site_archiver@lists.apple.com Delivered-To: installer-dev@lists.apple.com So the name you choose is particularly important. And here's my policy on installer names and IDs. Hope This Helps. Lying to the installer by hacking the BOM is a very bad idea. -pmb From: Robert Carroll <robc@total.net> Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2007 23:50:29 -0400 To: <installer-dev@lists.apple.com> Subject: packagemaker update problems Thanks for your reply Stephane. replace or change anything elsewhere on the computer. Is this a known issue? Is there a safer and more reliable way to accomplish this kind of update? Regarding the permissions issues: - Which OS version is the update run on when it does not work? Regarding the "does not runt at all" issue: This is a valid concern. I don't currently check the installed file location, which would obviously foil the update.

best wishes, Robert Carroll RSM Records Toronto http://www.rsmrecords.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/bc%40apple.com _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/site_archiver%40lists.a... So, being the Troy McClure of Apple updaters -- you may remember me from such updaters as iWeb 1.1 (which made iWeb smaller on disk) or iPhoto 6.0.3 (which had Combo and Delta versions). I'll be giving you some helpful tips on installer behavior today... When the installer is going to install, it looks for a receipt with the same name as the current package about to be installed. If there is none, it installs the files in the BOM (if there's a bundle with a newer version as noted in BundleVersions.plist, it will skip that bundle, and put a note in the log). The Install button will be titled "Install." If there IS a receipt with the same name, and the receipt has a version (noted in IFMajorVersion and IFMinorVersion of the Info.plist) that is newer than the one being installed, the installer prevents installation with an error. If not, the installer goes into "upgrade mode." The Install button will be titled "Upgrade." Also, the installer will find all the files/ bundles in the receipt that are not in the package being installed, and "obsolete" them (delete them) during installation. If an installer contains the complete software package, I call it a "full installer" and give it a name like iMovie.pkg. If an installer contains a partial set of software, I call it an "update installer" and give it a name like iMovie_701.pkg. At the risk of offending people by saying this is a "good" scheme, let's just say it seems to work OK for me. Note that if there ARE files to be gotten rid of, I have to do that with an additional script. But I have a script to do that, and the list is simple enough to generate during build. On Sep 10, 2007, at 11:19 AM, Peter Bierman wrote: The behavior you're confused about is actually the basis of the existence of the installer as opposed to just using tar or zip. When the installer detects that a different (not just older) version of the "same package" is already installed, it will remove any files that were installed by the previous version that are no longer part of the new version. At 10:40 AM -0500 9/10/07, Steve Stockman wrote: Does your updater have the same name and bundle ID as the full installer? I'm not sure whether this behavior is actually documented anywhere, but we've found that when you install a new package that has the same name as an old package already in /Library/Receipts, if the .bom file in the old package lists any installed files that do not exist in the new package's .bom file, the Installer will often delete such files (presumably under the assumption that the files are obsolete). The solution was simple: Build both the full installer and the updater, and then replace the updater's .bom with a copy of the full installer's. And the Installer never seems to complain about files named in the .bom that don't exist in the archive. ---------------------------------- Steve Stockman Software Architect Consumer Products - Macintosh Symantec Corporation www.symantec.com ---------------------------------- One cause of the problem with the updater has been somewhat identified. The full installer of my application bundle includes a folder inside "Resources" with a set of sound files. Since these files do not change with the updates, I do not include them in the updater package. In testing on my machines, if I don't at least leave the empty "Sounds" folder in the Resources folder, the update appears to delete this folder and its contents. Leaving the directory structure in place, correctly leaves the required sound files post update on my machine, but seems to still remove these files on some user's machines. I am trying to verify this. On Sep 8, 2007, at 3:05 PM, installer-dev-request@lists.apple.com wrote: The updater is set up to replace the app file in the MacOS folder of the client's currently installed version. It shouldn't touch any other files in the same package (ie. resource files or the encrypted registration info) and doesn't not - Which authorization are you requiring? I'm requiring administrator privileges to run either the installer or the updater. The files in the package mostly show me as the owner, read-only privileges or read-execute for others. Is it normal to leave myself as the owner, or more common to set this as root or something else? The resources folder must have read-write privileges for everyone, since the app will write encrypted registration data to this folder on its first run. It's possible this would be better if it was in the application support folder, but I prefer the concealed location in the app package. - Do you use a default location that is not '/'? No. - Do you take into account the fact that the application may have been moved by the customer? - Do you use a Locator to look for the location of the application? - Do you use Resource Fork for resources in your application? If so, do you split fork when you're creating the packages? I'm not using resource forks, however the sound files still have resource fork data. I would like to confirm that this data is not essential. At the moment the resource fork data is being preserved in the installer & updater pkgs. _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Installer-dev mailing list (Installer-dev@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/installer-dev/bierman% 40apple.com This email sent to bierman@apple.com This email sent to bc@apple.com This email sent to site_archiver@lists.apple.com