Plugin deployment

Question

Hello
I'm developing plugins for CS3, 4, 5 and 6 for MacOSX and Windows. I want to simplify the deployment process for our customers. Today they have to set an additional folder in the preferences of Illustrator.
How can we know the version of Illustrator and where to put automatically the plugins in a directory where Illustrator will find them without user intervention ?
On MacOSX I use packagemaker and on Windows I use a Windows Installer.

Answer 1

I can't help you on Mac, but there's a whole lot of painful stupidity to try and figure this out on the PC. I have to check two different registry keys (one in the WOW64Node to see if I'm finding a 32-bit on a 64-bit system) just to identify the proper Illustrator root folder (for each architecture that exists -- this is for CS6 mind you. Then I have to go looking one level down from there for something like '3D.aip' -- that gives me a folder one up from the plugin folder.
Granted, if the 3D.aip isn't there, you're boned. But there's no other way then to look for a 'built-in' plugin -- and its hard to find one that doesn't change names between different language versions.
For CS5 its the same process, I just use HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Adobe.Illustrator.CS5.DefaultIcon and get the Illustrator.exe's location from there. I imagine it'd work similarly for CS3 & CS4. Then I do the same as above, searching for 3D.aip.