install4j releases

install4j Release 5.0.11

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:00:00 +0100

API changes:

Fixed NPE when an error message was show in com.install4j.launcher.ApplicationLauncher
Return null for special folder API when used on non-windows platforms instead of throwing an exception

Bugs fixed:

Fixed locale regressions in 5.0.10
Distribution file choosers were not shown if the install4j IDE was run with Java 7
"File version" property for uninstaller and and custom installer applications had no effect, the product version was always used for the Windows version resource
Unix installers were broken on some systems
Windows: If the user was changed during UAC, the program groups were not created for the original user
Installation directory chooser form component: Disabling the form component did not disable the chooser button

install4j Release 5.0.10

Thu, 8 Dec 2011 09:00:00 +0100

New features:

Added progress feedback for unpacking JAR files that were packed with Pack200 as a percentage number after the file name in the status line
Windows: The auto-detected language is now the "Display language" setting defined in the "Region and Language" Windows control panel, independently of the used JRE
Support Java 7 for the install4j IDE and the command line compiler (launchers and installers have already supported Java 7 before)

API changes:

Added ProgressInterface#setSecondaryPercentCompleted to add progress feedback for secondary tasks in the status line
UpdateChecker.getUpdateDescriptor threw an NPE instead of an IOException if the connection could not be made to the server

Bugs fixed:

"Directory chooser" and "File chooser" form components: The validation script was not executed when the user clicked on the Next button, so manual changes were not validated
"Installation type" screen: If custom IDs were defined for the installation types, the installer variable "sys.installationTypeId" was still set to the numeric ID of the selected installation type in console mode
"Write text to a file" action: Line separators of the runtime platform were not always used in the written file
"Installation directory chooser" component: A duplicate existing directory warning was displayed in console mode at the end of the form
"Installation directory chooser" form component: Validation was run even if the component was not visible or not enabled
"Download and install component" action: The action could only be added once to a project
All "Spinner" and "Text field with date format" form components: Value initialization was broken for response files
"Add Windows file rights" and "Add access rights for a key in the Windows registry" actions: Installer variables were not replaced in the "SID or account name" property
"Display progress" screen: Installer variables in the "Initial status message" property were evaluated at startup and not when the screen was activated
"Hyperlink URL label" form component: Installer variables in the displayed URL were nor replaced in console mode
"Add a desktop link" action: The specified icon had no effect for links to a .url file
ant task: If the "buildids" parameter was specified with an empty value, no media files were built
Creating a file association could throw an exception
A hidden installation component that was initially selected was not installed in console mode
Surrounding white space in answers to multiple choice questions in console mode was not ignored
Generated service launchers were not compatible under Red Hat Linux
Mac OS X: Packed custom code jars that are not in the distribution tree were not used for the uninstaller
Updater applications did not work if they were launched in the same process
Launchers on Mac OS X and Linux: Native library path entries containing environment variables to an absolute path did not work
The update descriptor file could contain duplicate <comment> elements for the principal language if it was also added as an additional language
Mac OS X: A preference store bug in Mac OS X 10.7 broke the detection of previous installations
Some operations in SWT applications could be slow due an application manifest entry
Automatic launcher integration did not work in MAC OS X single bundle media files
Single instance mode for launchers was broken if there were spaces in the name of the executable
Updaters that were started by launcher integration in the same process at startup did not switch to the native look and feel
Language auto-detection did not work in unattended mode
Fixed a Debian package warning
Linux/Unix installers: If the environment variable GREP_OPTIONS was defined, the installer could break
Closing the language selection dialog with the window close button could leave the installer hanging
"Bundled JRE" step in the media wizard: A change in the 32-bit/64-bit selection in the previous step was not considered for the choice of bundled JREs

install4j Release 5.0.9

Thu, 7 Jul 2011 09:00:00 +0200

New features:

Installer applications: Added a "Progress interface creation script" property to customize the display of progress information for unattended installations
Installer: Added a "Replacement script for language code" property. This can be used to change the auto-detected language or to implement custom auto-detection of the language that should be used.
Installer applications: Added a "Help customizer" for modifying the displayed help on the available command line arguments
"Set a variable" action: Added a "Register for response file" property
Added a "Hide help button" option on the "Description" tab of the installation component property sheet
Added a launcher variable "sys.tempDir"
Added a compiler variable "sys.time"

