Good Installed, Bad On CD!

[onlyu2]

Morning!

We distribute CDs with material you can run from the CD or install. Using InstallShield, my runtime solution is fine when installed on the person's hard drive. If you run it off the CD though, it comes up as "Read Only." I would love any advice on why it would show up that way on the CD but not installed. I burn CDs on a PC using Easy CD Creator 4.

Thanks!

Ben

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Because the CD is a read-only medium. If all actions are read-only, including setting fields, etc., then running off the CD will work. If not, as you have seen, it will not.

HTH

Old Advance Man

[dbhill]

Once a runtime solution is burned to a CD and the CD is distributed; the user copies the files to their drive and the files are Read Only. The user has to go to Properties and uncheck Read Only. How do I set the files to be writable after copying from the CD to the drive?

~Dennis

[Kurt Knippel]

The best option is to use an installer app, then you put the actual files into an archive and the installer app extracts the dbs and runtime files onto the user's machine. Much more professional and by sticking the original files into the archive it preserves the Read/Write status of the files.

[dbhill]

Thank you Captain. I will follow this guidance in future projects.

~Dennis

[danjacoby]

One side comment (or perhaps snide comment -- you decide)

dbhill's "read-only" note applies only to Windows -- files copied to a CD and then downloaded to a Mac aren't automatically read-only.

I've talked with folks at MonopolySoft about this, and they were clueless.

[Vaughan]

Macs never had the problem.

As I undestand it, the Windows bug is that files copied from a r/o volume have their r/o bit set.

[alcam]

Any suggestions as to what is a good (free) installer for Windows?

[danjacoby]

If you have Stuffit from Aladdyn Systems, you can download the FREE expander and include it on your CD.

Of course, it's a pain in the @$$ navigating to the expander (which you'll have to do, 'cause Windows is sooooo kludgy in this area), but it does work, and it's about as close to free as you're gonna get.

[alcam]

Thanks. I have Stuffit. Are Stuffit Self-extracting archives proven to be rock solid on Windows?

[SteveB]

Stuffit and the other compression utilities are not really installers. Here I'm only talking about Windows: A true installer will create folders, move files, modify the registry, put icons on the user's desktop, and uninstall the app if the user desires. I use Setup Factory, which is fairly inexpensive, and very easy to get into. I looked at the 2 most popular and found them to be very difficult and expensive. I know that there are shareware of freeware installers, but they generally lack features and documentation.