Summary

Synopsis

This article discusses how to create, modify, and remove environment variables from the Environment Variables view in InstallShield. It also talks about the Environment table in the Direct Editor view. To create, modify, or remove environment variables, you will need to author the Environment Variables section under System Configuration view in your project.

Discussion

Follow these steps to create an environment variable:

1. Open the Environment Variables view.
2. Right-click the Environment Variables node and select Add Environment Variable.
3. In the Component property, select a component you want to associate with this environment variable. Each change is associated with a component and takes place only if that component is set to install to the target machine.
4. In the Value property, enter the value or path in the value setting. Predefined path identifiers can be used in this field. If you are specifying more than one path, separate them with a semicolon.
5. In the On Install property, choose one of the following actions:
   • Set: If Set is selected, the value is set as dictated by Placement property. If the environment variable does not exist on the machine, it will be created during the installation.
   • Create: Create sets the value if it does not already exist based on the Placement setting. If the variable does not exist on the machine, the Placement setting is ignored.
   • Remove: Remove deletes the environment variable from the system.
6. In the Placement property, specify the placement of the value or path when modifying existing variables using one of the following values:
   • Append: This option appends the path specified in the Value property of the environment variable to an existing path.
   • Prefix: This option prefixes or appends the path specified in the Value property of the environment variable to an existing path at the beginning of the path.
   • Replace: This option replaces the existing path with the path specified in the Value property of the environment variable.
7. In the On Uninstall property, you have the option to Remove or Leave the environment variable on the machine.
8. In the Type property, specify the type of variable either System or User. If you use a User variable, the environment variable is only available to the user logged on the machine. However, if you run the setup with ALLUSERS option, the variable is created for all the users on the machine.

If you need to make any further modifications that you can?t achieve with the options in the Environment Variables view, you can modify the entry in the Environment table. The table consists of four columns, Environment, Name, Value and Component_.

As an example, if you want to:

• Set a system environment variable called PATH, if it exists
• Create it if it does not exist
• Leave it there upon uninstallation

Select a component to associate it with this table entry. If the component is installed, this environment modification will take place.