izpack: Create shortcut on windows 7

Question

I use izpack to create an installer for my application. So far I was able to create the installer and on my linux machine everything is fine.
The problem is that on the windows machines I tested it on (Win7 6bits) the installer did not show the shortcut panel.
I did read the documentation troubleshooting section and took care that I have the natives in my installer.
Same goes for the shortcut xml file, they are in the installer in the resources path. I also read that most likely it is a case sensitive typo or something similar simple but could not figure it out. Here is my shortcut xml:

<shortcuts>
<programGroup defaultName="SteamNet" location="applications"/>
<shortcut
    name = "One Click Wonder"
    target = "$INSTALL_PATH\oneclickwonder.bat"
    commandLine = ""
    workingDirectory= "$INSTALL_PATH"
    description="Minimal Desktop Timer"
    iconFile="$INSTALL_PATH\images\windows_icon.ico"
    iconIndex="0"
    initialState="noShow"
    programGroup="yes"
    desktop="yes"
    applications="yes"
    startMenu="yes"
    startup="yes"/>
</shortcuts>

And this is my install.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" standalone="yes" ?>
<installation version="1.0">
  <info>
    <appname>Test</appname>
    <appversion>1</appversion>
  </info>
  <guiprefs width="600" height="480" resizable="no">
  </guiprefs>
  <locale>
    <langpack iso3="eng"/>
  </locale>
  <panels>
    <panel classname="ShortcutPanel"/>
  </panels>
  <packs>
    <pack name="Test" required="yes">
      <description>Description</description>
    </pack>
  </packs>
  <resources>
    <res src="shortcutSpec.xml" id="shortcutSpec.xml"/>
  </resources>
  <natives>
    <native type="izpack" name="ShellLink_x64.dll"/>
</natives>
</installation>

But i can't display the shortcut panel in my installer ... !

Answer 1

I compared this to a working installer file here which in contrast contains the following <natives> setting:

<natives>
    <native type="izpack" name="ShellLink.dll" />
    <native type="izpack" name="ShellLink_x64.dll" />
</natives>

When using a 32-Bit Java Runtime the 32-Bit ShellLink.dll will be used which is missing in your setup.

Answer 2

Unfortunately there are a few known issues with ShortcutPanel . After extensive trial-and-error testing I have found that the following requirements have to be satisfied in order for it to display correctly:

• The <lateShortcutInstall/> tag in the shorctuts XML file must only be present if you want to show ShortcutPanel before InstallPanel . If your ShortcutPanel comes after the installation step, your shurtcut panel will not be shown!

• Your <native> tags must be enclosed within a <natives> tag,

• Add the <skipIfNotSupported /> tag to the beginning of the <shortcuts> element,

• Double check your shortcuts XML file as it may have incorrect attribute names and/or missing quotes. Many users have reported such issues and it may be that there is an incorrect website that a lot of people copy-paste from. The specification for shortcut attributes can be found here .

• Check whether the native DLLs are packaged into the installer JAR. For the ShellLink DLLs unpack the JAR and look inside: com/izforge/izpack/bin/native ( and NOT com/izforge/izpack/bin/native/izpack/ ) ¹ ,

• And finally, this is a bit trivial, but check whether your shortcuts XML file is where you think it is and that it has the correct name.

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Footnotes:

1. I am using IzPack version 5.0.6 .