I have a working WiX installer that correctly writes properties to certain INI files, which works fine, but I have a need to generate the name of an INI file on the fly, from the computer name, eg.
MACHINE(xxx).INI
where xxx is my computer name.
I have tried all sorts of combinations of properties and I just can't seem to get it working. Can anyone put me right ?
This is my latest attempt that doesn't work:
<Property Id="MACHINEINI" Value="MACHINE([%COMPUTERNAME]).ini" />
...
<IniFile Id="IniPermissions"
Directory="MYDIR"
Action="addLine"
Name="[MACHINEINI]"
Section="[ComputerName]"
Key="Permissions"
Value="TEST" />
I never see the value of MACHINEINI, as the filename that gets created is actually called
[MACHINEINI]
The value it writes in is correct, so I see the contents as follows:
[xxx] Permissions=TEST
(where xxx is my machine name)
I have tried using [ComputerName], [COMPUTERNAME], [%COMPUTERNAME]
When I build the installer, I get the following error:
C:\Source\blah\BLAH.wxs(50) : warning CNDL1077 : The 'MACHINEINI' Pro
perty contains '[COMPUTERNAME]' in its value which is an illegal
reference to an other property. If this value is a string literal,
not a property reference, pl ease ignore this warning. To set a
property with the value of another property, use a CustomAction with
Property and Value attributes.
The underlying Windows Installer table doesn't support this. Note that the FileName column is of type FileName. Only the Formatted type can take a [PROPERTY].
IniFile Table
You could need a custom action to write temporary records to the IniFile table to transform the file name. The advantage versus using a custom action to literally write the INI file is that rollback would be automatically handled for you.
It's not possible to tell you how to do this exactly since I don't know what language you'd want to use to write the custom action.
A simpler approach (from the installers perspective) would be to transform the [KEY] name inside a single INI instead of writing to different INI files.
Related
How to access the corresponding FieldDefinition, if I have only the jcr property name at hand.
Is there any desired functionality,like find a field definition by a jcr property name ? If not, how would I access configured field definitions in java code ?
Scenario : I need to determine, if a given jcr property name was configured to be an i18n-capable field in definition ?
The answer is you can never be sure if property was configured to be i18n-able (or have any other trait) at the time it was last edited as definition might have changes since.
However to achieve what you want (obtain the definition), what you need to do is:
get a parent node of the property in question,
get value of it's mgnl:template property. That's your templateId,
use the templateId to obtain template from the registry,
read value of dialog property of the template, that's your dialogId
use the dialogId to obtain dialog from the registry
scan tabs in the dialog to find property definition with name of the jcr property you have started with
What I want to do
In InstallShield I want to set the value of a Property before it is used by the SQL Text Replacement feature. I want the new Property value to come from an Edit control that I've added to a dialog.
What I've done so far
I have added SQL Scripts to my InstallShield project, which include placeholders for InstallShield's Text Replacement feature. I've used the Text Replacement tab to find and replace a placeholder in the SQL script with the value of a Property that I've added to the Property Manager. This works correctly, but only for the Property's default value.
Where I'm stuck
The problem is that I want the new value to come from an Edit control in my custom Dialog, but I can't find a way to do this. Text Replacement always uses the Property's default value.
What I've tried is the following InstallScript, which runs when the user clicks Next on my custom Dialog:
CtrlGetText("MyDialog", EDIT_VALUE_FROM_USER, svValueFromUser);
MsiSetProperty ( hwndDlg, "EDIT_VALUE_FROM_USER", svValueFromUser);
Where EDIT_VALUE_FROM_USER is my Property. This runs without error, but the value doesn't come through to the final SQL script.
Why isn't the new value for EDIT_VALUE_FROM_USER being used by SQL Text Replacement? How can I diagnose why it's not working? Should I be doing this in a completely different way?
This turned out to be because I wasn't using the system property ISMSI_HANDLE.
So the correct code to write a Property from an Edit control in a custom dialog is:
CtrlGetText("MyDialog", EDIT_VALUE_FROM_USER, svValueFromUser);
MsiSetProperty (ISMSI_HANDLE, "EDIT_VALUE_FROM_USER", svValueFromUser);
I'm guessing your property isn't listed in the SecureCustomPublicProperties property and is getting set back to it's default value when the installer transitions to the install execute sequence. A log file of the installation would give more data to work with.