API changes:

Added com.install4j.api.context.UnattendedProgressInterface and com.install4j.api.context.DefaultUnattendedProgressInterface for the "Progress interface creation script" property of installer applications
Added Context#getVersion() to get the version of the installed application
Added Context#getMediaFileId() to get the media file ID of the installer
Added Context#getExtraCommandLineArguments() to get command line arguments that were not processed by the installer
Added FormEnvironment#reinitializeFormComponents() to re-run the initialization of all form components
Variables#getInstallerVariable(String) and Variables.getInstallerVariables() do not throw IOException anymore. If the automatically created response file cannot be read (as is the case for archives), system variables are still available from these methods
Calling UpdateChecker.getUpdateDescriptor with ApplicationDisplayMode.GUI would throw an NPE if the proxy dialog had to be displayed
Script properties could not have array return types

Bugs fixed:

Prevent PCA mitigation ("This program might not have installed correctly?) for Windows 7
Fixed exception when running an installer with certain layouts with Java 1.5
"Help text" tool tip labels in customizable forms were focusable
Text form components on tabbed panes: If validation failed with an error message, the parent tab of the text form component was not shown
Encoding in displayed HTML files was not detected correctly
"HTML display" form component and screens showing HTML text: For direct entry, installer variables were not replaced in the HTML
"Installation components" screen: Fixed flickering when toggling the help buttons in the tree
"Installation components" screen: Only show tree lines if the the component tree has component folders
"Create program group" action: On Unix, the default value of the "Directory for links" property did not use the user input from the "Create program group" screen
For a wizard index that was defined in the IDE, installer variables were not replaced in the keys and step names
Fixed NPE when writing a response file with a string array variable value containing a null value in one of the array elements
Util.showOptionDialog did not show default value in console mode and numeric keys were displayed. This was inconsistent with questions from form components. Keys are now taken from the first letters of the supplied options and can be set explicitly by prefixing the letters with '&'.
Links to screens or actions in merged projects could fail at runtime under some circumstances
For certain network errors, downloads would not time out and hang the installer
If no initial text was set for the status and version lines in the splash screen configuration of a launcher, subsequent updates via the API has no effect on Unix and Mac OS X
Generated .vmoptions files were not preserved by the "Uninstall previous installation" action
Installer variables could no longer be used when overriding system messages (regression in 5.0.8)
System installer variables were not available for archives
PDF screen and actions did not work anymore
Using installer variables with numeric values as arguments to i18n keys in expressions like ${i18n:myMessage(${installer:myNumericValue})} did not work
For launchers in archives, installer variables in system properties and arguments were not replaced with "null" if no response file was available. This was inconsistent with the behavior of launchers in regular installers
The error output of install4j command line tools was redirected to a file and not displayed on the terminal (regression in 5.0.8)
If an error occurred during script compilations, lots of warnings regarding serialVersionUIDs were printed as well (regression in 5.0.8).
Media wizard: In the "Exclude components" screen, if a folder was excluded, the component tree was not displayed the next time that the project was loaded
Media wizard: When pack200 compression was activated, file exclusions did not work for JAR files that were also used in custom code
The "createbundle" command line tool did not work in headless mode
File exclusions for directory entries in the distribution tree were not saved when "Add to subdirectory" was selected for the entry
Windows registry: Strings stored without null termination were not read correctly
Windows service shutdown did not work correctly when user code redirected System.in
Windows user creation failed under certain circumstances
Mac OS X: An unnecessary test file remained when the installer process was elevated
Mac OS X: It was not possible to use very long installer names
Mac OS X: No text field was shown for certain file chooser dialogs in the install4j IDE
Unix: Installers and launchers did not work if the $HOME directory was not writable
Unix: Several actions would fail to operate on files whose names contained a dollar sign

install4j Release 5.0.8

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:00:00 +0200

New features:

