Evaluating Conditions; Working With Temporary Tables And Columns; Searching For Text In Tables - Symantec WINDOWS INSTALLER EDITOR 8.0 Reference

Evaluating Conditions

Working With Temporary Tables and Columns

Searching For Text in Tables

Windows Installer Editor Reference
To set a breakpoint
Click the action at which you want to set a breakpoint, then press F9.
You can set breakpoints on sequences and control events only.
To clear a breakpoint
Click an action with a breakpoint and press F9.
To clear all breakpoints at once, press Ctrl+Shift+F9.
To display the Condition Evaluator pane, select View menu > Condition Evaluator.
This pane lets you test conditions without having to add them to the installation. You
enter the condition or conditions in the Condition Evaluator, and then run the installation
in the debugger. The Condition Evaluator returns the values, either TRUE or FALSE, for
the conditions you entered.
To enter a condition, click in the Condition column of the Condition Evaluator pane, then
enter the condition. Conditions you enter are saved from session to session. To delete a
condition, click its Condition column and press Delete.
As you run the installation in the Debugger for Windows Installer, the Windows Installer
runtime creates a temporary table named _Property and adds temporary columns to the
Component, Feature, and File tables. The fields in these temporary columns represent
the current values of directories, user-defined properties, and Windows Installer
properties. This is where you do most of your debugging. Stop the installation to view a
particular value and make sure it's set correctly, or to change a temporary value to see
how that affects the installation.
To change a temporary field's value, triple-click in its column and type the new value.
Changing temporary values does not affect the installation file; it just provides a way to
try different values. When you decide what changes need to be made, update the
installation in Windows Installer Editor.
When you change a setting in an installation dialog box, the corresponding property
value in the _Property table changes. As you step through the installation, you'll notice
that certain tables and fields display in red. This means they have changed since the last
step or, if you are not stepping over, since the beginning of the installation or the last
breakpoint.
Within the Debugger for Windows Installer, you can search for text in the entire
database, the current table only, or the current column only. To do so, select Edit menu
> Find.
Debugger for Windows Installer
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