Show wix installer conditional UI step - wix

I would like to do this.
Check if a registry key exist. If it does, use the value as installdir. If it doesn't, show UI step to select a path and then use it as installdir but also create a registry key and set the value to the given path. The next time I run the installer the registry key should be found and not show that UI step.
Thankful for any help I can get!!

This is quite a common scenario and known within WiX as the Remember Property pattern.
A good explanation can be found on Rob Mensching's blog

Related

Update property value with changes made in registry during install

I have a WiX project in which there is a need to check for certain registry keys that should be added as part of install.
But using the RegistrySearch element, as it is scheduled with AppSearch execute sequence, I always end up getting a blank value because till AppSearch no keys are written.
Is there any way I can determine existence of Registry keys somewhere around PostInstall?
This question is somewhat similar to : this question
Why do you need a search to see if a registry from the package is installed or not? You could simply just check the state of its component. If the state say the component got installed it means the registry is on the machine, and vice versa.
Condition examples.

At what step of MSI (InstallExecuteSequence) UAC is prompted?

When I execute my MSI with UAC ON the UAC is not prompted for some time. I am trying to read some registry entry in a custom action before "CostFinalize". My Registry read function will consider a default value if registry entry is not found. But in my case the registry entry is there but it fails to read because the key doesn't have read permission for "User". Although Admin have full permission.
Registry read seems to be happening before UAC prompt. How can i make sure UAC is prompted at start only so that registry read can be successful.
Issue explanation
We have an old installer written in WIX. Where we are writing a registry entry for install location something like this
HKLM\Software\CompanyName\Product\Install\CompInstallDir = [InstallDir]\Product\Component.
This registry entry does have permission for Admin only even user doesnt have read permission I dont know why (i didnt write that code). there are some other entries under HKLM\Software\CompanyName\Product\Install
Now I have to make changes in the installer code for upgrade. In which i have to read this install location i.e., [InstallDir]Product\Component and trim it to [InstallDir]. So I already have an existing custom action (from previous installer code only) which reads the registry and sets Property INSTALLDIR, also some other properties and do backup of some config files. This custom action is under "InstallExecuteSequence" which as per my understanding should prompt for UAC if required. This custom action is called before "CostFinalize".
The thing which should have been there in old installer is Writing a registry entry containing only [InstallDir] which wasn't in place. Due to which that custom action is in place which is not a good way of doing, but being legacy code have to maintain it :(
Hope I am able to explain my problem :)
In this SO thread I explain how UAC prompts are triggered.. Basically, you need a bootstrapper, and in its manifest set the execution level accordingly.
Regarding the custom action to read the registry. Why don't you use the built in support from Windows Installer to make a registry search, using AppSearch and RegLocator tables? As a general rule, its not recommended to reinvent the wheel. A default value for the search can be specified by simply defining the property (name of the search) in Property table.
The normal best practice is for the Install UI sequence to run as standard user and for the Install Execute sequence to elevate if the MSI is built to require it. ( For example a per-user install writing to per-user locations might not ever need elevation ).
The other best practice is to use AppSearch to read registry values into properties. The AppSearch also runs in the InstallUI sequence so normally the expectation is that these reads can be performed using standard user permissions.
In your case, you require admin to do the read. In all my years writing hundreds of installers I've never had that requirement. To give you better advice I'd have to ask what is the nature of this registry value and why is it only readable by administrators? After you read it, what do you intend to do with it?
Options include a bootstrapper to elevate the entire installer including UI sequence but that's usually not advised. Otherwise you need a deferred custom action running without impersonation (SYSTEM context) to do the read but at that point you can't set a property so you'd have to use the registry value right there for whatever purpose is intended.
Very strange requirement... I'm detecting a code smell.

Adding temporary rows to a custom table

I fell in love with CustomTable to build data-driven WiX installs. I had a custom action that I needed to execute on a dozen or so objects during an installation. Instead of having 12 <Custom Action=... entries in the InstallExecute sequence, I put all the appropriate stuff into a CustomTable and process via a loop inside a single CustomAction.
Now I want to leverage the functionality that WiX provides, such as XmlFile in conjunction with CustomTables. For example, I have a bunch of .config/xml files to process during the install; instead of having a million <XmlFile... elements in the Wix source I would like to add rows to the XmlFile table directly. Similar situation for configuring IIS where there are many WebApplication and WebVirtualDirs that I need to configure.
It looks like this can be done by inserting "temporary rows" into the appropriate table-- ie XmlFile or IIsWebVirtualDir. But I can't seem to find any examples of how to do this with DTF or otherwise.
Bob Arnson alluded to the fact that this is possible in an old post on joyofsetup that I came upon, unfortunately I can't find any other references to how to implement.
You can use the installer database functions from a custom action.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa368250(v=VS.85).aspx
For details and some examples please see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa372021(v=VS.85).aspx

How can my WiX uninstall restore a registry value change?

