Requirements for running Executable (CD)?

Apr 29, 2015

What are the requirements for running the executable published output of storyline 2? I would have thought that it includes a player that would make it work in any of the target OS, and have not other requirements... However... 

A couple weeks ago I published an EXE version to be installed on a clean Win8 machine for a trade show that was not going to have Internet access. It worked fine on my PC, but not on the target machine. We tried troubleshooting, but found no details in the help. 

Finally, the IT person that was working with me installed Flash on IE and the EXE then worked. This was very alarming as I had specced a local-run option for a global distribution. I have not tried to replicate the problem, and would rather not have to. Rather, can someone articulate (pun intended) the requirements to run the EXE?

Thanks,

Evan Stuckless

10 Replies
Evan Stuckless

I just saw in a related thread that Flash is required for an EXE version. This is VERY disappointing! I am not looking forward to this discussion with my stakeholders, whom I convinced to go with SL over other products. WHERE IS THIS REQUIREMENT LISTED?

It isn't listed in the Publishing section of the Features on your website. It doesn't appear in the help. It doesn't appear in the first 10 Google search results when I search "requirements for publishing to CD". It doesn't appear in the first 20 search features of this community... 

Christie Pollick

Hi, Evan - 

Sorry to hear you were having difficulty finding the resources you need. Please see this information on System Requirements which denotes Flash is a part of the viewing requirements. And you may also find this information on Publishing a Course for CD or Another Local Source and Publishing and Sharing Articulate Storyline Content helpful. 

Jared K

I'm encountering the exact same issue. Prepping to use Storyline for global distribution and realizing that Flash is required on user machines. Worse, there is no indication to the user about what they need to do (exe window is just blank). This is a huge issue for this type of use (I realize we're in the minority). The original post is over a year old, Flash has been dying a slow death for longer than that.

Your html5 output isn't that far off from being a complete solution, most of the unsupported html5 features in your compatibility table are technically possible. Maybe short-term polish html5 for IE and wrap that in an exe for local file system distribution, removing the Flash layer.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I'll need to recommend that my company switch to something more robust like Captivate (ironically to escape the Flash requirement). While apparently local file system deployment is a niche case, it is our most important requirement.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Jared, 

The local flash playback of content is something that a number of browsers have disabled for web published content and we always recommend publishing and uploading to the intended environment vs. testing locally. The reliance on Flash being installed is something that still exists in Storyline but knowing that HTML5 is a driving force for the majority of users it is something that our team has continued to put as our focus and looks towards enhancing and increasing the availability and functionality of our HTML5 output. 

Evan Stuckless

I notice that you still do not list the requirements for running the exe version anywhere in your documentation. This is still not cool!

Also, you could fix this problem in a week by using the Adobe Flash Player instead of IE to run the flash output . This is what you should have done from the start, but I suspect your business folks don't want to pay the licensing involved.

I understand business decisions, but again, WHERE IS THE REQUIREMENT  FOR IE AND FLASH LISTED ANYWHERE OTHER THAN ON THIS THREAD? You are doing your customers a disservice by not informing them.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Evan,

I wanted to let you know I asked our technical writer to update this documentation to be more explicit about the CD output. I could see how that lack of mentioning IE *and* Flash needing to be installed would cause some confusion and it is an oversight on our part as the majority of Windows environments do come with a version of Internet Explorer installed and with that version of IE having Flash enabled which would allow the CD published output to play as expected. 

Let me know if you have any other questions. 

James Addoms

I know this thread is a bit old... Ashley, I've searched a bit and cannot find documentation on this. I'm using 360 to publish an executable (publish for CD) and everything is working fine in testing, but my client would like to have specs on file to point to should any user not be able to run locally. Does documentation for 360 (perhaps it's SL version agnostic) executable content exist somewhere? 

Paul Kizilos

Hello. I would also like documentation on how the exe file works. I see there is html5 content created, so I'm assuming the exe is a proprietary "browser" that is pulling in the html5 content. Audio and video files we include in our projects may need "fallback" options - depending on how the exe "browser" is set up. Any documentation is greatly appreciated.