There is NOTHING like a good install program. {Now what is this guy talking about???}

I assume you know how to write to and retrieve from an INI file or even the Registry, so I will give you the 30,000 foot approach. By the way, may applications are saved to {WhoKnowsWhere} and the data is stored on {WhoKnowsWhatServer}.

The INI file would contain a section that says something like this:

[FileLocations]
DataDir=j:\Myapp\dat
SourceExecutable=f:\myapp\bin\myapp.exe


Now, how do we create this from an install? First, I hope you are learning how to use InstallShield. Inside InstallShield 3.5x they have a section for INIs. The INI that you create should be saved in the workstation's Windows directory.

For Instance, you would probably call the INI something like myApp.INI in InstallShield. Add a section for the [FileLocations]. Then add the properties. For each property like "DataDir", you can assign it's value based on where the user decided to install the DATA and or EXE. InstallShield would ask the user "Where do you want the data to be installed?" The user enters in the directory. This value is set to a variable (DATABASEDIR) within InstallShield which can now be used to be saved to your INI file. Now it is up to you to pull that directory from the INI file and start using it.

What is SourceExecutable? :-) When first installed, I always point to the INSTALLDIR location, which might be c:\myapp\bin\myapp.exe. The administrator of the system may want to point to the server instead; f:\myapp\bin\myapp.exe. If the SourceExecutable variable is not equal to where I am executing from, then I replace the Executable from the server to the workstation. In this case, I do not have to install to 30 different machines, just one. This process requires a start.exe to call myapp.exe.

InstallShield is the trick to install anywhere software.