Visual Studio 2005 Windows Installer - custom folder not created on target

Cheryl

18y10.4k

I created an installation project for my C# application using the windows setup in visual studio 2005. Everything appears to work except creating custom folders. I am trying to have my installation create a root folder on my target system under the C: drive with several subfolders. To do this, I selected the setup project, then I selected the File System on Target Machine and used Action->Add Special Folder->Custom Folder to create myCustom folder. At the creation of myCustom folder in the setup project, the system set the defaultlocation property to [TARGETDIR], AlwaysCreate to False, Property to NEWPROPERTY1 and Transitive to false. No folder was created at install. I changed the AlwaysCreate to true, still nothing. I changed DefaultLocation to C:, still nothing. I changed Transitive to true, still nothing.

To ensure there were no conflicts in privileges, I put the installation on my flash drive, re-booted and logged on as Administrator, and attempted the installation again. Still my custom folder was not created.

Thanks in advance for any advice. I'm stumped!

I would appreciate any help on this problem.

2 Replies

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Cheryl18y ago
Thanks! You are absolutely right. I missed it before because I searched for the custom folder name which wasn't being created, not the sub-folders which were. I changed the DefaultLocation to include the name of my top level folder (custom folder) and my everything was placed in the correct location.
Scott Lysle18y ago
The custom folder bit; you can put whatever files you want to into the folder but with targetdir as the target, your files are all going to end up getting placed into the program folder. If you want to have those files appear in another folder within the program folder, just append the name of the folder you want to create in the program file to the targetdir, e.g.: [TARGETDIR]\SomeOtherFolder. When you run the installer, whatever you dropped into your custom folder will beplaced into the SomeOtherFolder in the program's folder.