I have 5 installers some that might need to be installed on the same machine and others else where. Each has its own set of custom UI for user input, Setting up config options for the installed application.
I need the user to be able to pick which installers they want to run from the full installer. Something like how you choose features in the standard installer. However I still need these to be separate installers if the user prefers to just grab the needed msi.
Is there a way to add custom ui steps to the bootstrap installer like you would other wix project types?
The standard WIX Bootstrapper Application (WixStdBA) does not support this, you will have to customize the standard application code to acheive what you are looking for.
Instead of editing the stdba, you can take a look at the WIXEXTBA project in codeplex: WIXEXTBA. This project has already included some of the features that you are looking for.
To edit the standard BA at a high level you have to follow these steps:
InstallCondition attribute can be used to control whether a package should be installed:
<MsiPackage Id='MsiName' InstallCondition='RadioButton' SourceFile='\msiname.msi' />
Define your "RadioButton" variable:
<Variable Name='RadioButton` Value='1' Persisted='yes' />
Now define a relationship for your RadioButton to UI in the wixstdba. You can do this by overriding the Theme file and adding radiobutton to the Options page that use RadioButton as the #Id of the control.
Related
I need to add the Change button to my WiX (burn) Bootstrapper, so that it invoked the change action from the MSI that it's wrapping:
What markup do I need for that?
In WiX v3.x, you have to set the DisplayInternalUI attribute to yes to show the MSI UI. But the only time that the bundle can show the MSI's internal UI is during Install. The engine is hardcoded to force any other operation (modify, repair, uninstall, etc) to run silently. You'll have to write your own custom BootstrapperApplication in v3.x if you want the bundle to be able to modify an MSI, and the BA will have to have its own UI to do so.
In v4 (which isn't released yet), you can use wixstdba to show the MSI's internal UI for all operations but there isn't currently support for a Change button like you're asking for. It only supports Repair and Uninstall like in v3.x. No one has asked for that yet, so you might want to create a feature request at https://github.com/wixtoolset/issues/issues. Otherwise, you'd have to create a BAFunctions.dll to customize wixstdba.
The general recommendation for bundles is to use separate MSI's for different features instead of one MSI with all of the features.
I am trying to call a msi inside wix bootstrapper program.It is working properly at the time of installation.And selected features are installed properly.But after installation i am trying to modify the installed features.In the control panel there is change button.But when i click it then it is showing a dialog with Repair, uninstall, cancel buttons.There is no modify button for modifying the features of installer.
Please specify the solution if any.
code inside Bootstrappertheme.wxl is
<!-- Modify dialog -->
<String Id="ModifyHeader">Modify Setup</String>
<String Id="ModifyNotice">[WixBundleName] is already installed on this machine. If it's not working correctly, you may repair it. You may also uninstall it.</String>
<String Id="ModifyRepairButton">&Repair</String>
<String Id="ModifyUninstallButton">&Uninstall</String>
<String Id="ModifyCloseButton">&Cancel</String>
The wix standard bootsrapper application does not currently support msi feature selection. Currently, the only way to get it is to create a custom bootstrapper application. People have asked about this on the WiX mailing list multiple times. Rob Mensching is the project leader, and Bob Arnson currently manages the 3.x branch.
This guide: Writing Your Own .Net-based Installer with WiX is the best resource I know about for building one in WPF. The actual WiX source code is very helpful as well. It's a very big task though.
I don't have a sample project to share with you, but the blog post I mentioned above does have a section "HANDLING CURRENT & FUTURE STATE" which describes how to do this. I think it really is a terrific resource.
Also, see this question: Custom WiX Burn bootstrapper user interface?
Burn GUI
Burn GUI is very different from MSI-GUI. Here is an older, similar answer
Please also see comments in these answers:
On customized GUI
Changing text color to Wix dialogs
Custom WiX Managed Bootstrapper Application
MSI File
What dialog set are you using for the MSI files? Have you tried enabling the advanced dialog set? I haven't tried it yet: http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/wixui/dialog_reference/wixui_advanced.html
WixUI Dialogs:
http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/wixui/dialog_reference/wixui_dialogs.html
Tutorial:
http://wix.tramontana.co.hu/tutorial/user-interface/ui-wizardry
It might be possible to use Orca (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255905) to edit the MSI and resave it so that it, without special configuration in wix, automatically has the Modify option in Programs and Features. When creating an MSI from scratch (using InstallShield for example), the user can specify which options are available. There should be a way to edit the file to accomplish the same thing.