"Install files" action and "Download and install component" actions: In console mode, file names are now shown on the same line to avoid a long scrolling list of file names
In console mode, HTML tags are now removed in all text output. Multi-line messages use an HTML to plain text conversion that conserves line breaks, lists and similar layout tags.
"Create program group" action: Windows program group entries now have an additional "Run as administrator" option
Added a "Read text from file" action that reads the contents of a file and saves them to an installer variable

API changes:

ProgressInterface#setDetailMessage: In console mode, repeated invocation of this method overwrites the current line. This prevents a long scrolling list of temporary information.
Added Screen#hasDefaultButtons() for hiding the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen
Context#isUpdateInstallation was not updated when the installation directory was changed by the "Installation location" screen in console mode
Added WinFileSystem#createStartMenuEntry method with an additional runAsAdministrator parameter

Bugs fixed:

Regression in 5.0.7: File selection for installation components was not saved
Regression in 5.0.7: Using installer variables in custom localization files did not work as expected anymore, all variables were replaced at startup instead of at the time of usage
"Create a file association" action: On Mac OS X 10.6, the action did not have any effect until the next reboot
In console mode, "Downloading ..." was displayed even if no component data files were actually downloaded
"Multi-line HTML label" form component: In console mode, blank lines were printed before and after the text
"Fix line feeds" action: The file property was lost when reading a project saved by install4j 4.x
"Uninstall previous installation" action: An already installed JRE bundle was deleted, which could cause problems
It was not possible to insert i18n messages which contained installer or compiler variables by using the variable selector
Unix: Unwanted logging output of the java.util.preferences subsystem was not switched off early enough
Unix: Installing directly into the home directory did not work. This could be the case if a dedicated user was created whose home directory was set to the installation directory.
Windows launchers: Error messages about invalid environment variables in the search sequence contained an unresolved variable
"Fix line feeds" action: In console mode, exceptions were printed if a file or directory did not exist
"Directory selector" and "File selector" components: In console mode, if the bound variable was defined before the screen was shown, the selector did not show the defined value as the default value
Updater templates did not force unattended update installers to use the current installation directory which could be a problem if multiple installations of the same product existed
Max OS X: The code editor dialog would not appear the first time a script was edited

install4j Release 5.0.7

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:00:00 +0100

New features:

Windows installer: Language auto-detection is now also implemented in the native initial progress dialog. If the user language is configured for the installer, it will be used with a fallback to the principal language.
Windows launchers: Make executable name available for JVM discovery, for example in VisualVM
Support for .properties files in the editor for custom localization files (ISO-8859-1 encoding and java.util.Properties-style escaping)
Improved version comparison for auto-updates. Sequences like 2.0 beta 2 -> 2.0 rc 1 -> 2.0 are now compared correctly
"Uninstall previous" action: The log file of the uninstaller is now written to .install4j/uninstallPrevious.log

API changes:

Added com.install4j.api.screens.Screen#hasDefaultInsets which makes it possible to develop custom screens that take up all available space
com.install4j.api.context.Context#runElevated(...) and #runUnelevated(...) were broken
UpdateChecker#getUpdateDescriptor did not ask for proxy information if a connection was refused
AbstractBean#replaceVariables methods did not replace installer and compiler variables when called during the initialization phase of a bean
InstallerContext.isUpdateInstallation() returned true for any installation if it was called for the first time after the "Install Files" action had already run

Bugs fixed:

