Installing files to "My documents" of all users

[PeterT]

Hello,

I just bought Install Creator Pro and I have some questions. This is the main one:

To finish my first installation package I would need to copy a non-empty folder to the "My documents" (or Documents in Vista Win7) folder of all users. Is this possible with Install Creator Pro? Is there a way to do it not only for existing users, but for all users, which will be created in the future?

If the answer is no, then: is there such a mechanism in Windows (so that I could create a small helper application, which would be invoked during the installation process)?

Thanks

[Yves]

Hello,

You can use the #AllUsersDocuments# macro for that (replaced by the Documents directory of all users, usually C:\Users\Public\Documents on Vista).

If you want to install all the files to this directory, then the easiest way to do it is to enter #AllUsersDocuments#\YourFolder in the Default Install directory in the Options tab.

If you want to install only a part of the files and don't want the user to be able to modify the name of this folder, select the files in the Files list and then select the File Options / Windows tab, set the Install Directory to "Other" and enter #AllUsersDocuments#\YourFolder in the box below. Note: the original directory tree of the files installed to a specific directory via this method is ignored, i.e. the files will be installed to #AllUsersDocuments#\YourFolder even if they are in dir1\dir2\dir3 in the source directory.

[PeterT]

Thanks for the quick answer.

But I am not sure if it is the solution for me.

It seems to me that the #AllUsersDocuments# is a place all users can access and change. So it is not the place I am looking for.

My software is a video editor, so each user needs a default place to save his own video projects as well as the resulting created videos. Additionally at the very beginning I do not want to make an empty folder, but I want to put there some files for the user to try out and modify them (each user on its own).

So I need to create a "#MyDocuments#\My movies" folder literally for each user on that computer. I think that this is the usual way how many software works (thet every user stores files under MyDocuments\something) so I am surprised that there seems to be no standard mechanism to achieve it at the moment of installation.

So isn't there a better solution for me than creating a an own helper program, which copies the files for all existing users and change the program so that it would create the folder for all new users?

I thought that maybe the "Default user" server the purpose to define what should the Users/xxxxx folder look like for any new user xxxxx. Is it true or not?

[Yves]

There is no option for that in Install Creator, it cannot create a folder in the MyDocuments directory of each user, sorry.

Maybe you can do it in your program? (if the local MyDocuments folder doesn't contain your folder, it could create it and copy the original files from the directory of your program in Program Files?)

[PeterT]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I considered including it into the application itself. Or maybe I will create the helper program, which would do it during installation.

In the meantime I also experimented with "Users\Default\My Documents". And I found out that in Win7 it works like I expected - when I copy something to that location and after that I create a user then the new user has a copy of all things from "Users\Default\My Documents" in its My Documents.
So maybe you could consider having a macro #DefaultDocuments# for this purpose. I am not sure if #AllUsersDir#\Default\Documents will do it for all language versions of Windows...

[Yves]

Hmm, yes we could add this macro... I'll take a look.

[Neil]

Hello

I am using, for now, an uregistered Install Creator build #39. I want to install to a sub-directory of "All Users" and I have tried using the #AllUsersDocuments# macro as the default installation directory but it just returns empty. Is this macro missing from my version of Install Creator or is it me that's missing something?

[Yves]

Yes, this macro is only in Install Creator Pro.

[Neil]

Yes, this macro is only in Install Creator Pro.

I'd better put my hand in my pocket then!

Thanks