The installer I'm writing using WiX 3.0 uses a RegistryValue element to modify an existing registry value (originally written by our main product). I'm trying to figure out a way to restore the registry value when the user uninstalls my utility. I'd like to avoid using a custom action, but that might be the only recourse? TIA.
I did this. The registry value in question was the application associated to a file extension, but it could be any registry value.
My first idea was to use a "custom action" for install and uninstall to preserve
and restore, respectively, the associated regy state. This
seemed simple enough.
I created a setup project in VS2008 and built the CA's as javascript files. The "on install" script grabbed the existing regy value and stashed it into a well-known place. The "on uninstall" script would look in the well-known place, and then put the value found there, back in the original location.
Easy, right?
There were two problems:
the script that ran during install, to preserve the pre-existing registry value,
runs AFTER the registry has already been updated
with the values for the newly installed thing. So it preserved the new setting instead of the setting that was there before the MSI ran. Not useful.
The script that runs during uninstall, runs AFTER the registry values, and in fact the entire directory subtree,
have been deleted. Including the stashed value. So it had lost its state.
To solve that I wrote another script that
re-orders the custom actions so they run at the proper times.
There's actually one more twist. Obviously, the "Restore" script (on
uninstall) won't work if it is run after the registry entries for the app have been deleted. I can't remember now, why... but I also determined that this script could not run before that. Somehow that wasn't working either.
So, I modified the MSI to run the restore script
twice. In phase 1, it transfers the stashed value to a "parking lot" in the registry.
Then the application's Keys and Values in the registry get deleted, but the parking lot remains. In
phase 2, outside the transactional protection, the restore script retrieves the state from the parking lot, restores
the file association, and then deletes the parking lot.
I can't remember exactly why I needed to do this in 2 steps, but I remember fighting with it for a while before coming up with that solution.
The way it works in development:
set the on install and on uninstall CA's in the VS project
build the VS Setup project
run the post-processing script that modifies the MSI.
When using the MSI, it's a little more complicated than I originally thought but it works.
If you are using WiX, you may have more control over the time and ordering of the steps, so may not need that post-processing step.
Finally, you said you wanted to avoid a CA. To me, CA's are avoided because they are painful to produce in C++, and producing them in .NET is often inappropriate. But, it's pretty simple to use Javascript for CA's. Some people think script is the wrong tool for the CA job. I think that's wrongheaded. I think script is a very good tool for this purpose. And once you can accept script as a good tool, then you don't need to hold your nose about creating a custom CA.
The registry table is incapable of writing a registry value during an uninstall so it is correct that this must be done via custom action. I am of the opinion that using script is bad. Whether you choose to listen is up to you. I can tell you that just the other day I was called into to trouble shoot a situation where some wrote a vbscript CA that was failing because the file system object had been unregistered as part of a security lockdown process.
I suggest C++ or C#/DTF depending on your needs.
Faced with similar issue, need to update the registry value on install and restore to previous value on uninstall.
Is the only solution possible is creating a custom action for this purpose?
I found a extension for wix that has fucntions for this purpose
link to wix extensions

How to find and delete registry entries in Wix

I am trying to write a Wix3 install for a visual studio add-in.
I have it just about there, but I need reset the plugin by deleting a registry entry. Specifically any value starting with
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\PreloadAddinStateManaged\MyAddinName.Connect;
How to a convince Wix to delete any such entries?
You need to use registry element.
http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix2/wix_xsd_registry.htm
This should solve your issue you're having. There is a great WiX tutorial and registry is discussed in chapter called Beyond Files.
Is your issue the need to do a partial match on the registry value. If not, then you might be looking for the RemoveRegistryValue element (nests under Component). If yes, then I would think you'd probably need to create a custom action to search for the registry value(s) to delete and populate the RemoveRegistry table with what you find. I would think a DTF (Deployment Tools Foundation) custom action would a viable option.