How to add shortcut files to the Teststand workspace

[A_Senthilnathan]

I am deploying my test stand application using TS deployment utility. At the end I need three four icons / shortcuts to launch the operator interface with different seq file entry points. I have created manually the shortcuts and it is working fine. How do I add these icons to my installer. I tried to add these shortcuts into the workspace. But it is adding the exe instead of the shortcut.

How do I add these shortcuts to the installer / create these shortcuts during installation?

Thanks

Senthilnathan A.

[Antonio Lie]

Hi,

Have you tried to create a program item for the operator interface?
A Program Item is  the closest thing to shortcut the current deployment utility supports.
You only have to go to the Deployed Files tab, select the specific file, check the 'Create Program Item' check box and give it a name.

This action will create a Windows Start Menu Item linked to the selected file.

Hope It Helps.

[Antonio Lie]

Hi,

I found a workaround that could work for you.
You can write a post.bat file to copy the shortcut created for your program item to wherever you want.
The only thing you have to do is to create the windows start menu item for your operator interface and include a post.bat file in your installer directory to copy the *.lnk file to the desired location.

The Post.bat file is executed immediatly after the installer finishes.

I am attaching a simple installer that installs the CVI simple operator interface and creates a shortcut for it in the Windows Start menu and on the Desktop.

I am only copying the file from the start menu to the desktop in the post file.

I hope it helps.

[A_Senthilnathan]

Hello Antonio Lie,

Thanks for your help. I have used similar approach of using the post.bat files to create icons in the desktop. I found a suggesstion in the national instrument's support archives, to use post.bat and a third party tool (shortcut.exe) to create the icons. In the post.bat file i had commands with appropriate values to run shortcut exe. It is said that the installer runs the post.bat file automatically. It was not working. When I add the post / post.bat in the custom commands of the installer, then it runs the post.bat file at the end of the installer.

Does the installer runs the post.bat file automatically? Is the file name should be post.bat?

Thanks,

Senthilnathan A.

[nandini]

Hi Senthilnathan:

Is the post.bat file in the same directory a setup.exe?  The way it works is that the installer that the TestStand 3.0 Deployment Utility creates checks to see if a batch file named post.bat exists in the same directory as setup.exe. If the post.bat file does exist, then the installer runs post.bat.  

Please see the following link for further help with this utility:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/1E54BA3152A6A2A586256D7C004F5A78?OpenDocument

Thank you

Nandini Subramaniam

NI

[A_Senthilnathan]

Hi Nandhini,

Yes, the post.bat file is in the installer directoty ( same folder as setup.exe ). First I created the installer in the folder "App Installer", Then I copied the post.bat from my project folder to this folder and double clicked on the setup.exe to install my application. I did not get the post.bat file executed.

Then I added the post.bat in the custom commands tab while creating the installer. Now it works well.

Thanks,

Senthilnathan A.

[Antonio Lie]

Hi,

If you generate the installer and copy the post.bat file to the same directory where the setup.exe resides the bat file is executed automatically.

Take a look to the example I attached in my last post.

Best Regards.