Hi,
I wonder if some of you would be good enough to give some recommendations
for a way of having a 'nice' installer. Users of my Pocket PC software are
forever complaining that the installation routine is too complex, so I'd
like to address it on the basis that a bad first impression is not good for
business...
Basically, it needs to do the following for the first installation:
1. Install the basic program components to the PPC (supporting the three
different processor types), and register the controls etc. It's written in
eVB, and a future version will be written in eVC.
2. Connect to a service on our web site, pass some information from the PPC
to the site, then accept another file back (generated on the fly at the
site) and install it on the PPC.
That's about it for the initial installation. As the data file changes I
guess I can write some kind of ActiveSync add-on to periodically check the
web site for changes and download them if required. However the installer is
the main thing I have problems with.
I looked at Wise Installer very briefly. A search on their site for 'pocket
pc' seems to indicate that it's nothing more than a fancy way of creating
the CAB file. I want to customise more than that - not least because the
service on the web site is one that we will write from scratch, not a
standard server.
I have a small VB program, thanks to the guys at devbuzz, which is capable
of copying the file from the users PC, via ActiveSync, onto the Pocket PC.
Would the best way be a more comprehensive version of that program which
also copies the various CAB files and runs them? I couldn't see anything
obvious in the MSDN RAPI documentation that dealt with this part of the
installation cycle, though I can see how to get the file over to the PDA of
course as I already do this.
As I write this, it sounds like the way forward is with VB and the RAPI, but
any comments would be most appreciated.
Mike.