I'm installing a large app, and part of it is a custom written tool called "DbUpdateManager" to mass execute SQL scripts against our target database.
Right now, the WiX 2.x install works - but it has one flaw: during install, I also install a couple of Windows services, which can be optionally started right away. Those however will fail, if the DbUpdateManager hasn't been run yet.
So what I'm trying to accomplish is this:
Install DbUpdateManager and my services from my MSI
Run DbUpdateManager BEFORE any of the services start up
My current WiX source looks something like this:
<Directory Id='INSTALLDIR' Name='DbUpdMgr' LongName='DbUpdateManager' >
<!-- DbUpdateManager component with the necessary files -->
<Component Id='DbUpdateManagerComponent' Guid='...' DiskId='1'>
<File Id='DbUpdateManagerFile' LongName='DbUpdateManager.Wizard.exe'
Name='DbUmWz.exe' src='DbUpdateManager.Wizard.exe' KeyPath='no' />
</Component>
<!-- Component to install one of my Windows services -->
<Component Id='InstallServiceComponent' Guid='...' DiskId='1'>
<File Id='InstallServiceFile' LongName='MyService.exe'
Name='MyServic.exe' src='MyService.exe' KeyPath='yes'/>
<ServiceInstall Id='InstallMyService' Name='MyService'
Description='My Service' ErrorControl='normal'
Start='auto' Type='ownProcess' Vital='yes' />
<ServiceControl Id='UninstallMyService' Name='MyService'
Remove='uninstall' Wait='yes' />
</Component>
<!-- Feature for the DbUpdateManager referencing the above component -->
<Feature Id='DbUpdateManager' ConfigurableDirectory='INSTALLDIR'
AllowAdvertise='no' Description='DbUpdateManager' Level='1'
Title='Database Update Manager'>
<ComponentRef Id='DbUpdateManagerComponent'/>
</Feature>
<!-- Custom action for running DbUpdateManager -->
<CustomAction Id='RunDbUpdateManagerAction' FileKey='DbUpdateManagerFile'
ExeCommand='' Return='asyncWait' />
<!-- Calling the custom action in the install sequence -->
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<RemoveExistingProducts After='InstallInitialize' />
<Custom Action='RunDbUpdateManagerAction'
After='InstallFinalize'>&DbUpdateManager=3</Custom>
I inherited this WIX, and it works - but as I said - the DbUpdateManager gets called too late in the process (only "After=InstallFinalize") and thus the services will fail to start up properly at first (the run fine the second time around when you restart them manually after DbUpdateManager has run).
I poked around the MSI documentation a bit and found a nice step called "StartServices", so my hunch was to just change my calling the custom action to this:
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action='RunDbUpdateManagerAction'
Before='StartServices'>&DbUpdateManager=3</Custom>
Unfortunately, in this case, nothing at all happens - DbUpdateManager NEVER gets called....
Any ideas why? Debugging the MSI/WiX stuff is really really tricky, and I can't seem to see the forest for the trees anymore....
Thanks!
Marc
EDIT: The "RunDbUpdateManagerAction" is placed in the right position in the InstallExecuteSequence table in my MSI - right AFTER InstallServices and just BEFORE StartServices - and yet it doesn't work.... DbUpdateManager (a Winforms utility) does not show up during installation :-(
EDIT 2: now my action appears to be executed and at the right time - unfortunately, I'm just not seeing my wizard :-( What I'm seeing is an error code "return value 1631" which means something like "MSI Service could not be started" - wtf ???
MSI (s) (2C:D8) [20:53:36:383]: Doing action: RunDbUpdateManagerAction
Action 20:53:36: RunDbUpdateManagerAction.
Action started at 20:53:36: RunDbUpdateManagerAction.
MSI (s) (2C:D8) [20:53:36:383]: Doing action: StartServices
Action 20:53:36: StartServices. Services are being started
Action started at 20:53:36: StartServices.
Action finished at 20:53:36: RunDbUpdateManagerAction. Return value 1631.
