WIX - How to pass file location which is read from registry to Custom Action? - wix

Question

I have a batch script in Installation Directory. I have to execute this batch script as part of MSI Uninstall.
Firstly, To know the location of the Install directory, I am doing RegistrySearch with below piece of code
<Property Id="REGISTRY_RESULT">
<RegistrySearch Id="MyRegistrySearch"
Root="HKCU"
Key="Software\InstallPath"
Name="path"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
I have created custom action to call the batch script.
<SetProperty Id="CMD" Value="C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe" Before="CostFinalize" />
<CustomAction Id="RunBat" Property="CMD" Execute="deferred" Impersonate="no" Return="check" ExeCommand="[**??REGISTRYSEARCH??**}\RunBat.bat"/>
Custom Action already has one Property Set to "CMD". Now, How to pass REGISTRY_RESULT to my Custom action? Can someone help?

Answer 1

This is how I managed to do this (without using SetProperty):
<Property Id="REGISTRY_RESULT">
<RegistrySearch Id="MyRegistrySearch"
Root="HKLM"
Key="Software\MyProgram"
Name="InstallDir"
Type="raw"/>
</Property>
<CustomAction Id="RunBat" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER" Execute="deferred" Impersonate="no" Return="check" ExeCommand="[SystemFolder]cmd.exe /C [REGISTRY_RESULT]\RunBat.bat"/>
This is the full code of my test wix project that I created, in case you need it:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
<Product Id="*" Name="ConsoleApp" Language="1033" Version="1.0.0.0" Manufacturer="SoftwareCompany" UpgradeCode="8b78c2e7-47cf-4b25-a0f9-4b648db7336e">
<Package InstallerVersion="500" Compressed="yes" InstallScope="perMachine" />
<MediaTemplate EmbedCab="yes"/>
<Feature Id="ProductFeature" Level="1">
<ComponentGroupRef Id="ProductComponents" />
</Feature>
<Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
<Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
<Directory Id="INSTALLFOLDER" Name="ConsoleApp" />
</Directory>
</Directory>
<ComponentGroup Id="ProductComponents" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER">
<Component Id="cmpConsoleApp.exe" Guid="*">
<File Id="ConsoleApp.exe" KeyPath="yes" Source="d:\Learning\WIX\WixTraining\ConsoleApp\bin\Debug\ConsoleApp.exe" />
</Component>
</ComponentGroup>
<Property Id="REGISTRY_RESULT">
<RegistrySearch Id="MyRegistrySearch"
Root="HKLM"
Key="Software\MyProgram"
Name="InstallDir"
Type="raw"/>
</Property>
<CustomAction Id="RunBat" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER" Execute="deferred" Impersonate="no" Return="check" ExeCommand="[SystemFolder]cmd.exe /C [REGISTRY_RESULT]\RunBat.bat"/>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="RunBat" Before="InstallFinalize">NOT Installed</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
</Product>
</Wix>
Notice how I wrote my CustomAction, I did not specify property attribute and instead used Directory (Wix forces you to have Directory attribute), I also used ExeCommand="[SystemFolder]cmd.exe /C [REGISTRY_RESULT]\RunBat.bat" whic basically means take cmd.exe from SystemFolder which is C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe and run batch file RunBat.bat which is in REGISTRY_RESULT folder.
That worked for me, if you still have troubles running your batch file I assume there might be some problems with your RegistrySearch, I suggest you running your msi file with logging enabled (open cmd and type msiexec /i "PATH_TO_YOUR_MSI" /L*V "log.txt") then look into the log.txt and search for REGISTRY_RESULT property, if everything is okay you should see a line REGISTRY_RESULT = {PATH_TO_InstallDir}, if you don't see it than probably this key doesn't exist, alos make sure that you didn't mix up HKCU and HKLM and you indicated the correct one.