The help file says
Note: the log file is created at the very start of the setup, before %AppFolder% has been established. You should always create your log files in a pre-existing, standard system directory such as %TempFolder% or %WindowsFolder%
but as Dan tells this is not quite true. Setting the log folder to %AppFolder% (with default value %ProgramFilesFolder%\%ProductName%) will create the log in C:\Programs Files\<productname>. “C:\Program Files” is an existing folder but not the subfolder <productname>. However SUF70 has no problems with creating the subfolder before the logging starts. Another example is the Uninstall “Executable path and filename” (default %WindowsFolder%\%ProductName%\uninstall.exe). The subfolder has not to exist before the runtime starts. The use of %AppFolder% is a bit different; the value isn’t final before you come to the “While Installing’ stage.
Personally I don’t like the two logs to be stored in the root of %WindowsFolder%. All my time with SUF70 I have put the logs into the uninstaller engine folder (just replace a space with a backslash in the logs path). I feel the Windows folder is better organized this way.
With a lot of test progs I have a lot of subfolders in the Windows folder. This is not a huge problem to my end users; with my unassuming activity no user should have more than 6-7 subfolders as a result of MY productions. Nevertheless I think I’m going for a new structure by adding a session variable
%UninstallPath% = %WindowsFolder%\IR_Setup\%CompanyName%\%ProductNam e%
for both the uninstaller engine and the logs.
It seems to be a working solution reducing the “mess” in the Windows folder. It is nice that SUF70 gives me freedom. (Install Shield obviously is using C:\WINDOWS\Installer\ and C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\ as common folders.)
Apropos mess; the uninstaller and the logs are kept on the disk after the uninstall procedure. In Windows root, without manual house-keeping, I should have several files like ‘AutoPlay Media Studio 6.0 Trial Setup Log.txt’, ‘Visual Patch 2.0 Trial Uninstall Log.txt’ (and a subfolder for each product). But how many MS logs (Qnnnnnn.log and KBnnnnnn.log) do you have on your “old” Windows computer?). Disk space isn’t the challenge nowadays but the burned system drive image needs more and more CDs; 3, 4, 5 …). I use a standard command file (AutoFunctions.lua) to be included in my projects giving me an automatic ‘delete on reboot’.