specifying CEAppMgr destination directory for persistent CAB files

[lschlatre]

Is there a way to tell CEAppMgr where to place my CAB files before
installing them, and to not delete them after install?

I can successfully deploy my app to CE5 devices using CEAppMgr. The
multiple CAB files all get installed to the correct locations, then
get deleted. In an effort to allow my app to be reinstalled following
cold boots, I have created registry files in the "Application"
directory that look for and relaunch the CAB files upon cold boot
(Symbol MC3000 system). This works if I manually place the CAB files
in the nonvolatile "Application" directory where the REG file is set
to look for them. However, I cannot figure out how to direct CEAppMgr
to place and leave the CAB files in the "Application" directory during
my automatic install.

My install process is a self-extracting ZIP that unzips the 5 CABs and
corresponding .INIs to a temp dir on the users PC. It then launches a
bat file that calls CEAppMgr passing the 5 .INI files. This works
great, my app and supporting CABs (CF, SQL CE, etc) all get installed
correctly, but after it runs, the CAB files themselves are deleted, so
the auto reinstall after cold boots fail.

 

[Jerod Houghtelling]

Is there a way to tell CEAppMgr where to place my CAB files before
installing them, and to not delete them after install?

I can successfully deploy my app to CE5 devices using CEAppMgr. The
multiple CAB files all get installed to the correct locations, then
get deleted. In an effort to allow my app to be reinstalled following
cold boots, I have created registry files in the "Application"
directory that look for and relaunch the CAB files upon cold boot
(Symbol MC3000 system). This works if I manually place the CAB files
in the nonvolatile "Application" directory where the REG file is set
to look for them. However, I cannot figure out how to direct CEAppMgr
to place and leave the CAB files in the "Application" directory during
my automatic install.

My install process is a self-extracting ZIP that unzips the 5 CABs and
corresponding .INIs to a temp dir on the users PC. It then launches a
bat file that calls CEAppMgr passing the 5 .INI files. This works
great, my app and supporting CABs (CF, SQL CE, etc) all get installed
correctly, but after it runs, the CAB files themselves are deleted, so
the auto reinstall after cold boots fail.

I don't believe that there is anyway to modify CeAppMgr to accomplish
what you want. I wish it had that capability because I would
definitely be using it to persist programs. My current solution in to
create a batch file and have the cecopy.exe power tool do all of the
work. We are lucky because all of the programs that are on the device
belong to us so after we run the batch file we can cold boot the
device to get everything installed. Granted this is not as nice as
having CeAppMgr do all the work!

If anybody else is listening, how do you persist programs?

 

[lschlatre]

thanks Jerod,

I've resorted to creating a "parent" CAB that holds all of the app
CABs. The parent CAB gets installed normally using CeAppMgr. In the
"parent" CAB, I specify that the app CABs go to the persistent store.
I also include a .REG file that gets put in the persistent store and
is auto-merged upon each cold boot. This .REG file has autorun entries
that I've set to call wceload for each app CAB. OVerall it works
pretty well, except I'd prefer to not have to do the cold boot.