I need to set a default database file for my application. I only want it to be set on initial installation. If the registry value--a string of the path to the sdf file--changes, then future upgrades should not try to set the value back to the default.
Another caveat, that seems to be a problem, though, is that if they've never setup a database file, the user should be able to use the program with a default database without having to go through setup.
So I set the DATABASEFILE with value="[INSTALLFOLDER]dust.sdf". but candle was complaining that [INSTALLFOLDER]:
The 'DATABASEFILE' Property contains '[INSTALLFOLDER]' in its value which is an illegal reference to another property. If this value is a string literal, not a property reference, please ignore this warning. To set a property with the value of another property, use a CustomAction with Property and Value attributes.
So, following the error's instructions, I added a custom action. Now that custom action ALWAYS overwrites the DATABASEFILE attribute. I want it to only override that value if the value doesn't exist in the registry.
Here's the code:
<CustomAction Id='SetINSTALLFOLDERREF' Property='DATABASEFILE' Value='[INSTALLFOLDER]dust.sdf' Execute='immediate' />
<Property Id='DATABASEFILE' >
<RegistrySearch Id='DatabaseFile' Type='raw' Root='HKCU' Key='Software\DBG\Dust\Database' Name='File'/>
</Property>
Have you set conditions on your custom action with Id=SetINSTALLFOLDERREF? If not, you might want to do it.
A condition of NOT DATABASEFILE on your custom action should probably suffice.
With the above condition,
-In the case of a fresh installation, the registry entry does not exist. Hence, DATABASEFILE is NULL, the custom action condition evaluates to true and the custom action SetINSTALLFOLDERREF executes.
-For any subsequent maintenance operations, the registry key is present, the property DATABASEFILE will always contain a value, the custom action condition evaluates to FALSE and the custom action will not be triggered.
Another thing you might want to do is to add the property DATABASEFILE to the list of SecureCustomProperties ie. secure the property DATABASEFILE.
I have used a dialog in OnFirstUIBefore() for users to input some information,
and stored them in property USERINF.
However, when I want to retrieve the value of USERINF inputted by user in feature_installed(),
what I get is a default value.
I have added the USERINF to SecureCustomProperties property, but still cannot get the modified value.
How can I fix the problem?
I've always written values like these to the registry, then used appsearch to get them out into the property again.
There is no built in way to persist values like these built into MSI.
i want my program to ask user "Do u want to set .mp3 file type always default open by this program?" (for first time only) any example to do this?
First, you will need to familiarize yourself with the Windows Registry.
Associations between programs and extensions are handled inside the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT key.
Each extension appears as a sub-key.
As each key's default value you will find the associated key that handles most of the operations, currently supported, for that particular file type.
For example, you might find the .mp3's default value is set to "WMP11.AssocFile.MP3" or perhaps it set to "VLC.mp3", if you have installed VLC and configured it as the default MP3 player.
So, now you need to locate that key, again, inside HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.
Although this may vary, you should find that "VLC.mp3" (or whatever key was associated with the .mp3 extension) has a sub-key called "shell".
Under "shell" you will find another sub-key called "Open".
And, finally, under "Open" you will another sub-key called "Command".
The "Command" key is the one containing the information used by Windows (and other programs) to open/start whatever application is currently associated with the ".mp3" (or any other) extension.
Once you understand and feel comfortable with the way associations are handled in the Registry, you should then use .NET's Microsoft.Win32's Registry class to navigate and query the required keys and their values.
Here's a very basic illustration of how the code would look like:
Dim mp3 = Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey(".mp3")
Dim associatedValue = mp3.GetValue("")
Dim associatedKey = Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey(associatedValue)
Dim defaultProgram = associatedKey.OpenSubKey("Shell\Open\Command").GetValue("")
MsgBox("MP3 Files Are Opened Using: " + vbCrLf + defaultProgram)
Hope this helps...
You need to set file associations. See this article on Code Project on setting File Associations in VB.NET.
An error shows up again after importing and declaring it like
Dim rgText As Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey(".txt")
and the error looks like this:
Type 'Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey' is not defined.