Summary

Synopsis

This article discusses where in the registry the shared file count for a file is stored.

Discussion

InstallShield automatically handles updating the shared file counts for files that it installs when you select the Shared attribute for the file in the project, so you do not need to modify the shared file counts directly. Modifying shared file counts manually is not recommended by Microsoft and could result in an application not meeting their Setup guidelines necessary for Windows logo approval.

However, the shared file counts can be found in the registry in the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs

Each shared file has a value under this key. The value name should be the complete path of the file. The value which is stored as a DWORD is the current number of installed programs that use this file.