Prevalidating Windows Installer Packages
AdminStudio 2023 | 25.0 | Tuner
Prevalidation compares only the base Windows Installer package to an evaluation file. This ensures that, when starting a customization project, the initial file was created using the guidelines in that evaluation file.
Performing a Prevalidation
To prevalidate a Windows Installer package:
| 1. | After creating a new transform file and specifying the base Windows Installer package, select the Prevalidation view from the checklist. The Prevalidation View appears, listing the name of the base Windows Installer Package. |
| 2. | Specify or browse to the Evaluation File you want to use. |
| 3. | If you want to run specific Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICEs), specify them in the ICEs to Run text box, separating them by semicolons if there are more than one (for example, ICE07;ICE13;ICE72). Otherwise, all ICEs are used. |
| 4. | Specify the result level by checking the Show “INFO” messages, Show “WARNING” messages, and/or Show “ERROR” messages check boxes. It is highly recommended that you check at least the Error check box so you are certain you are not suppressing results that occur in invalid packages. |
| 5. | Click the MSI Validation button ( ) on the toolbar, or click the Start button in the view. |
Viewing the Prevalidation 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 Prevalidation, 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 Directly Editing Packages.
Note:If no errors appear in the results (providing you are displaying errors), then the package is valid against the specific ICEs you specified, or against the entire evaluation file (if no ICEs were selected).