"Request privileges" action on Mac OS X: Pack200 compression did not work correctly if the main installation process was elevated
"Vertical spacer" form component: No space was added in console mode
"Welcome" screen: Form components with a horizontal size that exceeded the available space broke the layout
"Create program group" action: Menu integration on Linux/Unix was not always removed during uninstallation
"Windows user selector" form component: Any SIDs already contained in the bound variable were not displayed in the user selector and discarded on "Next". This prevented the pre-definition of SIDs with response files.
"Run executable or batch file action": Redirection files were not closed immediately after a successful execution
"Welcome" screen: Form components were not displayed in console mode
"Finish" screen: No message was printed in console mode
"Hyperlink label" form component: Nothing was printed in console mode
"Create program group" action: The "Display icon" property of URL links did not have any effect in modern Windows versions
Windows: Fixed UnsatisfiedLinkError during some installations
Windows launchers: In the fixed VM parameters for launchers and installers, a "\n" was replaced with a newline character
Windows: When running processes were detected in console mode, an exception was thrown
Windows: When starting an installer with the -h argument, a corruption warning was shown for the next start
Windows services: Do not report an error for service uninstallation when the service is already marked for deletion
Windows services: Do not report an error when stopping a non-active service
Windows services: The /status command line argument did not work under some circumstances
Mac OS X daemons: The service actions could fail if an 3rd part plist file with an error was present in /Library/LaunchDaemons
Mac OS X archives: Command line executables did not have the executable flag
Mac OS X: The elevation helper processes showed an extra dock icon when INSTALL4J_ARGUMENTS was defined for a GUI installer
Linux DEB files: Empty dependencies could cause problems with repositories
Some classes from the install4j API could not be used in scripts, because the compiler did not find them
Hosts name exceptions in browser proxy configuration were not respected for downloads in install4j
Proxy information for downloads was not always applied immediately when changed in the browser
Proxy information in the browser was used even if the proxy was disabled in the browser
Proxy dialog was not shown in unattended mode with progress dialog
The variable "sys.programGroupDir" was not available if the "Create program group" screen was not displayed
Excluding file sets in the media wizard from merged projects caused an NPE in installer
vmoptions files: "-include-options" command did not work correctly with relative files
If the "Do not delete temporary directory" build option was selected, generated script sources were still deleted
At runtime, missing keys in custom localization files did not fall back to the principal language
Sometimes the installer unnecessarily asked the user about replacing icon files on Linux/Unix
Prevent multiple error dialogs if auto-saving does not succeed
Quick search in list of bound installer variables did not work
HTML tags were shown for some messages in console mode
Some file modification actions printed exceptions in console mode
Hiding an installation component had no effect in console mode
The language selection in console mode was not presented in the user language, but always in the principal language
Non-error messages were printed to stderr instead of stdout in unattended mode

install4j Release 5.0.6

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +0100

New features:

"Install a service" action: Added a "Windows arguments" property for arguments that are passed to the main class
"Write text to a file" action: Added a "Log text" property for preventing the replaced text to be written to the installation.log file
"Run executable or batch file" action: In the redirection properties, /dev/stdout, /dev/stderr and /dev/stdin connect to the default streams of the installer application
"Check for running processes on Windows" action: For relative files in the "Additional executables" property, only the names of the executables are used for comparison. This enables checking for executables with an unknown location.
Installer applications: Added a "Disable console mode on Windows" property
Use a better file choose dialog in the install4j IDE on Mac OS X (from the Quaqua Look and Feel)

API changes:

Added Context#unregisterResponseFileVariable(String) to reverse the effect of Context#registerResponseFileVariable(String)
Added WinUser#getUserName(String sid) to get the unqualified user name
Added Win32UserInfo#getUserProfileDirectory(String sid, String password)
Added WinFileSystem#getDriveType() to check for removable drives

Bugs fixed:

