I have created a WIX msi for one of our products which works really well. The product is a Word addin and at upgrade/uninstall the msi automatically checks if Word is open (ie. my assemblies are currently locked in execution) and if it is, then it comes up with the Files In Use dialog.
The only improvement I would like to make is at installation time. I would like to check whether word is open and force close before install. It would be great to do so, using the same Files In Use UI. Is there an easy way to do this?
I have also created a custom bootstrapper (unmanaged), using the sample code from the toolset. Overall this is really good too, however I have real problems when upgrading/uninstalling. Ideally, I don’t want to DisplayInternalUI but I would like the Files In Use to pop up when necessary. Is this possible?
The feature request 4382 was implemented and is available in v3.10.0.1726. Set ShowFilesInUse to yes in the WixStandardBootstrapperApplication element.
Related
What is the standard way to handle web.config files during major upgrade.I'm aware how the unversioned files are handled during upgrade,the file will not be replaced if the file has been modified by the user.
Is there a way to deal with the scenario where in there are new entries added to config file bundled with the latest installer that needs to be installed,and also retain the existing entries modified by the user during major upgrade in Wix.
The simple solution that a lot of my customers have liked is to not put user data in the web.config. Instead we use the AppSettings#file and ConnectionStrings#ConfigSource elements to specify an override file and keep the user data there. What MSI doesn't know about it won't tamper with. Now you don't have to be an MSI component rules wizard.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228154(v=vs.85).aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.configuration.sectioninformation.configsource(v=vs.100).aspx
I know the question is for Wix, but just wanted to point out how much time commercial tools can save in such scenarios.
For example, using Advanced Installer you can read and load into an MSI property any XML values and then use the XML Files updater to write dynamic content in the files, at install(upgrade) time. (check the videos at the end of each article for a quicker overview)
Disclaimer: I work on the team building Advanced Installer.
Set the component to always overwrite and write a custom action to add the needed information to the config file.
The only way that seems possible is a custom action to merge the entries in the new file into the existing file, because you want data from the existing a new files. You would also need the upgrade scheduled late (after InstallExecute) so that the upgrade isn't an uninstall of the old product followed by an install of the new product.
If you are doing an upgrade (the WIX_UPGRADE_DETECTED property will be set by a MajorUpgrade element), so update the existing file, otherwise install the new one.
There might be a way to express the updates as an Xml transform, so something in the WiX util:xml tools might help do an update.
I am writing my first WIX installer. The installed application uses various Microsoft standard OCX controls which are installed as merge modules, for example MSCOMCTL.msm, MSFLXGRD.MSM etc.
For some reason, if the target machine has UAC switched on, running the application after installation fails with a message to the effect that "MSCOMCTL is missing or has not been correctly registered...". However, if the application is run once 'As Administrator' it puts up a UAC "can this app make changes" message (so it's obviously changing something) and then runs fine, and what is more runs forever after without admin privs. (Alternatively, registering the relevant controls with RegSrv works as well).
I have monitored the application with ProcMon and it is obviously doing a late registration. It is as if the installer has advertised the contents of the merge module without installing them. I've also looked at the merge module, and my MSI, with Orca, but I can't work out any way of stopping this behavior.
I did wonder if it was anything to do with the versions of the MSMs, but it seems almost impossible to find out what the latest version of these Microsoft MSMs is, or to find anywhere to download them.
Obviously we do not want to make our customers go through this convoluted process when they install our product. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Kiran. We also read that bit in the MSDN documentation. The problem is that we can't alter the Advertise attributes on items that are already built into Microsoft's Merge Modules (well, we could using Orca but it would be messy).
However, I think we may have found the source of the problem. The previous release of our product used a kit built using InstallShield. When we compared the .MSI created by InstallShield to the one created with Wix we noticed that the InstallExecuteSequence table of the IS one contains RegisterProgIdInfo, RegisterClassInfo and RegisterTypeLibraries, which do not appear in the Wix-generated MSI. We think some or all of these may be needed to force the MSMs to install. I need to find out how to put these into Wix, and then to try it to see if it works. I will try to remember to post the result here for posterity.
[Following day] Confirmed. For anyone else who has this problem, you just need to put a <RegisterClassInfo/> tag and a <RegisterProgIdInfo/> tag (and maybe a <RegisterClassLibraries/> tag, but I didn't need one of those) into your <InstallExecuteSequence>.
I am trying to do a custom action at the time of msi installation. But the dll required for my custom action is depends on other dlls. At the time of installtion it is giving the error like "a dll required for this install to complete could not run".How can I load the dependent dll files for this custom action to run properly.
The code that I am using is
<CustomAction Id='CheckingPID' BinaryKey='CheckPID' DllEntry='ValidateKey' />
<Binary Id ='CheckPID' SourceFile='$(sys.CURRENTDIR)\LicenseKeyClient_32d.dll'/>
<Binary Id ='CheckPID2' SourceFile='$(sys.CURRENTDIR)\curllib.dll'/>
<Binary Id ='CheckPID3' SourceFile='$(sys.CURRENTDIR)\libsasl.dll'/>
<Binary Id ='CheckPID4' SourceFile='$(sys.CURRENTDIR)\openldap.dll'/>
The files that you add in binary table usually get extracted with temporary names during the installation, so your DLL will not be able to locate the other DLLs you add next to it.
A workaround is to add those DLLs as normal files in the Temp system folder and delete them when the installation ends. This has the limitation that you need to set your custom action as deferred, so it executes after the files are installed, thus your DLLs get copied to Temp folder.
