Method for WPI to XPlode if anyone's interesed...

[PompeySteve]

I spent a few hours trying to find a way to have WPI v2.9.8a for software selection, then XPlode v1.12 installing whatever was selected, and have come up with a way. Its still a little messy (ok to be honest VERY messy in parts), but I'll finish it off, and tidy it up soon if a few people are interested.

It works like this :-

For each item selected in WPI a SFX archive is run that which extracts an xml file to a temporary folder. Each xml is a part of the XPlode.xml, which gets build up bit by bit until its finished.

When unrared you will have a folder called "Install". Place this inside $OEM$\$1 and have "%systemdrive%\Install\Setup\WPI2XPlode\WPI2XPlode.cmd" inside your cmdlines.txt.

Oh, and a word of warning, only Calculator Plus, Google Toolbar, WinRAR and some user avatars are included, so if you select anything else it'll probably not like it too much - like i said, its far from finished and I just thought someone might find it useful.

WPI2XPlode.rar

[MeDieViL]

awesome!

question

do i only need this, or do i also have to install wpi and xplode?

[PompeySteve]

They are already part of the download but you can't really use it the way it is, I only really posted it as an example of what you can do, because right now it's as messy as a messy thing. Eventually I'll clean it up and make it something that people can actually use if people want me to. Of course it won’t need much tweaking if you want to give it a go! Most of the hard work is done. Just needs a few things doing to make it work with an install.

1. Make your "config.js" for WPI, don't forget that we don't want WPI to set RunOnceEx to install each program as it normally would, but instead to run a SFX archive that extracts the XML for each program to be installed to a temporary folder.

So in this example for the Google toolbar, the relevant part of "config.js" would look like :-

prog[pn]=['Google ToolBar']
desc[pn]=['Installs the Google Toolbar websearch add-in for Internet Explorer<font color="red"><br><i>Recommended</i></br></font>']
cmd1[pn]=['%systemdrive%\\Install\\Setup\\Software\\System\\GoogleTB.exe /S']
dflt[pn]=['yes']
pn++

As you can see this sets the SFX file GoogleTB.exe to run at RunOnceEx.

BTW I've hidden the RunOnceEx window with this reg file because it's only open for a few seconds and isn't really needed on screen anyway :-

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx]
"Flags"=dword:00000080

2. Change the temporary folder used to %temp% rather than somewhere in %windir% where it goes now, just to keep things "proper".

3. Make the XML for each of your installs like I have and make them in to SFX's with WinRAR or 7-Zip (might as well keep the compression off to speed things up 'slightly' as you'd only save a few k if you do compress them anyway). Have a look at my XML's to see how to format them. It's important to have the carriage return at the end of each XML so as the next part joined starts on a new line (at least I think it matters - not 100% sure about that to be honest).

4. Have these SFX's extract the XML's to the temporary folder the XML's are built from (I think mine went to somewhere like %windir%\CustomInstall\USED_XMLs\System, but like i said above you might want to use %temp% instead for stuff like this).

5. Make sure the batch file is set to search for the extracted XML of every program you have selectable in WPI. Obviously if it finds the XML for the Google toolbar then this means it WAS ticked in WPI so it adds it to XPlode.xml currently being built, and if it doesn't find the XML for Google toolbar then that means it WASN'T ticked in WPI and it then continues searching for the next program.

Anyone know any good places to learn VBS? I doubt it'd need anything complex so I might try it that way - or is there a better option I've overlooked perhaps... Does anyone have any ideas as to other ways of using both of these programs together?

I'm sure Wraith (Hi Wraith - great program mate ) said somewhere that XPlode 3 will have item selection anyway, so that’s almost certainly the way to go when its released.

[-I-]

i can see what you are doint, but why in earth would you use SFX to do it this way..

Its 10 times easyer write the xml file from scratch, For those of you intersted,

goto the WPI thread to see how the newer version writes a CMD file, use the same method to write xml lines instead of batch...

[thehalon]

very nice!

but xplode 4 should do it for you

[Girkers]

I am interested as I have come from wihu to WPI and I have just started to read informaition on Xplode. I like things that look nice and are easy to use.

I think it would be great to get these two programs working together, but your method seems over complex.

[kurt476]

i only use xplode for the things that to bee need to be install first like my desktop sidebar and .net framework that all i use xplode for. for wpi i use that as my last installation of stuff. so i don't i would be interested in this