"Run executable or batch file" action: On Mac OS X, the "Wait for termination" property had no effect if an application bundle was started
"Run executable or batch file" action: On Windows, use less quotes for arguments to avoid issues with programs that do not expect quoted arguments
"Run executable or batch file" action: If the .exe extension was missing, the executable was not launched on Windows under certain circumstances
"Run executable or batch file" action: In the installation log file, the values of the redirection files properties were reported without variable replacements
"Run executable or batch file" action: If a redirection file was set to an installer variable, and that variable contained the empty string, the execution failed
"Run executable or batch file" action: On Windows, AutoRun commands defined in the registry were not ignored
"Request privileges" action: On Windows, the action did not work with normal users when UAC was disabled
"Request privileges" action: On Mac OS X, external media files and elevation of the main process did not work together
"Add VM options" action: On Mac OS X, the action would fail under certain circumstances
"Install Files" action: Files were extracted before the user was asked whether an existing file should be overwritten. For large files, this would waste time for the user.
"Uninstall Files" action: The file classes.jsa of a bundled JRE was not deleted for server VMs
"Uninstall files" action: In certain cases, shared files were not uninstalled as expected
"Read a key from the Java preference store" action: The property "Preference root" could not be changed in the install4j IDE
"Installation components" screen: If multiple hidden installation components were on the same level in the component tree, only the first one was actually hidden.
"Delete files and directories" action: The action resulted in an error if a file did not exist, which conflicts with the behavior in install4j 4.x. Now the action returns with success even if the file that is to be deleted could not be found.
"Set a variable" action: Exceptions were not reported in the installation.log file
Add-on installers installed their own install4j runtime, which could lead to broken uninstallers if runtime library shrinking was enabled
Regression in 5.0.5: project reports were not opened immediately in browser
It was not possible to exclude the uninstaller in the "Customize project defaults->Exclude installer elements" step of the media wizard
Fixed a FileNotFoundException when JAR files were used in the custom code and multiple media files were built
Single class custom code entries did not work when compiling on Mac OS X
Windows: The silent installer did not automatically download a dynamic JRE bundle when the direct downloading option was selected on the "Bundled JRE" step of the media wizard
The "Uninstallation failure" screen was always shown for the installation dir on Mac OS X
Windows: When msvcrt71.dll was not present in windows\system32, a bundled jre was used, and a launcher was started after installation, the installer always asked for a reboot
The "Global exclude" pattern under Files->File Options was not saved to the project file
When changing between different project windows, the file chooser could show the wrong distribution tree under some circumstances
Fixed a rare string corruption problems with installer settings that were saved to the Windows registry
Public JREs on HP-UX were not found
Using links in the same installer application led to ClassCastExceptions at runtime under certain circumstances
The "preserve" option of the command line compiler was not available on the ant task
If a download URL was specified on the "Bundled JRE" step of the media wizard, it was used even if the "Don't bundle" a JRE option was selected
The -wait command line option did not work with unattended mode on Windows. Unattended updaters were mainly affected by this bug.
Form components: The tool tip help label from the "Help text" property was not shown under some circumstances
Unix launchers: Using installer variables for redirection files broke the launcher script
Choosing the "According to update schedule registry" mode on the "Launcher integration" tab of installer applications did not work
Windows: Services were uninstalled when the service path was changed during an update
A rollback could leave the file .install4j\response.varfile in the installation directory
Unix installers did not work with some IBM JREs
Partially downloaded files were not deleted
Mac OS X: Pack200 compression was not applied for JAR files in custom code
Mac OS X: Console launchers could only find the default JRE
Compiler variables could not be overridden for merged projects from the command line or the ant task
AIX: Exceptions were printed when an installer was executed
Mac OS X: The system menu was changed for in-process execution of custom installer applications
Do not write the default chkconfig info to unix daemon scripts if the custom script for the launcher already contains a chkconfig header

install4j Release 5.0.5

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +0200

New features:

Installer applications: Added new execution mode "Unattended mode with progress dialog" and child property "Title for progress dialog". This is the same functionality that is available from the command line with the -splash [title] arguments.
System installer variables such as "sys.userHome" are now available for launchers, e.g. in redirection file names and the in com.install4j.api.launcher.Variables class
The build options in the Build step of the IDE are now persistent

Bugs fixed:

Under some circumstances, the proxy dialog was not displayed and an exception was thrown instead
Installer variables could not be used for redirection files of generated launchers
Under some circumstances, privilege elevation did not work for normal users on Mac OS X
Installer variables were not resolved when executing a launcher from the installer, because the response file was not yet written
Update detection did not work for Mac OS X single bundle installers
Custom code entries with spaces in the path could not be found by script compiler
If -Dinstall4j.keepLog=true was passed to the installer, the temporary log file was not preserved if the installation was successful
Windows launchers: Service arguments embedded in the registered binary path did not work correctly
unpack200 failed on some Windows machines
"Run executable" and "Execute launcher" actions: On Mac OS X, application bundles were not executed with /usr/bin/open, so it was possible to start them multiple times
The command line compiler hung on Mac OS X when a vmoptions file without a trailing line feed was processed
Fixed NPE with launcher integration
Generated vmoptions files were not included when launcher was selected directly in the component selection
Custom code jars were not copied to the final destination when selected directly in the component selection
-Dinstall4j.debug=true was not set in debug scripts, so stack traces were not printed to stderr
installer variables: In properties with array values (like the arguments of a "Run executable" action), empty array values resulting from empty installer variables were not pruned from the resulting array
Unix launchers: Installer variables in fixed VM parameters and arguments were always replaced with empty strings
If there was a fatal error while writing the update descriptor, the build process in the install4j IDE would hang
Unix installers: Since JRE 1.6.0_17, the workaround for hiding annoying messages from the java.util.prefs subsystem did not work anymore

install4j Release 5.0.4

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:00:00 +0200

Bugs fixed:

