I am trying to find any information how the Windows installer cache is working for Wix Bootstrappers.
For MSIs you do not follow any special rules to be sure a MSI will be cached by Windows. For Bootstrappers (Burns) it looks the same, but I had several issues trying to uninstall the package without original installer.
For me several points are not clear:
how to uninstall a product without original .exe installer?
will .exe installer be cached by default during installation?
does custom user interface affects Windows caching rules for .exe installers?
If you go into your registry and find "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall", you should be able to find a registry key corresponding to your installer package. There should be one for the bundle itself and one for each .msi installed as part of the bundle. If you find the correct key for the bundle, it will have a value called "UninstallString". This is the string you should use to manually uninstall the package via the command line.
For your second point, Windows automatically caches installed burn bundles. The same registry key you found in the step above will have another value called "BundleCachePath", which should point you to the location of the cached .exe file. This should be under "C:\ProgramData\PackageCache{GUID}", where {GUID} is the package GUID of the bundle.
I can't see why having a custom UI would change the caching location, unless you manually add a dialogue to do so.
Related
I have a custom wix burn installer that I have made and it works well except for I can't figure out how to do one thing: save the wix burn installer exe to a location after the installation is done.
Here is my scenario:
My software can be distributed across multiple servers, but one server is the "core" server.
I plan to update the core server and then have the core server push software updates to the other server.
To have the core server distribute the update, it has to keep a copy of the Wix Burn Installer EXE somewhere for distribution. This is what I can't figure out.
Using the built in variable WixBundleOriginalSource, I can find the original installer exe. However, when I try to copy it during ApplyComplete (I don't want to save it unless it successfully installed), I get an access denied trying to copy the file (which makes sense since the burn installer is not running as an admin).
How can I accomplish this - copy the original wix burn installer exe after the installation is complete without permission issues? I get that 99.99% of the time, all file operations should happen inside an MSI, but I can't have an MSI deploy the original Wix Burn Installer, so I am stumped.
Ideas?
Thanks.
OK - here is how I worked around it. I passed the WixBundleOriginalSource to one of the MSIs and then added a CopyFile element to do the copy in the MSI...
Copy file from setup location to another location in wix on install
Copying of license files using Wix 3.10.2? We have a requirement where we need copy some license files after the installation of the webapplication to IIS. Copying of license files will be the last in the sequence. The license files will reside next to the burn (bootstrapper) setup.exe. This way we can control what license file need to be installed based on the user. I am trying to understand if there will be an issue with number of license files reside along with .exe? Is there a custom action to pick files that are not part of the msi or exe?
1) There will not be an issue with number of license files residing along with exe
2) Using the Media element without a Cabinet name you can specify that certain files will neither be inside a cab or embedded into the msi, no custom action needed. See http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/xsd/wix/media.html
You may need to be more precise about exactly when you want the copy to occur. Your original question says "after the installation" which implies that the install has finished and that your generated MSI is no longer running. but in a later comment you say "during the install".
If after the install is what you want, then you could add a custom executable to your Burn bundle that will do whatever you want. In many of these kinds of situations the application that needs the file just goes and gets it with help from the MSI saying where it was installed from, or by using the SourceList capabilities of Windows Installer to get the location.
If you want to copy files during the install then the CopyFile element is probably what you need. It has wildcard capability to define the files you want to copy. Your source location will be the SourceDir property and the destination will be one of your defined directories. Note that the files will not be uninstalled when the product is uninstalled.
WiX Copyfile:
http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/xsd/wix/copyfile.html
I had to use native bootstrap that comes with Visual Studio SDK. With the bootstrap you can also create pre-requisite like installing .net. This worked for my requirement. Also there is a msbuild task so that you can automate it. Used setup project to create msi and VS bootstrap to create setup.exe
Suppose that you have an installer (not a wix installer) that you downloaded from somewhere. How can you know UpgradeCode of that installer so that you can fill it in in the UpgradeCode section in the new installer that you prepare?
Can I learn it from registry somehow? So the question is basically, how to know the UpgradeCode of a program that is installed in the computer.
Actually my problem is that my product has been installed with another installer and I am now trying to move it to wix installer. However, I can't find upgrade code in previous installer and I want to find it from installed software.
Thanks.
As I posted to WiX users:
I've seen this done by having the upgrade get the uninstall string from the registry, where there should be a command you can use since it's not MSI-based. Whether you should call it in the UI sequence or the execute sequence or both depends on your requirements for silent installs, meaning that you'd need to do it silently in the execute sequence, and perhaps need to alter the uninstall command to make it silent.
The same general idea should work if that install has a standard uninstall shortcut you could get the command from. Either way, you're just using a CA to run an external program, or maybe a Util
CAQuietExec kind of thing.
Assuming it's a Windows Installer based installer ( WiX, InstallShield, et al ) you can edit it with ORCA and look at the Property table to see it's UpgradeCode. You may have to first extract it if it was packaged as a self extracting installer.
You can also query the MSI API or look in the registry (HKCR\Installer) for this information. If you go the registry route it's probably easiest to look at the Products/GUID/Sourcelist key and trace it back to a cached MSI and look at it in ORCA. Otherwise you have to learn how to join different datasets and convert Darwin transformed GUIDS back to their original GUID format.
