Regarding Admin Studio 11.5 version
Hi, i am re-packaging Mozilla Firefox, once i build for .ism , it showing 2 .ism project files, first one is (1) firefox.context.ism (size 279 kb) and another one is (2) firefox.ism (size 312), which .ism i should use for to build .msi?. Before this i used Admin studio 6 , in that i havent seen these kind of files i mean 2 .ism files. Please let me know the Reason/ way , whats the use of 2 .ism files, i know one is for to repackage to .msi.
Answers (2)
Sometimes is it necessary to repackage a Windows Installer package before you can successfully virtualise it. When some Windows Installer packages are repackaged, some of their data (such as files or registry entries) are excluded according to the normal Repackager exclusion settings. For example, files destined for the \Windows\installer folder are typically excluded. However, this type of information is occasionally necessary in order to successfully convert a Windows Installer package to a virtual package. To address this issue, when Repackager builds a Windows Installer pacakge, it now produces two .msi files: packagename.msi and packagename.context.msi.
Use the firefox.ism for repackaging, this is the file that installshield uses to store project information and is used to build an .msi for distribution.
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Further searching shows this answer from an old flexera forum: - Please see the following help article as reference:
Capturing Virtualization Context
http://helpnet.flexerasoftware.com/r...urecontext.htm
The context MSI contains the metadata registry and files that Windows Installer creates to manage installations - it isn't any actual application data. Since most applications don't really care how they were installed, this context data isn't usually necessary for the application to function. But it is possible for the application to search for one of its files by doing a MSI API query based on a component code of that file. In this situation the API call would fail unless the original MSI metadata is also put down by the context MSI.
The basic idea is that you should only repackage a MSI if you are interested in converting it to a virtual package. In this situation Repackager will combine the information in the main MSI with the context MSI to create the virtual package.
If you are repackaging to convert legacy packages into MSI packages, then you can ignore the context ISM/MSIs. - oreillyr 12 years ago -
Thank lot, its been really helpful. - appack14 12 years ago
Taken from InstallShield help:
Sometimes is it necessary to repackage a Windows Installer package before you can successfully virtualise it.
When some Windows Installer packages are repackaged, some of their data (such as files or registry entries) are excluded according to the normal Repackager exclusion settings. For example, files destined for the \Windows\installer folder are typically excluded. However, this type of information is occasionally necessary in order to successfully convert a Windows Installer package to a virtual package.
To address this issue, when Repackager builds a Windows Installer pacakge, it now produces two .msi files: packagename.msi and packagename.context.msi.
Further information can be found if you press F1 for yourself and read the topic in full by searching for 'context file'.
Dunnpy
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Thanks - appack14 12 years ago
