how to get wix propery value to wix vb custom action project? - vb.net

Question

I am struggeling with this &%^&##$ problem for over two weeks and it is still not working. I need the user to input some data and that data needs to be sent to my WIX VB custom action project. however it does never reach it. I currently have the following code in WIX:
Input of the user:
<Control Id="InputField" Type="Edit" X="20" Y="100" Width="140" Height="18" Property="ValueAdaptionScript" Text="{40}"/>
Adding the DLL to the installer:
<ComponentGroup Id ="DLL" Directory ="INSTALLFOLDER">
<Component Id ="StringTransfer" Guid ="{479947FA-C324-411C-9B98-083E79C116CB}">
<File Id ="StringTransfer" KeyPath="yes" Source="C:\Users\fjansen\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\String Transfer\Data Transfer\obj\x86\Debug\DataTransfer.CA.dll" />
</Component>
</ComponentGroup>
The custom actions and the Binary to point towards the DLL:
<Binary Id="StringTransfer" SourceFile="C:\Users\fjansen\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\String Transfer\Data Transfer\obj\x86\Debug\DataTransfer.CA.dll" />
<CustomAction
Id="SetProperties"
Property="ValueAdaptionScript"
HideTarget="no"
Value="[MachineIdNumber]"
/>
<CustomAction
Id="ValueAdaptionScript"
BinaryKey="StringTransfer"
DllEntry="CustomAction1"
Execute="deferred"
Impersonate="no"
Return="check"
/>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="SetProperties" Before="ValueAdaptionScript" />
<Custom Action="ValueAdaptionScript" Before="InstallFinalize">NOT REMOVE="ALL"</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
in the WIX custom action project I have made a function to write to a file so I can see what is being recieved from WIX. this is just to test the passing of values, if passing of the values work I adapt the code the let it replace a specific piece of text with the input from the user in a .INI file.
the code of the WIX custom action project:
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Reflection
Public Class CustomActions
Public Shared Property MachineIdNumber As String
Public Shared Property ValueAdaptionScript As String
<CustomAction()>
Public Shared Function CustomAction1(ByVal session As Session) As ActionResult
Dim file As System.IO.StreamWriter
file = My.Computer.FileSystem.OpenTextFileWriter("c:\test.txt", True)
file.WriteLine("test")
file.WriteLine(MachineIdNumber)
file.WriteLine(ValueAdaptionScript)
file.WriteLine(CustomAction1)
file.Close()
Return ActionResult.Success
End Function
End Class
when the installer is ran with all this code I do get a text file with the following content: text and 0. the first is logical since i hard coded it and the 0 is the product of CustomAction1 and means that the CustomAction has ended succesfull. that is all good and well, bud I don't get the value I would like to see.
I really need help with this, since I just don't get it working and have spent a huge amount of time on this problem. bud mainly since this is the last obstacle before I am able to deploy the installer.
Thanks in advance,
F.J

Answer 1

There are a few things incorrect here.
Properties passsed between the UI sequence and the execute sequence need to be all uppercase - that means they are public. They also should be declared first with Secure='yes'.
You don't declare propErties in your custom action code, you get them from the installation process. If your CA was immediate you'd say something like varname = session["VALIDATIONSCRIPT"] but it's deferred, so this is a good overview:
http://vadmyst.blogspot.com/2006/05/deferred-custom-actions-with-wix.html
and having set up the deferred CA property you'd use varname = session["CustomActionData"]
and this too:
https://www.firegiant.com/wix/tutorial/events-and-actions/at-a-later-stage/