Detect if Growl is installed in NSIS

[Bob123456]

Hi,

I'm using NSIS to bundle and install my application. In there, I'd
like to check if Growl for Windows is already installed. If it is not,
I'd use instructions here: http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/distribution.aspx#thirdparty

My question is, what is the best way to detect if Growl is installed?
An NSIS tutorial I found online suggestions looking through the
registry and comparing specific values:
http://kalanir.blogspot.com/2011/04/nsis-how-to-detect-whether-java-is.html

If I follow this method, what registry values should I be looking for
for Growl for Windows?

Thank you.

[Brian Dunnington]

When Growl is installed, it writes its .exe path to this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Growl

So you can check for that registry key, and if you want, you can use
that value to check for the existence of the Growl.exe as well.

Let me know if you run into any issues or have any other questions.

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[DitherSky]

By the way I wanted to add Growl installer as an optional component in my NSIS package but there is no direct link to Growl exe installer on growlforwindows.com site. Can you publish combined msi/exe installer link without version in it instead of zip-archive? Like http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/d.ashx?f=Growl2setup.exe for example.

[Brian Dunnington]

There is a .msi file available that installs the base version 2 of GfW
that should be able to be used from NSIS and other installers. More
information about it can be found here:
http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/distribution.aspx

Once installed, the user may be prompted to update GfW as newer
versions have been released. Does that help at all or do you need an
.exe only?

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[DitherSky]

I just wondered why main distributive link is so specific (contains version in a file-name and difficult to check automatically) and not user-friendly (zip for the main download that contains 2 files instead of one). Is there any specific reasons for you to do it in such roundabout way?

[Brian Dunnington]

There is no particular reason other than that is just how it evolved
over time. Originally, I *wanted* to link to the specific version (for
several reasons, including the ability to download alternate versions
for debugging, beta testing, etc) so that is why the version number is
part of the main download link.

As for why it is a .zip file: there are some issues on Vista with UAC
that cause install-time errors if the .msi is run directly, so the
setup.exe bootstrapper is needed to work around those issues. The only
clean way to download both files at once was in a .zip file. Now, I
should probably use a tool like IExpress or something to create a
self-extracting executable, but I just have not spent the time to
integrate that into my build process yet. Most folks are familiar with
downloading a zip file, extracting it, and running the setup.exe so it
has not been high enough on my priority list yet.

Anyway, none of those are set in stone or even particularly great
reasons, but I thought I would shed some light on why they are that
way currently.

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