When uninstalling my app, I'd like to configure the WiX setup to remove directories and like user settings and user data I want add a dialog with two check boxes and optionally remove all the files that were added. It looks like the uninstaller removes only the directories and files that were originally installed from the MSI file .
In other words, I want to give user a chance to Delete his data with a dialog while uninstall is called ?
Is this possible through WiX without resorting to custom actions? Any help would be appreciated.
To do this without using custom actions, see the WiX documentation regarding the RemoveFile and RemoveFolder elements. You can use these to remove files and folders on uninstallation. RemoveFolder will only work if the folder is empty.
Note that if the files are located in the user's application data directory, you will only be able to do this for the user that is uninstalling the application. You cannot easily do it for all users.
Related
I have a per-machine WiX installer (InstallScope="perMachine" InstallPrivileges="elevated") and I need to create a folder and copy a few files to the Documents folder of each user running the application. At the moment I install the files to a personal folder of the current user, but that's wrong and I get the ICE91 verification warning:
ICE91: The file 'SomeFile' will be installed to the per user directory 'SomeDir'
that doesn't vary based on ALLUSERS value. This file won't be copied to each
user's profile even if a per machine installation is desired.
I want the files to be automatically copied to the Documents folder of each user. Could someone post the step-by-step instructions how to do that?
UPDATE: I will be on holiday until September, during that time I will not be able to respond to any comments.
Windows Installer will do this - it's what advertised shortcuts will do. If you install a file to a user specific folder location and a different user logs on, then that file will be missing for that user and repair mechanism of the advertised shortcut repair will install it from the original MSI file. In your case the PersonalFolder property is the user's Documents folder.
To arrange this, the file must be the keypath of a component, and that component must be in a feature with an advertised shortcut. When the shortcut is used the component and containing feature are checked for "self healing" and the missing file installed. This works for users that don't yet exist. Older Office installers once did this to install user-specific items such as templates.
The MSI must obviously be available for this to work, and there is no mechanism to remove the files at uninstall time.
An alternative (or if there are no advertised shortcuts) is to add code to the app that calls MsiProvideComponment (or equivalent p/invoke) passing the ProductCode, feature name, Component id (of that documents file) and use INSTALLMODE_DEFAULT, which will install the file if it's missing as documented here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370356(v=vs.85).aspx
and it will be missing and therefore will be installed for a user who has not run the app before.
Why would you want to do this this way? What if there are 10000 (just for example) users on the machine? You want to copy the files to all 10000 documents folders taking up potentially GBs of space (depending on the size if the files copied)? If these are configuration options needed by your app, the app itself should create default files in the user's documents location on the first run if they are not present otherwise load the settings from these files. You should not put the default files there for every single user on the machine at install time.
This approach also fails for new users added after you install. How will they get the files in their documents folder? Do they have to reinstall the product?
Consider a per machine install of per user installers with shortcuts that interested users could launch. For example, templates.msi, examples.msi.
I am developing an installer using Wix. I am using the ISWIX add in. I want to copy some folders in installation directory during installation. And these files and folders must be deleted after successfully uninstalled. And I also need to copy a library to the system folder of the PC and that should also be deleted during uninstallation. For this, do I need to have admin access? Is my installer can have launch condition like to check if the user is Admin or not?
Though it contains multiple questions but all the questions are correlated.
If you want to install files into the "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Windows\system32" directory you'll need to run the installer with administrator/elevated privileges. MSI has a built-in property that gets populated when the user as elevated privileges: "Privileged". You can add a LaunchConditions table entry with the condition "Privileged" - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa370852%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
I'd also give this post a read - How do I get WiX installer to request administrative privileges?
I haven an installer which must run with elevated admin rights if UAC is enabled. This works fine. When I upgrade the app (using the MajorUpgrade element) the app gets uninstalled and reinstalled correcly.
During runtime the app attempts to change some files in the program files folder which places copies them items in the users virtualstore. These do not get removed during uninstall.
During the upgrade/reinstall process, is there a correct way to delete the application file copies, for all users, in the VirtualStore?
Files placed into a virtual store are, by definition of who wrote them and when, per-user data files. Such files typically should not be removed during uninstallation. If the files in question are not actually per-user data files, the application that caused them to be written should be fixed to write to a proper location, update them in a controlled fashion, or even not write them at all.
(I'm newbe in Installer world so I'm still not sure what is right what is wrong. Anyway.)
I make a installer for service which uses desktop database. The database file should somehow be copied during first installation, be intact during upgrades and finally removed during uninstall.
As far I know, I can't add the database file as a directory component - 'cause installer will automatically remove it during uninstall. On the other hand, if I set the Persistent attribute, the database file will be NEVER removed by installer (even, if I will create separate component with RemoveFile element).
The above leads me to thinking, that I can't add the database file as directory's component.
So what are other options?
Is it possible to include a file into installer file (msi) and then copy the file with custom action to target folder?
Then deletion could be solved with RemoveFile element and condition base on UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE property.
What do you think, guys?
If you are going to be using a custom action, why not create a custom action the will remove the file on uninstall. I have a custom action like that in a couple of my installers due to updates that happen to the target folder after the program has been running for a while. this just ensures a clean uninstall with no files laying around.
I am developing an MSI installer by using WiX.
The main program installs to [APPLICATIONFOLDER]. I use the InstallDirDlg to set the directory of this without any issues.
I'd like to display a custom dialogue based on the InstallDirDlg to specify a directory to install a particular component. I'd like to set the default directory to [APPLICATIONFOLDER]\Resources. However when I run the installer, I get an error, code 2343.
I think this may be a problem with displaying a second level folder in the dialogue.
You could take a look at how this is done in the WixUI FeatureTree UI example. In particular, look at the CustomizeDlg.
The error 2343 means "Specified path is empty.", so you have probably set a property incorrectly. Looking at the log files generated by your installer may also help.