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Topic: FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta (Read 11238 times) previous topic - next topic
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FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

[attachment=3056:attachment] (unzips to flac-1.1.4a.exe)

since it looks like Mike Wren is not available to do the flac installer anymore, I have written one myself using NSIS.  I'd like your help in testing it before I put it on the main site.

first, Mike's installers could install the winamp plugin and nero plugin.  since winamp supports FLAC now I have dropped my plugin, and since I don't have nero or know exactly how to install the plugin correctly, it is not in the new installer.  if anyone knows the right method, please let me know.  this installer detects existing installs and runs the existing uninstaller first so you will lose the winamp/nero plugins if you have them installed.

apparently vista does automatic privilege escalation for installers which makes installing for just the current user very difficult or impossible to get right (link link link) so the installer requires admin privileges and installs for all users and unless I can figure out how to do it right for all windows versions it will probably stay that way.

I'm not exactly sure the right procedure to install mscomctl.ocx that the FLAC Frontend requires either; I noticed from this thread the old installer is running regsrv32 as part of the process.

I have not yet included the latest version of Tag which fixes the vendor string overwriting problem but I will.

in the off chance things go wrong it should be pretty simple to clean up after, the installer puts all files it writes into $INSTDIR (usually C:\Program Files\FLAC) and only writes registry keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\FLAC and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\FLAC and shortcuts to the startmenu and desktop.

please let me know if anything doesn't work, and even better, how to fix it.  also if something is confusing or could be done better let me know.  thanks!

Josh

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #1 –
Hello
I am using Vista Ultimate 32bit with UAC turned off.
The beta version installed fine and created a start menu option.

Pity is does not install the NERO plugin anymore.

Thanks for the update anyway!

Scott

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #2 –
Quote from: funkyblue on
Pity is does not install the NERO plugin anymore.

The Nero plugin is based on either FLAC 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 (I don't recall which) and hasn't been updated in years. I wrote the author at the time it came out telling him that standard 16 bit mono FLAC files cause his Nero FLAC plugin to fail/crash. He never addresses the bug with mono FLAC files to my knowledge, as this is still the original Nero filter that had that problem. So unless a new, fixed Nero FLAC filter gets released, why distribute this old, buggy filter based on a way earlier version of FLAC in the Windows installer? (Just my opinion)

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #3 –
I use it for decoding. It makes life easy dragging FLAC files straight to Nero and burning away

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #4 –
Quote from: funkyblue on
I use it for decoding. It makes life easy dragging FLAC files straight to Nero and burning away

Now if only the Nero developers (who often post/monitor this HA forum) would add native FLAC support (1.1.4. based), even if only for decoding/reading FLAC files, that would be the ideal solution and would fix your problem.

Most other major CD/DVD burning apps have native FLAC support built-in, like that latest versions of Roxio's Easy CD/DVD Creator, Easy Media Creator, Record Now Music Lab, plus Poikosoft's CD-DA Extractor. Even Winamp now burns, reads, plays and encodes FLAC files natively in its latest 5.34 release.

It would be nice to see Nero add FLAC native support for their customers, rather than having to rely on an older, buggy (non-working with mono FLAC files) 3rd party plugin. FLAC has matured to the point now and gotten so popular, where developers of apps should support FLAC themselves, and not the developer of FLAC having to write or distribute 3rd party plugins/filters to work with their code/apps. I'm sure Josh wouldn't mind helping Nero (or any other developers) who are stuck and having questions with implementing FLAC supporting code natively in their apps.

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #5 –
I have no problem adding the nero plugin to the installer if someone can explain to me the correct installation procedure for it.

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #6 –
The installer runs perfectly fine on my system (Win XP SP2 32bits)

Unfortunately I can't help you for Nero implementation :-(

Anyway, thanks for your good work, Josh 

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #7 –
Quote from: jcoalson on
I'm not exactly sure the right procedure to install mscomctl.ocx that the FLAC Frontend requires either; I noticed from this thread the old installer is running regsrv32 as part of the process.

If someone has Microsoft Office installed that .ocx isn't even necessary, however this is what I've used in the past to install it, mind you it's a batch file installer:
Code: [Select]
XCOPY /V /-Y "MSCOMCTL.OCX" "%WINDIR%\SYSTEM32"
REGSVR32 "%WINDIR%\SYSTEM32\MSCOMCTL.OCX"

Something else, although I don't know if its true or not perhaps someone else can enlighten upon it but I thought mscomctl.ocx had one version for Win9x/Me/NT, whilst the WinXP and newer version was different.

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #8 –
Quote from: jcoalson on
I have no problem adding the nero plugin to the installer if someone can explain to me the correct installation procedure for it.



I'll have to wait for this version myself. Since I use Nero for most of my burns.
Don't want to lose what little capability FLAC has with Nero already. And this new
windows installer will uninstall the plugins I already have

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #9 –
another XP sp2 test installation/uninstallation completed with no errors or problems.

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #10 –
Quote from: jcoalson on
apparently vista does automatic privilege escalation for installers which makes installing for just the current user very difficult or impossible to get


Which it does as far as I can see by looking to see if the program is called setup.exe or matches a signature of an installer it knows about.

It then prompts you to enter your password to run the installer as the admin user or not run it at all.

I think the killer here is you might be able to trick Vista into thinking you aren't installation program but then it probably won't let you put an entry into the "Add Remove Programs" which involves writing into registry key under HKLM (I forget the exact location as I don't have a Windows box infront of me at the moment).

I suspect at this point the only interesting thing is if you make changes to the "All users' profile or just the profile of the user who originally ran the installer (however I don't know if it's even possible to find this information out).

Quote
I'm not exactly sure the right procedure to install mscomctl.ocx that the FLAC Frontend requires either; I noticed from this thread the old installer is running regsrv32 as part of the process.


The FLAC frontend is written in Visual Basic?. Unless your installer program natively knows about ocx's lke Installshield for example then there is no "correct" way. You have two choices

1) Require the user to install, or automatically kick of the install from your program. I think the right redist package is

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

I don't know if they updated it for SP6

2) Ship the bare file yourself and run the regsrv32, the first option is safer as you don't run the risk of overwriting a newer version of the file that someone else may have installed.

One other thing you should be aware of is that if you decide to move FLAC to VS 2005 at any point then you have the additional headache of installing the runtime libraries as MS have invented something called SxS or side by side packages.

Practically this means you have to use their redist packages to install the C library runtime and you have to build a "manifest" into the executable so it can find the dlls, it's not enough for them to be on the PATH anymore. If you use VS 2005's build system it does this for you but if you are using something else then you'll need to put extra steps in.
 

FLAC 1.1.4 installer beta

Reply #11 –
Quote from: jcoalson on
I have no problem adding the nero plugin to the installer if someone can explain to me the correct installation procedure for it.


Josh - APPRECIATION

Not sure if this was answered somewhere else

-  Read HKLM\SOFTWARE\Ahead\AudioPlugin key from registry
-  Copy the nxMyFLA.dll file to this location

That's all.

Someday maybe we'll fix the mono problem....