T.Slappy
23rd November 2012 15:19 UTC

How to recognize NSIS and NSIS Unicode version
Hi all.

Is there any safe way how to recognize whether UNICODE version of NSIS is installed?
I want to detect a) NSIS is installed? b) is NSIS UNICODE or not?

Checking "HKLM Software\NSIS\Unicode" or "HKLM Software\NSIS" for installation path sometimes fails - or in some cases user removes the "Unicode" from installation path.

How can I safe recognize these versions?

The very quick and hacky solution is to execute makensis.exe and read first line (saying "MakeNSIS v2.46.5-Unicode - Copyright 1995-2009 Contributors") but maybe there is an easier solution for this.

Thanks!

LoRd_MuldeR
23rd November 2012 20:52 UTC

If, inside your script, you want to check whether it is being compiled by Unicode NSIS or not, you simply use:
!ifdef NSIS_UNICODE

If you want to check whether (Unicode) NSIS is installed on the computer, I think your Registry method is the only good way. Other than that you could check if MakeNSIS.exe exist under the default install path in "%ProgramFiles%\NSIS" or "%ProgramFiles%\NSIS\Unicode", but that's not very reliable, obviously - the user might have installed NSIS to another location.

And if you want to check whether a given MakeNSIS executable is Unicode or not, parsing the console output and checking for "-Unicode", as you suggested, probably is the best way. Alternatively call MakeNSIS.exe with "/HDRINFO" switch and check whether "NSIS_UNICODE" is among the pre-defined symbols. Last but not least, you could call the MakeNSIS.exe and let it compile a script of yours and inside that script you use the "!ifdef" from above to destinguish between "Unicode" and "ANSI" NSIS.

Anders
24th November 2012 01:41 UTC

...and the current code in SVN can generate both types. (NSIS_UNICODE is not defined until you use the "Unicode true" attribute)

!if 0x2046000 >= ${NSIS_PACKEDVERSION}
  !echo "check NSIS_UNICODE"
!else
  Unicode True
!endif