Command line compile to specific language

Page 255 of the Windows Installer Editor PDF manual has a full description of the command line switches, if you are using WIS 7.
The page numbers will be different for other versions of Wise, but the index can be search for "command line" to find the right page.

From there you will find that the /p option is for setting PROPERTIES (not parameters). You may also want to look at the release option settings.

Ah!  It's not in the manual.  Or at least not in any manual that I have, or at least I can't find it (All I could find was mention that /p is how you set properties, which I already knew from the help screens).   However, just knowing that there was a PDF file in addition to the regular help screens was a big step in the right direction.

I did find a spot in the manual that says "In Setup Editor > Product tab, right-click the Properties icon and select New >Property. The Property Details dialog box appears."  From there, you can see the list of available properties, and I found that ProductLanguage is a property listed here.

"ProductLanguage" is set to a value of "1033" for my installer.  Any idea how to decode this?   I also note that if I go over to the Installation Expert, then change the language, then go to the Properties list, the language value does not change.  (I was hoping I could reverse engineer the code this way, but I guess not.)

I have searched Google, MSDN, the Wise Manuals and Help, but I still see no mention of what values to set to change the languages, though I suspect that if I say:

WFWI.EXE MyWSI.wsi /c /p ProductLanguage=???

I will be very close.  Now, if I just knew what to put in for ??? 

I'm also not 100% sure that "ProductLanguage" is the property to change, that is just an educated guess.

Thanks,

Carl.

In the file "WindowsInstallerExpress.chm" if you type in "Language ID", then look down in the results for "List", there is a list of Language ID's.

So I do this:

WFWI.exe MyWSI.wsi /p ProductLanguage=1032

...which I was expecting would up Wise with the language set to "Greek".  However, when I look at the languages page, nothing has changed.  If I look at the Properties page, I can see that the value of "ProductLanguage" has indeed changed.

So, it seems as though "ProductLanguage" is not the correct property to change.   Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Carl.

Look in the folders where your Wise/Altiris product is installed - search for PDF and CHM files - they are normally in a folder called HELP at the default install location of :  C:\Program Files\Altiris\Wise\Help

If you add a language to your project, the project will just be compiled with the standard languages plus the added language, and the user will be invited to select which language they require at install time.

I'm thinking that maybe you are thinking I am trying to solve a different problem.

Yes, I know where the manuals are located now, and I have been hunting through them for the info I need, but am not finding it.

The problem I have is as follows:

I have 2 different versions of my application ("basic" and "premium"), and it ships in 10 languages.  That makes for a total of 20 installers I need to make.

Each version of the software has a core set of files that they all share, along with a whole bunch of files that differ depending on the version (For example, there is a translated exe file for every language, and hundreds of sample files, fonts, and help files that differ based on basic or premium, and languages, etc.)

I set up batch files to automate my installation creation.  What they do is copy the appropriate files over for the particular language that I want to make the installer for into a temporary "staging folder".

Wise, is then configured to look at the staging folder for all of it's files when it builds the msi.

This is working great, except for one problem.  I have Wise configured to make 10 installers at once - one for each language.   However, because it is pulling the files from the staging folders for a single language, it makes a chinese installer for the English version, then a French installer for the English version, and so on.   I don't need all these extra installers, so the time spent compiling each one of them is wasted.

What I want to do is run my batch file to prepare the staging folder with English files, then say "Hey Wise, Compile for English", then run the batch file to prepare the staging folder with French files, then say "Compile for French"; as though a human opened up Wise, then clicked on "Languages", then un-checked all the languages except for the particular language of interest at the moment, then clicked "compile" 

I want to do this from the command line, because I need to automate the entire process.

Presently, the process is fully automated and takes about 6 hours from start to finish, making 200 installers, of which 180 of them are unnecessary.  By making this one modification, I can avoid making the unnecessary installers, and only make the required 20 installers.

Maybe it is not possible to do this?  If so, that would be good to know.  I can just live with doing other things for 6 hours, but I would really like to elliminate this inefficiency.

Thanks,

Carl.

How about using embedded transforms for you different languages?