Fire up PowerShell (run as admin) and run this command to get a list of installed products with product code:
Get-WmiObject Win32_Product | Format-Table Name, LocalPackage
You will get a list of all installed MSI products, and a weird looking path to the local cached MSI database. It normally looks something like this:
C:\Windows\Installer\235bbf8.msi
The 235bbf8.msi file name is random, and will be different for each installed product. It is a cached copy of the MSI file that you originally installed. It does not contain cab files (or at least it didn't in older versions of Windows).
You can open that file with the random name from Orca by chosing File -> Open and then pasting in the full path to the file open dialog, and then pressing open. Don't make any changes but check the upgrade code in the Property table. You can also use other MSI tools such as Installshield.
Note that the path C:\Windows\Installer is "super protected" and is not even visible in Windows Explorer before you enable the show hidden folders AND you disable the protect operating system files option. I still believe you can open the file directly if you paste the whole path into Orca - no need to go via Windows Explorer.
i have already an installer for our application. but it is exe-file. it was created many years ago.. application of course was updated. we used a bat-file to register new dll-files and to install our service(windows). but we want to do all this by installer not a bat-file. we chosen a wix techology. i read about <Patch> node, but to use it i need an msi from previous version.. i think to do a simple installer, that will stop service,copy and register dll in the installed application's directory, install service. but i don't know will it overwrite the files without any problems?
You can only create an MSP (Patch) for an MSI (Installer). Also, you're going to run into component ref counting problems if you install your components into the same directory as the original install. The problem is MSI will go to see a file is already there, make it as a shared resource and increment the usage counters. Then on uninstall it will decrement, see that it's not 0 and remove to uninstall the files.
I'd suggest installing to a new directory and then using the RemoveFile table to get rid of the old files. Also I'd suggest following good CM / Versioning practices so that you don't have to worry about hacks such as Version Lying.
If all your application just needs to xcopy files, setup a directory and maybe even a ShortCut, it should be a piece of cake.
Versioned files like executables will automatically be overwritten if the version of the file number is lower.
See also Copy if not exist in WiX.
I've developed a Wix installer for an internal project however entirely by accident I've found that I'm unable to uninstall the installer on my development machine as I get the following error message:
The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable
with a dialog pointing to the path of the .msi that I installed from feature from. (The .msi is there, however is has been rebuilt and so has changed since I installed it)
I'm concerned by this dialog as I had believed that Windows Installer kept track of installed .MSI files, however this dialog seems to suggest that I can break my uninstaller by deleting, moving or changing the installer.
Is this the case?
What do I need to do to make sure that I don't break my uninstaller in this way? (Do we need to keep copies of all versions of the installer ever installed on a machine?)
The easiest way to get out of this situation is to do a recache/reinstall. Build a new version of your MSI that isn't "broken" (in whatever way it is broken, in this case, it might not really be broken at all, you just need a new source). Then you use a command line like:
msiexec /fv path\to\your.msi /l*v i.txt
That will copy your.msi over the MSI that is cached and do a repair. Then you'll be in a better place.
One of the first painful lessons of writing installs is to never run your install on your own box. Certainly not until it reaches a point of maturity and has gone through several QA cycles. This is what we have integration labs and virtual machines for. (There is a saying about things you shouldn't do in your own back yard.)
That said, normally an MSI uninstall doesn't require the MSI but there are situations where it could be required. For example if one was to call the ResolveSource action during an uninstall, MSI would then look for the .MSI.
Now there are several ways out of this pickle:
Take an MSI you do have and edit it with ORCA to match to file name, UpgradeCode, ProductCode and PackageCode of the MSI that you installed. You should be able to get all of this information from looking at the stripped cached MSI that exists in %WINDIR%\Installer. CD to that directory and do a findstr -i -m SOMESTRING *.msi where SOMESTRING is something unique like your ProductName property. Once you know the name of the cached MSI, open it in Orca to get the required attributes. Then put these attributes in a copy of the MSI you have available and try to do an uninstall. No, it's not the exact MSI that you installed but usually it's close enough.
or
Use the front end windows installer cleanup utility (if you still have it) and/or the backend MSIZAP utility to wipe all knowledge of the application from MSI and Add/RemovePrograms. Note, this doesn't actually uninstall the program so you'll have to also write a script or otherwise manually uninstall all traces of the program.
or
Reimage your workstation
If you know exactly what is wrong (which is often the case during development), I prefer to open the MSI file that Windows will use for uninstallation and edit it directly with a tool like Orca to fix or remove the part that causes the failure.
For example:
Locate the MSI file in %WINDIR%\Installer. The MSI should be the last edited MSI file in that folder right after you did the failed uninstallation.
Open the msi file with Orca.
Remove the failing part - for example the InstallExecuteSequence action that fails which is atypical scenario.
Save the msi and close Orca to release the lock on the msi file.
1 - Have you experimented with "run from source" during installation?
This is an option in the feature tree which allows you to run some files from their installation source. This is generally combined with an admin image on the network. See image below. I haven't tried it, but I assume this could cause: "The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable" if the network is down and you are trying to uninstall. Just a theory, there are other ways this could happen.
2 - Are you running script custom actions? If so, do you extract to the tmp folder or run from installed files or the binary table? If so, is the custom action conditioned to run only on install?
3 - Are you perhaps running an EXE custom action that is pointing to an installed file? If so this file may be unreachable on the network.
4 - Are any of your userprofile folders redirected to a network share?
5 - Are you installing anything directly to a folder on the network?
There are plenty of other possibilities.