Command line switches and deployment details

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Written by Julien | Updated

This article describes in detail how the installer works as well as the impact of UpSlide on the system.

Summary

Command-line options

By default, UpSlide is installed for all users if the setup is executed with administrator permissions. If not, UpSlide is only installed for the current user.

Installation

To install UpSlide from a script, we provide optional parameters for the .exe installation file:

  • -q2 to force install to be silent.
  • "LANG=en-US" to force the UpSlide User Interface to be in English. You can, of course, change the UI language and replace en-US by any supported language UID. As of May 2014, support languages are en-US, fr-FR.
  • /a1 to force single-user install.
  • /a4 to force all user install (setup will request an administrator password to proceed if the current user does not have sufficient permissions).
  • "KeepExistingConfig=1" to force UpSlide to install on top of any existing version. In that case, the configuration folder is not modified by a new installation. Useful when the customization should not be impacted by deployment.
  • "DeployReactivationService=1" to deploy the reactivation service. (deployed by default)
  • "CheckProcesses=0" to allow UpSlide to install while Office processes are running (Excel, PowerPoint or Word).
  • "PathToConfigFolder=CustomPath" to have UpSlide look for the customization in a custom folder. For example, put the content of the Config folder (found in UpSlide installation folder by default) in I:\UpSlide\Config and add "PathToConfigFolder=I:\UpSlide" to the installation command. Note that the installer will not automatically populate the selected config folder, this must be done manually.
  • "AllUserInstallFolder=CustomPath" to specify a custom location for installation.

If you need to use the .msi, you can still pass these arguments to the embedded installer by using an EXEOPTIONS parameter.

Example
For a silent and all user install in french, you would use:
msiexec /i "pathToMsiFile.msi" /qn EXEOPTIONS="-q2 ""/a4"" ""LANG=fr-FR"""

Uninstall

To uninstall UpSlide, you can use the same command adding the parameter TsuRunMode=2

Installed content

Installation Folder (Single User Install)

Application files are installed in the Application Data folder (e.g. %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\UpSlide in Windows 7).

11 Mo of files are deployed in this folder. They consist mainly of dlls, but also of 3 .vsto files (one for each Office application) which will serve as entry points into UpSlide.

Installation Folder (All User Install)

The installed files are identical, but the installation folder is now located in the Common Application Data folder (e.g. c:\ProgramData\UpSlide for Windows 7).

Customization folder

Apart from deploying application files, the installer also creates a subfolder named Config to store the UpSlide customization, i.e.:

  • content libraries
  • template files (Powerpoint or Word)
  • table of contents options
  • other specific content

Registry keys

Single user Install

Like any VSTO add-in, UpSlide needs a registry key to link Excel, PowerPoint, or Word to the application dll.

These keys are created in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive:

  • Software/Microsoft/Office/Excel/Addins/Finance3point1.UpSlide.Excel
  • Software/Microsoft/Office/PowerPoint/Addins/Finance3point1.UpSlide.PowerPoint
  • Software/Microsoft/Office/Word/Addins/Finance3point1.UpSlide.Word

Each of these keys have 4 initial values (see figure below), all required for VSTO to function properly:

  • Friendly name (String): name displayed in the list of Add-ins of the Office application.
  • Description (String): also displayed in the list of Add-ins.
  • LoadBehavior (DWord): specifies if the Add-in is loaded during application start-up. Should always be set to 3.
  • Manifest (String): This value links the Office Application to the installed dlls. It points to the .vsto file in the installation folder (the "|vstolocal" string is appended to the path).

All user Install

For an all user install, the same keys are inserted but this time in the local Machine hive (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE).

Please beware of two specific requirements:

  • If installation is carried out on a x64 machine with a x32 version of Office, the keys are inserted in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node.
  • An additional key value is needed in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Office\12.0\Common\General: EnableLocalMachineVSTO (Dword) set to 1.

Configuration keys

Installation parameters are also stored in the registry, in the Excel Add-in key (see figure above):

  • User interface language is stored in a string value named LANG (as of now, value can either be "fr-FR" or "en-US").
  • The user license is stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Office/Excel/Addins/Finance3point1.UpSlide.Excel as a Dword value.
Important
UpSlide is licensed on a per user and per machine basis. Therefore, even if an all-user install was chosen, the license is still stored in the current user registry hive.

Certificate

To avoid Office trust prompt when UpSlide is first used (see here), the installer installs UpSlide certificate in the Trusted Publisher store.

Modified Folders at run time

Temporary files 

UpSlide handles its own Temp folder inside the installation folder.

User settings and log files

These are stored in the application data folder (e.g. %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\UpSlide in Windows 7). For a single user install, this is the same as the installation folder.

User profile content

Content specific to each user (notably the tombstone database) is stored by default in %appdata%\UpSlide\Content.

Config Folder

A user can modify the contents of the config folder (although not by choice), for example when UpSlide regenerates settings files for compatibility reasons.

For these reasons, the UpSlide installer gives read and write authorization to everyone on the Config folder.