALLDIR, the component is installed to the destination that is specified for the component; changing INSTALLDIR has no effect on the component’s destination.

A directory property such as INSTALLDIR specifies a default value. An end user can 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 CustomSetup dialog.

Setting a Feature’s Destination

InstallShield 2015 Help Library

June 2015