I'm using Wix 2. I am using RemoveExistingProducts, but want to keep my previously installed features. In addition, I'd like to add new features via ADDLOCAL parameters given via command line.
However, according to this article ADDLOCAL does set the Preselected flag.
Therefore MigrateFeatureStates does not fire:
Skipping MigrateFeatureStates action: feature settings already made
Is there a possibility to use them both?
No, not both. The documentation is pretty clear that ADDLOCAL (and all the other feature state controls via the command-line Properterties) take over the selection manager. It, unfortunately, makes using the command-line to control feature states very tricky.
Related
Background : Customers have been copying a set of binaries and putting it on a specific location for them to run NinjaTrader Indicators. For Eg: lets assume The customer "A" has used First.dll, second.dll and Customer "B" has used First.dll and Third.dll (they did not use any installers, but just copied from a server location)
Current Requirement: I have to create a WIX installer with all possible updated DLLs with a caveat that it should install only those updated dll whose previous version customer has already on his machine. So if the new WIX installer has First_1000.dll, Second_1000.dll, Third_1000.dll and Fourth_1000.dll, then it should behave on Customer "A" and "B" as follows:
Customer "A": Uses this installer, his machine should have only First_1000.dll and Second_1000.dll and not others.
Customer "B": Uses this installer, his machine should have only First_1000.dll and Third_1000.dll and not others.
What I have Tried: Using the directorySearch and FileSearch, but I am not able to conditionally install, either it installs all or installs none. Other issue with this is it wont remove the previous version of the binary.
What I need: How to call a CustomAction method and use the return result to make decision to install or not, with this I can remove the previous version of the file as well.
Overall advice: don't approach deployment as a development task first and foremost. Get your files and settings deployed, and do any advanced configuration on application launch.
Do not implement any custom logic if all you need is a file copy and some registry keys - and certainly don't do it all in one custom action using WiX / MSI as a "shell" or "container" only.
There are many tools that can help you deploy your software: How to create windows installer (also lists legacy tools that are not MSI tools).
At one point I wrote this step-by-step answer for a WiX installer.
If you ask me for the easiest way to achieve what you want, then I would install all files via a single MSI and use the application itself to adjust any access to advanced features (if applicable) via the license code (if any). This minimizes your deployment complexity, and puts advanced features in a familiar context: application debugging in user context (most likely).
This avoids a world of pain of custom setup logic - which is very heavily overcomplicated by sequencing, impersonation and conditioningconcerns, not to mention runtime dependencies and other challenges. Collectively this causes the overall problem that setup logic is very hard to debug - due to the collective impact of all these aspects of complexity.
The general approach that should work is to:
Group the components (that contain one file each) into Features that when installed will do the right thing for each customer.
Use Feature conditions based on the results of the file searches and the property values set from the searches.
This example in the WiX docs, Conditional Installation seems to do almost exactly what you're looking for.
In the longer term you should build a setup that doesn't require this type of search behavior. You don't say why the file names change, but I'll guess that you are using the different names as a kind of version control. Installs, patches, service packs, upgrades and so on all replace files based on their binary versions. In a well-designed application and install, the binary versions of the existing files might all be 1.0. If the new files are all versioned 1.1 then all the old files will be replaced. If one was version 1.0 (and therefore unchanged) it would not be replaced. The file names would not change. Version control is the basis for updates, so I recommend moving in that direction.
I have a custom bootstrapper using burn, in which I have to detect the driver version of a specific printer on startup and store this value in a burn variable for later usage. Until now, I did this in the overriden Run method of BootstrapperApplication, but I would rather create a WixExtension, to be able to do something like this:
<customUtil:PrinterDriverVersion PrinterName="somePrinter"
Variable="variableToStoreVersionValue" />
This would be similar to the RegistrySearch element in wix's UtilExtension.
There is an example of a CompilerExtension in the book "WiX 3.6: A Developer's Guide To Windows Installer XML", but I don't get it. Why do I need a new msi table? I just want to use that in burn, not in an msi installer?
I looked at the source code of wix, trying to understand, how the RegistrySearch element works. So UtilCompiler just parses the xml attributes and then creates some rows in the WixRegistrySearch table. This table gets iterated by the binder, who writes all searches in the BurnManifest and then creates the resulting output file (.exe). But when and where do this searches get executed at runtime?
Is a CompilerExtension capable to get my task done, or am I on the wrong way?
WiX doesn't have this functionality today. This use case is also needed for the VSExtension to support installing VSIX packages into VS2017 with a bundle, since code needs to be executed to detect VS2017 instances. I created a feature request here.
The UtilExtension searches are special. As you said, they end up in the BurnManifest. The code that executes the searches is in the Burn engine.
