Enable logging in wix installer - wix

Question

How can I enable logging in my wix project and set MsiLogFileLocation?
Now I am running my install.msi with command line arguments:
msiexec /i install.msi /l*v InstallLog.log
I want to log my work always just running install.msi without any arguments. Are there any way to do that?

Answer 1

You can tell WiX to use verbose logging like this:
<Property Id="MsiLogging" Value="v" />
but you can't specify where to write the file - msiexec has already determined that by the time WiX gets to set the property. It'll default to %TEMP%\MSI{random chars}.LOG. You could offer the user a checkbox to determine if they want to open that log, like this (assuming you're using the built in InstallDir UI template - it'd be possible with others as well, but this is a pretty simple example):
<Property Id="MsiLogging" Value="v" />
<UI>
<UIRef Id="WixUI_InstallDir" />
<Publish Dialog="ExitDialog"
Control="Finish"
Event="DoAction"
Value="LaunchApplication">WIXUI_EXITDIALOGOPTIONALCHECKBOX = 1 and NOT Installed</Publish>
</UI>
<Property Id="WIXUI_EXITDIALOGOPTIONALCHECKBOXTEXT" Value="View Installation Log" />
<WixVariable Id="WixUILicenseRtf" Value="license.rtf"/>
<Property Id="WixShellExecTarget" Value="[MsiLogFileLocation]" />
<CustomAction Id="LaunchApplication" BinaryKey="WixCA" DllEntry="WixShellExec" Impersonate="yes" />
This would copy the log file to a directory about as late as possible in the game, but would miss at least some of the tail end of the log:
<Property Id="MsiLogging" Value="v!" />
<CustomAction Id="CopyLog" Execute="immediate"
ExeCommand="cmd /c copy [MsiLogFileLocation] C:\temp\log.txt"
Directory="TARGETDIR"
Impersonate="no"
Return="asyncNoWait" />
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="CopyLog" OnExit="success" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>
Note that this won't work for the C: drive root, because that requires administrative privileges. If you're ok missing even more of the log, you could change OnExit='success' to After='InstallFinalize' and change the Execute attribute on the CustomAction to commit. That should allow it run as administrator.
See this discussion for a bit more: http://windows-installer-xml-wix-toolset.687559.n2.nabble.com/Setting-MsiLogFileLocation-property-td7374335.html