Export Wizard

  • Article

The Export Wizard guides you through the process of exporting one or more features from the Catalog to a Microsoft Windows Installer (.msi) file. Features include BSPs, device drivers, boot loaders, and other OS components that can be exported using the Export Wizard. After you create features, use this wizard to export them to share with other Platform Builder users. In addition to exporting features, you can include files or entire directories in the installation package.

The Export Wizard creates a Catalog feature (.cec) file for each installation package. This means that the Export Wizard takes the components from all the .cec files and creates a single .cec file in the .msi file. When the .msi file is installed on a development workstation that contains Platform Builder, the features are automatically added to the Platform Builder Catalog. Each feature includes version information that prevents an older version of a feature from replacing the current version.

**Note   **When you update a feature, before you use the Export Wizard, you must assign the feature a version number that is larger than the existing feature's version number. This ensures that when a Platform Builder user installs the exported .msi file, the newer version of the feature in the .cec file will overwrite the current version in the Catalog. For information on assigning version numbers, see CEC Editor Tool and Implementation Block.

If you create a new version of an existing feature by editing the .cec file, you must either remove the BuildMethod globally unique identifiers (GUIDs), or generate new GUIDs for those methods. Leave all other GUIDs for the feature unchanged. If you do not remove the BuildMethod GUIDs or create new GUIDs, you will prevent other users from adding the new version of the feature to the Catalog. The Build Method GUIDs will be duplicates of existing GUIDs on that development workstation.

The Export Wizard update feature only works with files. The .msi file caches the setup information, including scripts that set specific values, such as Emulator size and which skins to use. For changes in the setup information to take effect, you must uninstall the original .msi file and then install the updated SDK .msi file.

See Also

Exporting Features from the Catalog | Catalog Customization | Catalog Feature Files

 Last updated on Friday, October 08, 2004

© 1992-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.