Command line switches and deployment details

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Written by Julien Villemonteix | Updated

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

Summary

Command-line options

By default, UpSlide is installed for all users when you execute it with administrator permissions.

EXE Installation (recommended)

Install

  • The below command line will silently install UpSlide even if the user has Office applications running.
"pathToExeFile.exe" -q2

Uninstall
 

"pathToExeFile.exe" -q2 TsuRunMode=2 

Custom Install

By default, UpSlide will be installed in English and in C:\ProgramData\UpSlide. You can use the optional switches below to change some default options. 

  • -q2 for the installation to be silent.
  • "CheckProcesses=0" (by default) allows UpSlide to install while Office processes run (Excel, PowerPoint, or Word).
    • This is the default value since UpSlide 6.7.21. You can use "CheckProcesses=1" to force closing the Office applications before installing.
  • "LANG=en-US" (by default) or "LANG=fr-FR" forces the UpSlide user interface to be in English or French.
  • /a1 to force single-user install.
  • /a4 (by default) all-users install (setup will request an administrator password to continue if the current user does not have sufficient permissions).
  • "AllUserInstallFolder=CustomPath\UpSlide" to specify a custom location for installation, and "UpSlideServiceFolder=CustomPath\UpSlideService" to specify a custom location for the reactivation service installation. Note that these switches must be passed together using the same CustomPath.

Examples:

  • To force a silent UpSlide installation in customPath\UpSlide 
"pathToExeFile.exe" -q2 "AllUserInstallFolder=customPath\UpSlide" "UpSlideServiceFolder=customPath\UpSlideService"
  • To force a silent single-user installation in French 
"pathToExeFile.exe" -q2 /a1 "LANG=fr-FR"

Installed content

Installation Folder

This folder contains just under 100 Mo of files, not including the Config folder, which contains the customization. It mainly consists of dlls and three .vsto files (one for each Office application), which will serve as entry points into UpSlide.

  • All User Install (default)

The installation folder is in the Common Application Data folder (e.g. C:\ProgramData\UpSlide)

  • Single User Install

The files are identical but are installed in the Application Data folder (e.g. %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\UpSlide).

Config 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 for 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 has four initial values, all required for VSTO to function correctly:

  • Friendly name (String): name displayed in the add-ins list 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. It 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

The same keys are inserted for an all-user install, but this time in the local machine hive HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

Please beware of two specific requirements:

  • If the installation is carried out on an x64 machine with an 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:

  • 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 an Office trust prompt when UpSlide is first used (see here), the installer installs the 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

They 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

All user specific content such as 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.