Adding Existing Assemblies to a Project

InstallShield 11 Universal

Existing assemblies can be added to a Universal Installer project in the Assemblies or Installation Design view. In an RPM Installer project, they can only be added in the Assemblies view. An assembly is considered "existing" if it is located in one of your Assembly Gallery locations. Instructions for both are provided below.

Universal does not support multiple side-by-side installs of a single assembly within a single product or suite. It is an error condition at both build and run times for a single product or Dynamic Suite to require a specific assembly in more than one location on the target system. For more information, see Collaboration/Side-by-Side Assemblies.

Assemblies are added to a Universal Dynamic Suite after it has been built. See Adding Assemblies to a Dynamic Suite for instructions.

• Adding assemblies from the Assemblies view enables you to select from a list of all of the assemblies currently in all of the Assembly Gallery locations.
• Adding assemblies from the Installation Design view enables you to select from a specific Assembly Gallery location.

An assembly reference can be added to either a feature or the product in a Universal Installer project. When added to a feature, the assembly is only included in or referenced by the installation of the product if the end user chooses to install that feature. When it is added directly to the product, however, it is included in the installation or referenced by the product regardless of which features the end user chooses to install.

When an assembly is added to a Universal Installer project, it is added as a requirement of that feature or the product. A reference to the assembly is what is included in the project—the assembly is only installed on the target machine if you specify it to be installed (see Setting Existing Assembly Properties/Location property). Therefore, when an assembly is shared by multiple products, the assembly itself only needs to be installed once on the target machine by one product project. The other products that access that assembly need to only contain a reference to it in their project. The assembly remains installed on the target machine until all of the products that require it have been uninstalled—the assembly is uninstalled along with the last product that required it.

To add an existing assembly to a project in the Assemblies view:

1. Select the Assemblies view. A list of the built assemblies that are in all of the Assembly Gallery locations displays in the Explorer window.
2. Click the check box next to the assembly(ies) you want to be included in or required by this project. The properties of the selected assembly display in the Properties window.
3. Select whether to associate each selected assembly with a feature or the product.
   
   • To associate the assembly with a feature (Universal Installer projects only)—At the top of the Properties window, click the check box next to the feature with which you want to associate this assembly.
   • To associate the assembly with the product—At the top of the Properties window, click the check box next to the product at the very top of the tree.
4. Set the properties of the assembly.

To add an existing assembly to a project in the Installation Design view (Universal Installer projects only):

1. Select the Installation Design view. The current product tree displays in the Explorer window, and the properties of the root product display in the Properties window.
2. To associate the assembly with a feature, select that feature from the product tree in the Explorer window.
   
   --OR--
   
   To associate the assembly directly with the product, select the root product at the top of the product tree in the Explorer window.
3. Click Insert, then select Insert Assembly Reference.
4. Select Insert from Gallery, and the Assemblies dialog box displays the assemblies that are currently in the default Assembly Gallery location (<Universal home>/assemblygallery), with the first assembly preselected. The following information displays in the right panel for the assembly selected in the left panel:
   
   • Assembly Name
   • UID
   • Version
   • Dependencies
   To select a different Assembly Gallery location, click the down arrow and select the location. The assemblies that are currently in that location display.
5. Select the assembly(ies) you want to add to this project, and then click OK. The selected assembly(ies) is added to the product tree, and its properties display in the Properties window.
6. Set the properties of the assembly.

See Also

Adding New Assemblies to a Project
Creating a Project to be Built as an Assembly