I don't know if wix has a support for temporary files, similar with the one present in Advanced Installer, but if not you could try to write a custom action to simulate it. Basically what Advanced Installer does is to extract those files in the Temp folder the moment the MSI is launched, and also deletes them when the installation is complete. This has the advantage that you can use the temporary files and in immediate custom actions, i.e. well before the files from your package are installed.
Despite Bogdan's excellent answer, allow me to add my 2 cents:
It looks like you are dealing with some form of license key validation? The best way is generally to deal with your license keys in the application itself, unless you want it written to HKLM instead of HKCU - in which case you might need the temporary admin rights generally acquired during installation.
You can also open a HKLM key for writing during setup, and write it from the application though this is generally frowned upon security-wise. This allows you to write a single license key for all users directly from the application.
The application features more flexibility and control of the process of registering your license key, and crucially an easy way to run the process again. From my perspective this is almost always needed for a serious application - often due to trial versions with the eventual need to register the license key at the end of the trial period from within the application itself - instead of uninstalling the application and reinstalling, or running the setup in repair / maintenance mode - which seems extremely clunky.
I have described this issue previously in some more detail: Reasons to deal with licensing in the application rather than the setup.
I'll also add that WiX DTF .NET custom actions really simplify this problem by allowing you to embed content into the self extracting custom action package and make them available in the current directory at runtime. Very easy.
But yes, Glytzhkof is correct. Any licensing / DRM done inside of an MSI is easily defeated. It's best to do this in the app or both. For example I've worked at companies where it's a share responsibility. You can enter one now or later. I've also worked at companies where the license key had bits embedded in it that drove feature selection. It gets complicated fast so try not to have to go down that road.
I have a request that I know many will shout about but I don't have any other way around it. In my WIX setup I have a dialog that uses the properties set in the setup to determine a product name(with version type etc) that ties in with our algorithm and a lock code that needs to be produced. Based on these the user enters their unlock key and the custom action pulls the details from all three text boxes to ensure it is correct. I did not write the algorithm for creating these and unfortunately can't change it.
My issue is that I need to be able to create a product key in the registry before this dialog so that my lock code algorithm can read from it. So basically I need my custom actions to be elevated. I read somewhere that someone implemented a custom action to call msiexec but now I cannot find it and don't know how to go about creating this. Has anyone ever had the same issues? I have been reading that people have but I can't seem to find their solution or even if there is one. Thanks in advance
Immediate custom actions CANNOT be elevated. Period, end of story. #FACT
What can you do?
1) Use a setup.exe bootstrapper that is manifested to require admin and a Launch Condition in the MSI that enforces it was launched by the bootstrapper. ( Bootstrapper passes a property to the MSI SETUPEXEDRIVEN=1 is what InstallShield calls it. ) This ensures that the entire UI sequence is elevated. (Not a best practice but I'm putting it out there for you.)
2) Write to HKCU instead of HKLM ( will likely require license code to be refactored but hey it was a broken design anyways. )
3) Refactor the installers interface to the license API. I've done this before. I once worked for a company that expected the installer to call an EXE to validate a license. One big problem is the EXE is out of process and cannot communicate back to the installer. So they started writing "ISVALID" to the registry and I was then expected to write a VBScript around the EXE to flush the value, call the exe and then check the value and set the MSI property. Ummmm can you say #FAIL? The optimal solution was to force the dev team to create an API for the license code that I could call directly from a standard MSI custom action that didn't require elevated permissions or any other hackery.
To give you a background - I have a 4 MSI's which comes from our vendor and this has to go to our company servers (we are looking at around 3500 servers). As of now, my counterparts are managing this using vbs, ps1 scripts. But the problem with the script is that everytime an update comes we have to worry about uninstalling the existing package before running the new one and a ton of hardcoding.
I want to automate the whole process (with very less hardcoding) by setting up a WIX script to package all the 4 MSI's together. I read about the WIX bundle and used that to create a single MSI. But now there are lot of a variables to be passed to the 4 MSI's, so I thought of using custom actions to set these variables based on the environment/machine where the MSI is running. But I cant make custom action to work? Am i missing something?
A little bit of googling and I saw something like there are no CustomActions in Bundle? can someone confirm?
Also if there are no CA's what are my options? how can I manipulate the variables to be passed on to the 4 MSI's? Most of them needs to be set based on the machine its being run (like install path, user id's, app pool id's etc).
There is a fourth option, a useful lightweight hack, identified by Vijay Kotecha (see http://vijayskotecha.blogspot.com/2013/07/wix-bootstrapper-custom-action.html),...
Essentially, build an <ExePackage> around a pass-through .bat or .cmd batch file. The batch/command file contains the single line '%*' which re-executes all of the command line arguments as a first class command.
Thus:
<ExePackage ... SourceFile="SourcePath\WixCustomAction.cmd"
InstallCommand="my_custom_action.exe my_custom_parameters" />
<ExePackage ... SourceFile="SourcePath\WixCustomAction.cmd"
InstallCommand="my_next_action.exe my_next_parameters" />
Where WixCustomAction.cmd is a file containing only '%*'.
These <ExePackages> can be placed into the <Bundle><Chain> successively as needed using different InstallCommands as needed.
As I see it, you have three options:
Depending on what information you need, you can use the WixUtilExtension to perform simple tasks such as reading registry keys and performing file searches, which you can then pass the results to your installation packages as properties.
Implement custom actions in the individual installation packages themselves (not in the bundle).
Write your own custom bootstrapper application to determine all the properties you need to set, and then pass them to your installation packages. This is more complex than the #1 and #2, but if your interested the following links should get you started:
introducing managed bootstrapper applications and
write a wpf wix installer