When you open up the "Change" feature from the Programs and Features menu, it reruns a cached version of the MSI installer in maintenance mode. Regardless of what program is bootstrapping the MSI (wix vs InstallShield), the MSI is the only thing that Windows knows about. If it is not configured to have a Modify option, it won't have it.
I have MSI file that is ready to install. It contains a customized UI that also collects data from user. As part of installation, i would like to install following things if missing
.Net framework 4.0
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64)
From what I learned, bootstrapper should contain UI as well. How can I use bootstrapper for only initiating prerequisites stage and then proceed with MSI UI installation?
If you use the Visual Studio Setup and Deployment projects bootstrapper (GenerateBootstrapper related things) then it will show your MSI UI after installing the prerequisites. It's a pretty simple bootstrapper.
I believe the custom bootstrapper UI you are thinking about is the new Burn functionality in WiX v3.6+. Burn is a lot more powerful and can create single, seamless user experience for multiple chained packages (.exe's or .msi's or .msp's or .msu's). Using Burn you can create a very custom UI that does not show any UI from your chained packages. Alternatively, you can have Burn show the MSI UI. Basically, Burn is highly configurable but does require a bit of extra work (since WiX toolset doesn't provide everything out of the box, yet).
To show the MSI UI when running in a Burn-based Bundle you'll need to add DisplayInternalUI='yes' to the MsiPackage elements you want to display. For example:
<Chain>
...
<MsiPackage ... DisplayInternalUI='yes' />
</Chain>
If you are using the wixstdba (which is very common), it will show it's UI until it comes time to install the .msi package. Then the .msi package UI will pop-up on top and return back to the wixstdba UI to complete the Bundle install. You could provide your own Bootstrapper Application if you want to change the way that the Bundle based UI shows up.
I have a WiX installer project that utilises a custom dialog box to ask for parameters to update a web.config file and run a database script on install. Everything works correctly and the application is installed and runs correctly.
However, the custom dialog box is also displayed when I uninstall the software and it certainly doesn't need to be (as I'm not updating a web.config file).
Is there a way to suppress the custom dialog when the application is being uninstalled?
(I should also remove the sql procs I install, at uninstall time but that is outside of this issue).
The solution to your question is to condition the custom action with the condition (Not REMOVE="ALL"). This will make the action run on fresh install and maintenance install, but not on uninstall. If you don't need to run on maintenance install, but only on a fresh install you can set the condition to be: (Not Installed AND Not(REMOVE="ALL")). Full list of MSI properties and brief descriptions here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa370905(VS.85).aspx.
The sequencing and custom action logic in MSI files is VERY complicated. It really pays off to avoid custom actions whenever you can.
There is more - all MSI files have built-in support for silent installation. This means that the entire GUI sequence can be skipped, and the MSI file installed without user interaction. This is a crucial feature for corporate deployment via SMS / SCCM or other deployment mechanisms. Showing a custom dialog box when the setup is run in silent mode is a violation of this basic MSI feature. You can work around this by properly conditioning the display of the dialog based on the property UILevel: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372096(VS.85).aspx. Just to keep things interesting and confusing Microsoft has defined 4 levels of GUI during an installation ranging from completely silent, through various options such as progress bar only etc... See the link for details.
I could add a lot of details here about MSI sequences, conditions, custom actions and similar, but it wouldn't answer your question. Please add any follow-up questions.
Wix snippet to show the creation of a custom action and its insertion into the InstallExecuteSequence:
<!--Custom Action Sample Section-->
<Binary Id='VBScriptCustomAction.vbs' SourceFile='VBScriptCustomAction.vbs'/>
<CustomAction Id='test' BinaryKey='VBScriptCustomAction.vbs' VBScriptCall='Hello' Return='ignore'/>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="test" Sequence='4111'><![CDATA[NOT REMOVE~="ALL"]]></Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
<!-- End of Custom Action Sample Section-->
Is it any way in WIX to detect that a third-party application with a specified upgrade code is installed and what is it's installation folder? I can suggest a custom action is required, but what exactly to do in such custom action? Is it possible to detect such things in VBS custom action?
It really depends on the application. Most applications publish a registry key that can be used to detect them. In that case you just need a RegistrySearch element, no custom actions necessary. If the application was installed via MSI, sometimes a ComponentSearch is better.
You can use dotNetInstaller for configure it very well. With the help of registry search you can easily find out that the program is installed or not(Use product version / Product name for additional check)