Build - Advanced

Check this box to generate a ZAP file for each distribution package. A ZAP (Zero Administration Package) file is a text file containing rudimentary information about the accompanying Setup package. It is intended for Setup packages that do not use Windows Installer, and gives system administrators an opportunity to manage the Setup package in an automated fashion.

The ZAP file will be created as <BuildFolder>\Installer name.zap, where .zap replaces the extension of the installer itself.

Check this box to generate a TWU (Tarma WebUpdate) update file for each distribution package. A TWU update file is a text file containing automatic update information for the current installer package. It is intended to be used in conjunction with Tarma WebUpdate.

The TWU update file will be created as <BuildFolder>\Installer name.txt, where .txt replaces the extension of the installer itself. Its contents will be generated from the following information in your InstallMate project (see Package Information File):

Check this box to keep any intermediate files created during the build process; clear it to have them cleaned up. The intermediate files should not be distributed, but are useful for diagnostic purposes and testing.

The following table lists the intermediate files created during the build process (for a complete overview of all output files, see Build output files):

Enter the symbolic build output folder path, or click the ... (browse) button to open a standard Browse for folder dialog box to select a literal folder. The build output folder is where the installation package, its auxiliary files, and intermediate files are placed during the build process.

The default build folder is <ProjectFolder>\<ProjectName>\<BuildName>, i.e., a package-specific subfolder in a project-specific subfolder of the project's parent folder, as documented in the Build output files topic. To reset the folder path to its default value, click the Reset button.

The actual build output folder is available through the <BuildFolder> variable for use in build actions.

Enter the symbolic manifest file path, or click the ... (browse) button to open a standard Save As dialog box to select a literal file. The manifest file is only generated if the Build manifest option of the package includes XML manifest.

The default manifest file path is <ProjectFolder>\<ProjectName>\<BuildName>(<ProductVersion>)-Manifest.xml, i.e., a package and version-specific XML file in a project-specific subfolder of the project's parent folder, as documented in the Build output files topic. To reset the path to its default value, click the Reset button.

Enter the symbolic packing list file path, or click the ... (browse) button to open a standard Save As dialog box to select a literal file. The manifest file is only generated if the Build manifest option of the package includes Packing list.

The default packing list file path is <ProjectFolder>\<ProjectName>\<BuildName>(<ProductVersion>)-PackList.txt, i.e., a package and version-specific text file in a project-specific subfolder of the project's parent folder, as documented in the Build output files topic. To reset the path to its default value, click the Reset button.

Enter the symbolic build report file path, or click the ... (browse) button to open a standard Save As dialog box to select a literal file. The report file is only generated if the Build report option of the package is set to something other than None.

The default build report file path is <ProjectFolder>\<ProjectName>\<BuildName>(<ProductVersion>)-Contents.rtf, i.e., a package and version-specific file in a project-specific subfolder of the project's parent folder, as documented in the Build output files topic. To reset the path to its default value, click the Reset button.

Note: The file extension of the path will automatically be set to the one appropriate for the report format: .txt, .rtf, or .htm You should just put a placeholder extension at the end of the path as in the default .rtf path above.

[Removed in InstallMate 9.116] This option only applies to InstallMate 9.115 and earlier. From InstallMate 9.116 onwards, the required stubs are generated automatically during the build process.

Select the desired Setup stub set from the drop-down list. Each stub set contains a full complement of the InstallMate Setup stubs, but they differ as indicated in the following table.

Other stub sets are available for customized versions of InstallMate.

Select the desired compressor from the drop-down list. The following choices are available:

Set the desired compression level for the compressor that was chosen under Compressor.

This is a sliding scale from 1 to 9: the lowest level (1) achieves minimal compression, but is fast and uses little memory to compress or decompress. The highest level (9) achieves maximum compression, but can take substantially more time and memory. The default setting (5) is usually a reasonable compromise between compression speed and resulting package size and memory requirements.

The effect of the compression level setting is more noticeable for larger and more files; if your installer contains only a few small files (less than 1-2 MB each), then the difference between compression levels may be small.

Note: Decompression speed is fairly independent of the compression level, but the decompressor requires more memory for higher compression levels.

Select the desired disk spanning option from the drop-down list. Disk spanning is the process of breaking up the compressed installation archive into smaller parts of a specified maximum size each, for example to fit them on disks of that size. This option only has effect for the Loader + Archive Packaging option in the current package; see Installer packaging for more information.

If disk spanning is used, then the parts of the installation archive are called Disk0001.tiz, Disk0002.tiz, etc. to indicate on which disk they should be distributed. (The Disk0001.tiz span should be included on the first disk, which is the same that contains the installer proper.)

Note that if you choose a very small span size (less than approximately 150 KB), then the total size of the first disk may be larger than the requested size, because it contains the Setup loader and stubs as well. However, for most realistic span sizes this is not an issue. The final archive part may be less than the maximum allowed span size, because it will only contain whatever remains at the end of the archive.

The following disk spanning choices are available:

Enter the amount of disk space to reserve on the first disk, in KB (1 KB = 1024 bytes). When building the installer, InstallMate will subtract this amount from the span size of the first span (only) and produce a correspondingly smaller first span. The second and subsequent spans will use the maximum allowed span size.

This option is intended to reserve space on the first disk if you want to include additional files over and beyond the installer, for example an Autorun program or a licensing file.

Tip: You do not have to allow for the room taken up by any files distributed in the plain file tree; the size of these files is taken into account automatically by InstallMate when it builds the installer. (For the purpose of this calculation, each plain file's size is rounded up to the next multiple of 4 KB to take the effects of the estimated disk block size into account, and another 4 KB is set aside for each folder in the plain file tree. Depending on the actual block size of the distribution media this calculation might be somewhat off, but is typically very close to the real disk space occupied by the plain file tree.)

Select the desired File version for the installer's executable. By default, the File version is set to the build date + time, but you can use this option to set the File version to the same value as the Product version.

Note: The Product version of the installer's executable is always set to the Product version of your product, as specified on the Product info page in your InstallMate project.

The following file version choices are available: