CEStrings (Compact 2013)

  • Article

3/26/2014

The CEStrings section of the .inf file is required and contains string substitutions for the application name and the default installation directory.

Note

The provider name and application name that is specified in the Version and CEStrings sections cannot contain XML reserved characters and Windows Embedded Compact file-system reserved characters such as /, :, *, ?, ", <, >, |, or &.

Syntax

[CEStrings]
AppName   = app_name
InstallDir   = default_install_dir

Parameters

  • app_name
    Name of the application. Other instances of %AppName% in the .inf file are replaced with this string value.

    Note

    This string is restricted to a length of 40 characters. Longer strings are truncated. This restriction exists because applications are registered on the device with a specific name for uninstallation purposes, and the name is created by concatenating the provider name and the application name. The following example shows the format that is used: <providername> <appname>. For more information, see Version.

  • InstallDir
    Default installation directory. Define this name/value pair to use %InstallDir% in other parts of the .inf file.

    If %InstallDir% is defined, the Installation Volume Selection dialog box appears at installation time. This enables the user to select the target location for installation.

    Note

    You must specify both the name and the value of this parameter if %InstallDir% appears at least once in the .inf file. If you do not, the CAB Wizard fails with an error when it runs with the .inf file.

  • default_install_dir
    The absolute path of the default installation directory. Other instances of %InstallDir% in the .inf file are replaced with this string value.

    Note

    If a default installation directory is specified, an Installation Volume Selection prompt appears when the application is installed on the device. If you want to avoid this prompt, do not specify a string for %InstallDir%.

Remarks

Do not use unsupported characters, such as /, *, ?, <, >, and |, in your directory path. The CAB Wizard replaces these characters with spaces that might cause the configuration service provider (CSP) to end with errors. If you are using environment variables in your path, make sure that their value strings do not contain these characters.

The following code example shows this format.

[CEStrings]
AppName="Game Pack"
InstallDir=%CE1%\%AppName%

See Also

Reference

Information (.inf) File Overview
CAB Wizard