When Burn runs an MSI installer, using MsiPackage, I'd like the MSI's log file to have a custom name, like MyProductName.log. I'd also like to append to an existing log file (with same name).
In InstallShield's Basic MSI Project's Release view there is an entry "MSI Command-Line Arguments" where you can enter a custom log file name:
/l+* "%TEMP%\MyProductName.log"
The "+" will append the log to an existing file.
Burn can pass public properties to the MSI, but I don't see a way to do what I want.
It looks like I'll need to write code (custom Burn bootstrapper) to run after the MsiPackage is installed (or uninstalled) to copy the contents of the log file (in the Burn variable defined in LogPathVariable) to the file with the custom name.
You can use the LogPathVariable attribute of the MsiPackage element to provide a custom log file name ...
See: http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/xsd/wix/msipackage.html
Also: https://support.firegiant.com/hc/en-us/articles/230912207-Pass-Properties-to-MsiPackage-from-Bundle-
To do what I needed, I wrote a simple bootstrapper, which became more complicated as I addressed things like passing installer properties to the bootstrapper, giving warnings if installing an x86 installer on an x64 OS (we encourage customers to use and x64 installer), etc.
Related
Working with Wix in Visual Studio. I have a public property defined in Product node of wxs file.
<Property Id="MYPROP" Value="123456789"/>
The property value is passed as commandline argument to a deferred custom action executable. I'm able to receive it in the exe as well. The problem is even if I update the Property using vbs (verified through vbs select as well), when I launch the msi, it still passes the default/original value (123456789) to the custom action executable.
Also tried msiexec.exe /i myinstaller.msi MYPROP=SomeOtherValue
I'm still seeing the original value. What's wrong?
Maybe try this simple thing first:
<Property Id="MYPROP" Secure="yes" Value="123456789"/>
Essentially you need to add a property to the SecureCustomProperties list to have them pass properly to deferred mode in secure desktop environments.
See more information on SecureCustomProperties here. The technical details here are a little bit in flux because of Windows changes, so please just try this first - there could be several other reasons.
How do you use this property? What does it do?
When an msi is run, windows caches the msi file in %windows%\Installer folder. When that msi is run again, windows checks if an msi with identical PackageCode exists in the cache, if so then it uses the cached msi file instead.
PackageCode: identifies each unqiue msi installer package - even if it only has different properties.
In short, when a property is updated using a vbscript etc, then the PackageCode has to be updated as well. This will ensure that after updating msi, the same msi can be used on the same system and windows will not use the cached msi.
We have 2 installer sources in WiX to create installer for a single product with same Product Version, GUID and Package GUID also.
Those 2 installer projects will yield different outputs, one output being just a single MSI file (File1.msi) and other project output is a CD-ROM structure having different MSI file name (File2.msi).
So now issue arises when we installed the product using single MSI file, upon that if we invoke MSI from the other CD-ROM output, we end up getting below mentioned error.
I tried keeping same MSI filename for both kind of installer output, then this above error dialog was resolved but repair functionality isn't working.
If some files were deleted in the product's destination folder, it says source file not found error pointing to CD-ROM installer source folder.
Please help where I'm going wrong. I want to support Repair installation without this errors.
The dialog is expected. You can't change the name of the MSI except during major upgrades.
After that, if you rebuilt to create the different layouts, each MSI probably has a unique PackageCode and that makes them unique packages. That is most likely why repair isn't working. A verbose log file should tell all.
Updated: Compile your main MSI, then run administrative image on it and put the extracted files and MSI on the CD? Put the compressed
version on there as well - just in case they prefer that kind of
release (happens).
I am not sure what will happen when you run both setups this way, but
I think the MSI flagged as an administrative image extract might be
detected by the engine. I am not sure. Should work. Built-in approach for MSI, and you are not fighting wind-mills.
User Accounts: Are you creating any NT User Accounts? Did you set the FailIfExists attribute to yes? Please check here:
User Element (Util Extension). What is the setting for UpdateIfExists? (if any).
Other Issues: There might be other issues as well as Rob mentions. You can not use the same package code for both release types because a package code by definition identifies a unique file. All kinds of X-Files-like problems occur if you try to "hack" this. Not a fight you want to take on.
Administrative Installation: Why would you want to distribute different setups on CDs these days? Corporations that use your setup will run an administrative installation on your setup extracting all files - which is a much better concept. It is essentially a glorified file-extraction, and it is a built in Windows Installer concept intended to make a network installation point for software - among other things. It essentially extracts all files and translates the Media table to use external source files.
List of Links:
What is the purpose of administrative installation initiated using msiexec /a?
Extract MSI from EXE
I have a WiX Managed Bootstrapper Application that installs some MSIs. I also have a series of tests that exercise the various functions of the installer. The problem I'm having is with the repair test. The test purposely corrupts all the DLLs we install then calls the EXE installer with "/repair /passive" flags. Once completed around 80% of the DLLs are repaired but the remaining ones are untouched and therefore still corrupted after the repair.
