Postvalidation View

AdminStudio 2023 | 25.0 | Tuner

Much like the Prevalidation view, the Postvalidation View allows you to ensure that your Windows Installer package is valid. The difference is that it also checks your newly created transform to ensure it is valid in relation to the base package. You can run the same internal consistency evaluators in the evaluation file, and receive the report back on the overall package and transform validity. By default, all ICEs are checked for the specified evaluation file.

You can select the information level of the displayed results by checking the Show Info Messages, Show Error Messages, and Show Warning Messages check boxes. If any errors are present, the Windows Installer package is invalid. Warning messages highlight potential problems, but will not cause validation to fail. Informational messages display ongoing information during the validation process.

If you started off with a valid Windows Installer package, yet postvalidation fails, it is likely your problems relate to changes you made in the transform. Make sure you look at the Evaluation Files and Internal Consistency Evaluators topic to see what each ICE message means. You can also consult the online MSI Help reference, available from the Help Menu, for more details.

It is also possible to start off with an invalid base package, but the postvalidation does not have any errors. If this happens, the properties you changed in your transform can bring the overall package and transform up to a valid package.

Output of the postvalidation appears in the Output and Validation tabs of the Output Window.

Viewing the Postvalidation Results

As each ICE is run, Errors, Warnings, and Info messages are generated, and are listed in the Output tab at the bottom of the interface.

Upon completion of the Postvalidation, the Validation tab is automatically selected, and all of the Errors, Warnings, and Info messages that were generated are listed in table format. Each table row lists an icon to indicate whether it is an Error (), a Warning (), or an Informational Message (), the name of the ICE that generated it, and a brief description of what caused it to occur.

If a row is grayed out, it indicates that the table cannot be edited in the Direct Editor (perhaps because it is in an external package). If a row is active, you can double-click on it to open that row’s associated table. The Direct Editor is launched and the table and/or table cells that are causing the problem are highlighted in red.

This feature makes it very easy for you to use the Direct Editor to edit values in the MSI tables of the base Windows Installer package and store them in your transform. For more information, see Direct Editor.

Note:If no errors appear in the results (providing you are displaying errors), then the package and transform are valid against the specific ICEs you specified, or against the entire evaluation file (if no ICEs were selected).

Tip:It is possible for a package that passed the prevalidation to fail the postvalidation. Remember changes made in the Setup Properties can affect your installation. If your package fails postvalidation, check all changes made in the Setup Properties for accuracy. To identify the original Setup Properties, you can create a new transform file that can be deleted at any time. Changes made using the Direct Editor can also affect your installation’s functionality.