Custom icon for the installer was not used for the wizard window (regression in 5.0.3)
Clicking on the "Finish button" in install4j IDE wizards closed the wizard immediately (regression in 5.0.3)
"Create a ZIP file" action: Installer variables were not replaced in the "ZIP file" property
Definitions in a response file that was specified with the -varfile command line option were overridden by predefined installer variables
Fixed a deadlock for Windows launchers
Fixed deadlock while saving a project
Mac OS X: The content of a vmoptions file specified in the launcher wizard was not added to the static VM parameters for command line and service launchers
Windows: Invisible windows could have the name "Default IME" or "theAwtToolkitWindow" which was displayed by the check for running processes. Now, the file name is used in these cases.
Auto-saving of a project file was not stopped after a frame was closed
Text form components: If "Prevent empty user input" was selected, disabled components produced a warning message, too
Transparency in customizable banner form screens was sometimes incorrect for the classic Windows Look and Feel
It was not possible to use ampersand characters in custom message files
Could not pass "-e" to unix scripts when VM pass-through parameters were enabled
Starting services with "For Auto start installations only" selected did not work for services generated by install4j
Custom installer applications in archives did not work when runtime shrinking was enabled
Using compiler variables for fixed installer arguments or VN parameters did not work when debug installers were generated

install4j Release 5.0.3

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0200

New features:

"Welcome" screen: The screen is now a container for form components
Media file wizards of installers: Added a project customization step to statically include selected installation components that have been marked as downloadable for the whole project
When invoking unattended installers with the "-splash" options, there is now a cancel button.
Added a "Change cancel button state" action
"Run executable" action: Added a "Variable name for return code" property (nested property of "Wait for termination"), so you can use the return value later on.
Added an installer variable sys.workingDir

API changes:

Added com.install4j.api.context.InstallationComponentSetup#isDownloaded()

Bugs fixed:

Media file wizards of installers: Excluding the default file set broke the build
Copying and pasting into text fields did not mark the project as modified
Line endings in debug installers for other platforms than the current platform were incorrect
Scripts in form components are now passed the actual context interface (InstallerContext or UninstallerContext) instead of the parent Context interface
The installer variable sys.windowsDir did not contain the system wide directory when using terminal services
The command line compiler only allowed a single concurrent instance
"Run executable or batch file" action: If the executable did not exist, the action did not fail
Mac OS X: Background of some form components in configurable banner screens was gray, if they were contained in layout groups
Project report: "Allow 64-bit" setting was inverted
Too much memory was used when writing the files log
Custom icon for uninstaller was not shown as frame icon
Custom banner image of configurable banner forms was not shown in preview dialog
Custom banner image of configurable banner forms was not firmly anchored to "North" and "South" if the image height was greater than the maximum available height in the window
The installer variable sys.tempDir returned the wrong value
Elevation of privileges did not work correctly on Mac OS X 10.5
The -splash command line argument in unattended mode did not work when a custom installer application was launched in process
Fixed arguments for custom installer applications were ignored when the application was launched in process

install4j Release 5.0.2

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0200

New features:

Windows: Add a window entry to the task bar if a dialog box is shown while the main installer window is not visible

Bugs fixed:

Pack200 compression was not applied
Display output of code signing post processor in order to help with debugging configuration problems
Installer applications: Variables in the "Custom watermark text property" were not replaced
The check for update action of the install4j IDE would crash under certain circumstances
Including certain JAR files in custom code lead to a "No disk space left" error in the installer
"Create program group" screen: Installer variables in the "Program group name" and "Directory for links" properties were not replaced
"Copy files and directories" and "Move files and directories" action: Single file to file operations did not work as in 4.x.