Well, I finally got it working - with a bit of help from everyone who responded, and by consulting some of the WiX tutorials and help pages out there on the web. MSI installer stuff isn't easy to figure out and learn......
Basically, I changed execution of my custom action to "deferred" (as suggested by Rob) and I moved the point in the sequence where it gets executed to "After=InstallFiles". I also changed the condition in the <Custom> tag to "NOT Installed" which seems to work just fine in my scenario.
Contrary to Rob's fear, the Db Update Manager and its UI come up quite nicely this way, and the process of updating our database is now completed before any of our services (that depend on the database) get started.
Looking forward to a full RTM release of WiX 3.0 (and its future) !
Thanks to everyone - unfortunately, I could only accept one answer - all would have deserved it.
Marc
It appears that your CustomAction depends on the 'DbUpdateManagerFile' being installed. That means that your CustomAction needs to be scheduled after InstallFiles executes. Remember there are two passes to the InstallExecuteSequence. First, the "immediate" (or "scheduled" or "script generation") actions are executed to build the transaction log (aka: "install script"). Second, the "deferred" actions in the transaction log are executed.
Right now your CustomAction is "immediate" (the default) so it is trying to run before the files are actually copied to the machine. The InstallFiles action is in the script before your CustomAction but it hasn't been executed yet.
So, you need to mark your CustomAction "deferred" to get it to run after your files are installed.
Note: you are not probably not able to show UI from a deferred CA. I wasn't sure if this tool of yours was expected to show UI.
PS: sorry if I didn't explain that well, it's been a long day.
Try getting a log file of the Installation, and look for the sequence order in there and the value of the condition to perform the Custom Action
Use this in the command line:
msiexec /i [msiname] /l*v [filename]
EDIT: After reading your comment have a look at this page here you could try to add NOT INSTALLED in the condition
EDIT2: I found this page Search for your error Number 1631
You can open the .msi in Orca and look at the InstallExecuteSequence table to see what order things are actually happening in. This may give you a good idea of what's actually happening when.
Related
I have one VB script in the package itself. I need to call it using CMD, the default way of calling the script taking too much time, so I am trying to call it with CMD and CSCRIPT but the installer raises the error while installation.
I am using the following code which is not working as expected. I searched a lot but didn't find the solution.
<Binary Id="ServiceInstall" SourceFile="..\..\..\AddVirDir.vbs" />
<CustomAction Id="InstallService" BinaryKey ="ServiceInstall"
ExeCommand="CMD /C "[#ServiceInstall]""
Execute="immediate" Return="check" HideTarget="no" Impersonate="no"/>
WiX IIS Elements: If this is all IIS, I would avoid scripting and custom actions whenever possible and use WiX's built-in IIS elements. Here is a Web-installer sample from Rainer Stropek available on github.com.
Look for <iis:WebVirtualDir ... /> et al. Find the WiX Documentation here. I believe you should be able to accomplish what you need without too many custom actions.
DISM.exe: Stropek himself uses custom actions in another sample source to set up IIS using DISM.exe. Not sure I would do it like this (no other suggestions though), but it is a sample of custom actions and IIS.
Need-For-Speed: As to your installation performance issues. Maybe you need to suppress the creation of a restore point and limit file costing? The Windows Installer engine allows this - see link below. I doubt it will be very effective though. I think there must be something else wrong in your installer. Some timeout issue? It could relate to other custom actions, slow network, or some other issue. Can you elaborate on your deployment scenario?
In any case, here is some documentation on speeding up MSI installations in general. Essentially the MSIFASTINSTALL property is the only one I would recommend. DISABLEROLLBACK can cause genuine problems.
Logging: I normally recommend that setup developers enable default verbose MSI logging - as described in the "Globally for all setups on a machine" section, to always have a log file ready when you need one. It is created with a random name for every MSI operation in the TEMP folder and you sort by modify to get the latest one. The log file might give clues as to why the installation is slow - just determine what is really going on. Apologies if this is just obvious trifles and you have this set up already.
