Out of diskspace issues

[jassing]

I have a client, that for some reason, likes to instruct his users to install multiple parts of his product at once.

A side effect of this is that occasionally users report "out of disk space" becuase each installer thinks it has enough; but when combined, they don't.

As a result; the uninstall.xml is unusable and can't be uninstalled -- furthermore, the user is prompted (after freeing up disk space) "Install completed successfully"

While I haven't verified this behaviour, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the best way to ensure that the app could be uninstalled with an out of disk space condition....

[Mark]

Hi jassing,

I'm not convinces that I understand exactly what you mean. Do you mean that he instructs his users to run multiple installations or uninstallations at the exact same time? I can't fathom why people would want to do that, but maybe with a bit more detail from you I might be able to think of something.

[jassing]

Thanks Mark.

Basically what I need to do is figure out how to sense (in the installer) that "out of disk space" condition has happened and deal with it more gracefully -- the resulting uninstall.xml file is (obviously) trashed.

The install alerts the user that they ran out of disk space;b ut then it says "install successful" (the final screen) -- what I need to do is have a new window that says "Well; we shouldn't have installed here; your system is now unusable" (or words to that effect).

[Mark]

Hi Jassing,

What error code are you getting during the install? 1012?

You might try catching the error on the "On Install Error" event.

[jassing]

problem is the files are all getting installed; it's on the POST install that I'm getting a problem, I'm updating the uninstall xml -- no error was tossed...

[Mark]

Originally Posted by jassing

problem is the files are all getting installed; it's on the POST install that I'm getting a problem, I'm updating the uninstall xml -- no error was tossed...

So all of the files are being installed properly, but once the install is done the disk is full? Then when you attempt to update the uninstall.xml after the installation you are unable to because there is no more space left on the drive?

You could try calling the Drive.GetFreeSpace() function to see how much space is left on the drive.

[jassing]

Originally Posted by Mark

So all of the files are being installed properly, but once the install is done the disk is full? Then when you attempt to update the uninstall.xml after the installation you are unable to because there is no more space left on the drive?

You could try calling the Drive.GetFreeSpace() function to see how much space is left on the drive.

Basically -- you got it -- we complete our install before the "other" one -- so we're done -- the other install uses up the rest of the disk space; and now we continue along to update some uninstall data (to remove files created on the fly etc) -- no error is tossed so we think the install went smothly.