I am working on an installer with a handful of custom actions that look for values in the following MSI properties:
ADDLOCAL
ADDDEFAULT
REINSTALL
REMOVE
When running the installer with the full UI, these properties contain lists of comma-separated feature names as appropriate given the options that are selected by the user. However, when I run the installer in passive mode or with only a basic UI (or no UI) from the command line, I find that the properties are empty/blank. It is only when I explicitly set them from the command line that they have any value. This is an acceptable work-around, but it would be much better if these could take on some kind of default, such as "all", without requiring values to be passed on the command line. Is there some way I can specify this in WiX (which I am using to build the MSI) or do I have to do something in the custom action code (or something else entirely)?
I have looked at the property reference here, but I did not see any mention of how one could specify default features for these properties.
What I also found interesting is if I do specify a feature this way on the command line during install, it seems to be stored for the uninstall in the REMOVE property (in other words, I do not have to pass any parameters when uninstalling in any mode). Is this a feature that I can rely on? Will it automatically update if someone modifies the installation later?
I'm running WiX 3.5.2519 and using Visual Studio 2010 with Visual C++ for the custom action code. Thanks for any help you can give me!
Edit:
Actually, I was wrong. It appears that the REMOVE property is always set to "all" when uninstalling and running in one of these modes, even if I pass a different value on the command line or only install a subset of features. This seems broken. Am I doing something wrong here?
C:\> msiexec REMOVE=FeatureName /passive /l* uninstall.log /x Product.msi
It will completely ignore what I specify for "FeatureName" and use "all" in its place.
Your custom actions probably shouldn't examine those properties. Instead they should examine the feature and/or component states of the product, depending on what they're trying to do. In conditional statement syntax, this looks like $component-action or &feature-action (where you use the name of the component or feature whose action you are trying to condition against). In C++ (for inside the custom action) this looks like MsiGetFeatureState or MsiGetComponentState, and these are of course made available through similar means in most other languages (such as session.FeatureRequestState / session.ComponentRequestState in a language you shouldn't use).
It is a recommended practice that all properties to be used by the installation be entered into the Property table with an initial value. The installer sets the properties to these values at the launch of the installation. Properties for which a blank is an acceptable value and properties built into the installer do not need to be initialized.
You can then change the default value programmatically or on the command line as described here: Using Properties.
I am in the process of creating an MSI for our product. I would like the product to be able to install side-by-side. So that I can install 1.0.0 first and later can add 1.0.1 so that the two versions are both installed.
I am using WiX to create the msi and would like to know how this can and should be done in Wix? For example
Do I need to create new Guids for all components?
How would i add the version info to wix or should i rename my product completely?
How can I create the projects so that releasing a new version requires minimal changes in the wix project?
Greetings,
Martijn
You should be able to get away with just changing the top-level productcode and UpgradeCode GUIDs to make your two products completely unrelated, and use the Productversion to identify the version. You can share component guids between products (that's how merge modules work) so that the guts of your installer (component definitions) needn't be tweaked and can still be shared.
You major challenge will be ensuring that the two decoupled products don't interfere with one another, for example by having the same default installation folder, start menu entries and the same Add/Remove programs entry. You might achieve this by including the product version number in the ProductName Property, which can look a bit techy in your install UI, but it isn't unheard of.
Regarding your first question: No, you don't need to.
But why?
I had difficulties to understand the windows installer rules in my side-by-side scenario.
You really need to understand the concepts of component rules (including when you need to brake them) and key paths. WiX doesn't abstract these aspects away.
This answer does already highlight possible interferences.
Let's consider a few examples.
The GUID of the component with the application executable does not need to be changed. This breaks the component rules, but it works, as both versions of the product define the same component in a non-interfering way.
A resource shared by both versions is not directly supported. A prominent example is the use of file extensions using ProgIDs, as shown here.
If you change the GUID (also happening when using the "*" GUID), the extension will be removed when uninstalling either version.
If you don't change the GUID, the extension will be retained, but point to the version which was installed most recently. You may go with this option as the lesser of two devils, supporting at least a scenario where users uninstall the versions in the same order in which they installed them.
There is a pitfall here: The extension needs to be the key path of the component. This makes the usage of the ProgID element problematic in a side-by-side scenario as you'll get the ICE69 warning in case you don't put the ProgID element in the same component as the referenced file. Further more, it's an implementation detail of WiX which registry entry it generates will be the key path.
I want to select features based on certain properties' values.
Similar to this question:
WIX: How to Select Features From Command Line
It seems that setting the ADDLOCAL property value is one way to do it, but is this the right way? Microsoft seems to warn against doing it in this article:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa367536(VS.85).aspx
Features can be conditionally installed as well. See the Condition element under the Feature element. Component Conditions may work as well. Depends on your package structure.
Why not use components instead of features? Components can be conditionally installed depending on various properties.
We do this having "pretend features" that a user can select via a checkbox, then a complicated set of conditionals to install various components depending on their Office version AND the state of the checkbox.