Manual log file creation:
msiexec.exe /i C:\Path\Your.msi /L*v C:\Your.log
Interpreting an MSI log: interpreting a log file can be challenging sometimes. Here is an answer with some links to help with this.
Service Installation & Control: You should not install services with scripts. There are built-in mechanisms in MSI that are vastly superior. You simply use the ServiceInstall and ServiceControl WiX XML Elements and "declare" how the service should be registered and when and how the service should be started and stopped:
<Component>
<File Source="$(var.SourceDir)\WindowsService.exe" />
<ServiceInstall Name="MyService" ErrorControl="normal" Start="auto" Type="ownProcess" />
<ServiceControl Id="MyService" Name="MyService" Start="install" Stop="both" Remove="uninstall" Wait="yes" />
</Component>
Look! No custom actions! :-) - Just MSI auto-magic. There is no need to use any custom actions for this. MSI is full-featured and reliable provided your service executable behaves as it is supposed to.
Let me link to a similar sample on github in case the above is not clear. It is more complete and elaborate.
VBScript: I wrote this before I saw you dealt with services. I'll just throw it in: to call a script that doesn't have a function you can try something like this:
<!-- The VBScript file -->
<Binary Id='Sample.vbs' SourceFile='Sample.vbs' />
<!-- The Custom Action -->
<CustomAction Id='Sample.vbs' VBScriptCall='' BinaryKey='Sample.vbs'
Execute='immediate' Return='ignore'/>
<!-- And Insert Into Installation Sequence -->
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action='Sample.vbs' After='AppSearch'/>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
That should work for a script like this (Sample.vbs - no funtions, just an implicit main function):
MsgBox(Session.Property("ProductName"))
There is an answer on the topic of VBScript custom actions here: WIX installer execute vbscript from CustomAction.
In my msi, I have to call the installed exe file with some parameters, as a very first action of uninstall. Here is the code:
<CustomAction Id="UnRegisterOnUninstallApplication"
Execute="immediate"
FileKey="MyProgram.exe" ExeCommand="/unregister" Return="asyncNoWait" />
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallInitialize"/>
<Custom Action="UnRegisterOnUninstallApplication" Before="UnpublishComponents" >Installed AND NOT UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
Although, it is scheduled Before UnpublishComponents, but issue is, at some computers, custom action is called during or after dependency dlls are uninstalled and so MyProgram.exe crashes here.
This is something seems unpredictable...
Can anyone please guide, if I'm missing something or doing something wrong???
Thanks a bunch.
There are several things incorrect here:
The design issue is that you shouldn't be running code to register or unregister. The recommended way is to capture the registry entries and add them as registry entries in the same component as that binary. Then it all just works.
Your custom action is asyncNoWait, and that means the uninstall continues while the program runs. If it takes a long time for some reason, or simply doesn't get enough of the processor, then yes, files may have been removed by the time it runs.
It's an immediate custom action, so it can run and start unregistering as the uninstall proceeds. However if the uninstall fails and rolls back the deleted registration will not be restored, so you'll end up with a broken product still installed, those registration entries will stay removed. It should be a deferred custom action and return = ignore or check, depending on whether you care if the program fails.
I might schedule the action before 'RemoveFiles' so that no dependent dlls have been removed before your custom action gets to run.
I have run into challenging problem trying to accomplish the following:
my application installs a service (watchdog.exe) and an exe file (app.exe).
After the installation is done the service starts and creates process "app.exe".
during uninstall I want to kill the process "app.exe" (which is running under local system account, so I must be running as admin).
problem 1:
The installs says that it requires a reboot since it sees that file "app.exe" is being held (running) during the CostFinalize phase (please correct me if I'm wrong about the phase that checks if a reboot will be required). It would be much better to kill the process when the uninstallation begins. I have verified that if the process is not running during the uninstall then the install does not complain about a reboot required.
problem 2:
using a custom action to kill the process is problematic. the action must run elevated, but on the other hand it must run before the costFinalize (otherwise - it's back to problem 1).
