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Subject:DemoShield From:Michael Johnson <michaelj -at- OECMED -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 9 Oct 1998 10:07:11 -0600
Greetings from Utah!
I'm currently developing a large and complex hardware service manual for a piece of medical equipment. The entire book will be a collection of PDFs on one CD. Everything will be electronic, including the schematics. The users in this case will be field service engineers, most of whom prefer laptops and CDs to lugging around hundreds of pounds (literally!) of paper manuals.
I'm trying to figure out the simplest and best way to develop a front end for the CD. I would like the CD to autorun upon insertion into the user's CD Rom drive, advise the user that Acrobat Reader must be installed before the manual can be read, allow the user to install Reader if necessary, and then go to the Welcome screen.
It would really be nice if we could somehow check for Reader automatically, and go directly to the Welcome screen if Reader is already on the user's hard drive.
I'm currently leaning toward DemoShield ( www.installshield.com ), but I don't yet know if it will do the job. Does anybody out there have experience with this product?
Is there a better approach for non-programmers like me?
Thanks in advance!
Mike Johnson
Michaelj -at- oecmed -dot- com
Writer -at- wasatch -dot- com
Speaking for myself and not OEC Medical Systems