If I manually run msiexec on an individual MSI with the command line args "/fa" which instructs the MSI to forcibly replace all the files it installed, it fixes 100% of the DLLs.
My question is how can I force the MBA to instruct each MSI to repair in this way? I've tried setting the REINSTALLMODE property to 'amus' on the individual MSIs in their .wxs files but the MBA overwrites them at run time as is evident in the log via this line:
PROPERTY CHANGE: Modifying REINSTALLMODE property. Its current value is 'amus'. Its new value: 'cmuse'.
I've also tried to set the properties in the MBA to pass through to each MSI but it doesn't appear to pass them and instead uses it's default values.
I see many similar questions here but none actually address this specific issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Rob save me!
Here's your problem right here:
[12:25:25:874]: File: C:****\estimator.dll; Won't Overwrite; Won't patch; Existing file is unversioned but modified
The installer doesn't want to overwrite a file that has changed since it was installed if it cannot verify the version or language (and maybe some other properties?). Without these properties, it decides to look at the modified date. If it is newer than when it was first installed then it won't touch it assuming instead that something changed for a reason and reverting it will cause something to fail. (You can read more here)
One thing you can do in this case is use a Companion File
Set this attribute to make this file a companion child of another file. The installation state of a companion file depends not on its own file versioning information, but on the versioning of its companion parent. A file that is the key path for its component can not be a companion file (that means this attribute cannot be set if KeyPath="yes" for this file). The Version attribute cannot be set along with this attribute since companion files are not installed based on their own version.
Basically you will set the logic for installing/uninstalling this component to be the same as the "FileID" of another component in the install. In the estimator.dll component, in the File tag, remove KeyPath="yes" and instead replace that with CompanionFile="<NameOfAnotherFileID>".
The issue with this approach is that you may have a corrupted DLL but the companionFile it was linked to was fine so it is not reinstalled.
If this is a dll you do own, I would highly suggest versioning the file! Give it any version you want and this issue should go away.
Another thing you can try, although I don't know how it works really, is giving the file a DefaultVersion
This is the default version of this file. The linker will replace this value from the value in the file if the suppress files option is not used.
This would be the quickest solution to verify. Just build a new installer with DefaultVersion="1.0" in the estimator.dll's <File> and see if it gets replaced. I think this will have the installer think the file is versioned 1.0 but the installed file is not versioned so it will replace it (see here)
I'm converting our current monolithic installer to use a WiX 3.7 Bundle/chain. We have several components that are now building into their own separately-maintainable MSI installers. My next task is to add all of these to a bootloader/bootchainer, but I've hit a snag.
A requirement for our individual installers is that they contain the version in the filename (i.e. MyApplication-5.4.22.msi). I don't see a tool like Heat for collecting MSI packages together, and I don't see a way to add an MsiPackage element with a wildcard to account for varying package names.
As a last resort, I can wrap the bundler inside of another MSBuild script that will 'autocomplete' the filenames and pass the paths in as variables to the bundler. I'm hoping someone can recommend a solution that works directly in the wxs or wixproj setting.
If the msi files are built with WiX Setup projects, the WiX Bootstrapper project can reference them, thereby creating useful WiX variables that are defined as the paths to the msi files.
See my answer here, as well as the list of variables here.
If that's not the case then you can write some MSBuild targets that run before the Build target to figure out the actual file paths. If the available standard and community MSBuild tasks aren't sufficient, you can write your own tasks, either by creating an assembly or using inline code. (And, of course, there is always the Exec task to shell out to a command-line program like cmd.exe, after which you can parse its output to extract the msi paths.)
I've created an installer using wix 3.6 which produces an msi file that includes several dialogs (EULA, install location, etc). I then create a self extracting zip file using WinZip Self Extractor in the "Software Installation" mode which kicks off the msi. All this works great.
However, some users have requested a "minimial" install mode that doesn't prompt for input, it just uses all the defaults and installs. This would be used for admin type installs as part of a larger install script. I can pass /qb to the msi and get the exact behavior they want, but if I pass /qb to the self extractor exe it doesn't pass it along to the msi like I want. I've looked through the WinZip Self Extractor documentation, but haven't found an answer. Any ideas on how to make this work?
I don't recommend using generic self-extracting executables like WinZip and others because they do not cache the MSI file. Future operations with the MSI including minor upgrades, patches, and repair may require the MSI to be provided with the name the self-extractor used (hopefully WinZip doesn't change that) and will default to the path (usually %TEMP%). Users are often very confused when this happens and can't upgrade or fix their installation.
Instead, I recommend using a Bootstrapper/Chainer designed to install packages. WiX v3.6+ comes with a new feature called Bundle that uses the new Burn engine to handle all the self-extracting scenarios, plus much much more. It takes a bit more work to get created up front but can behave exactly like you are asking in this question.
Probably not the answer you were looking for, but I highly recommend considering using a real bootstrapper/chainer instead of a self-extractor.