I would appreciate any suggestion. Also, any alternative solutions (is there another way to close the process maybe during install that will not require a reboot?)
The custom action code I have now (not good since it both unnecessarily asks for a reboot and fails to kill the process due to lack of permissions):
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<!--<ScheduleReboot After="InstallFinalize" />-->
<Custom Action="MyProcess.TaskKill" Before="InstallValidate"></Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
<!--<Property Id="Net">Net.exe</Property>-->
<Property Id="QtExecCmdLine" Value='"[%SYSTEMROOT]\System32\taskkill.exe" /F /IM App.exe' />
<CustomAction Id="MyProcess.TaskKill"
BinaryKey="WixCA"
DllEntry="CAQuietExec"
Execute="immediate"
Return="ignore" />
Here is the log for the failure:
CAQuietExec: Error 0x80070001: Command line returned an error.
CAQuietExec: Error 0x80070001: CAQuietExec Failed
CustomAction MyProcess.TaskKill returned actual error code 1603 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox)
Action ended 18:15:54: MyProcess.TaskKill. Return value 1603.
There are few ideas that I have, namely:
Use EventWaitHandles, which allow processes to communicate between each other, and delegate your wish to app.exe. Your app.exe can then terminate, as needed. This is clean solution and should be prefered.
If for whatever reason you decide to kill the application like you don't care about anything at all in the world, then you can:
I saw today a project that can run MSI completely elevated, in all stages. It was Visual Stdio template, however I can't find it right now, but know that it exists there.
You can also use this, maybe it works: How do I get WiX installer to request administrative privileges?
Basically there are so many hackery tricks you can do, to kill the application. Such as using WiX Burn and requiring administration rights, then doing your thing. I would go with solution#1(create your own mechanisms)
By the way, if you use ServiceControl element in WiX, it will STOP the service before REINSTALLING/UNISTALLING. You can hook to OnStop() method in Service and kill your App.exe there. If you have set Service as App.exe parent, then there should be flag that any child processes die with parent.
I want to run a program when my software is being un-installed, it is a simple form that should gather some feedback on why people are un-installing my software.
I found some WiX examples that works to some degree.
It works pretty fine with a standard windows program (notepad), but when I try to run my own program, it does not work. I think the problems is that the program is removed, before it has been run.
I have tried to print the logs, but they did not give me any clues of what to do.
My code so far:
<CustomAction Id="LaunchFeedBackForm"
ExeCommand="notepad.exe" Directory="INSTALLDIR"
Return="asyncWait" >REMOVE="ALL"</CustomAction>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="LaunchFeedBackForm" After="InstallValidate"/>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
So I need in some way the un-install process to halt or what ever, until the user has closed the feedback form. After the form has been closed, it should continue and remove all software including the feedback form program.
The way you'd like to get user's feedback seems not that natural to me. If I understand you correctly, you'd like to show this feedback form and wait while a user fills it in, and later on continue with uninstallation, right?
To my own experience, when a user decides to uninstall software, he/she would like it to get uninstalled as quickly and clear as possible. Bringing a "must fill" form in front of them would only negatively affect the user experience. Moreover, as you can see, it is more difficult from the technical point of view. I suppose you've also thought about passing this feedback on to your side, right? Is it emailing the info entered by user? How do you ensure the email gets sent?
Alternatively, you can have this form online on a certain web page of your site and start it when the uninstall is done (NOT in progress). In this way, you don't annoy the user blocking the uninstall process.
So, I would do the following:
have a custom action that starts a browser with a URL you need
the installation program SHOULD NOT WAIT for this to complete
BTW, do not expect lots of feedback - people rarely bother spending some time to give feedback :)
If your EXE is in the MSI, try using the FileKey attribute: http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix2/wix_xsd_customaction.htm
For example, if your EXE is defined like this:
<File Id="FeedbackExe" Name="FeedbackExe.exe"/>
you can use:
<CustomAction Id="LaunchFeedBackForm"
FileKey="FeedbackExe" Execute="deferred"
Return="asyncWait">REMOVE="ALL"</CustomAction>
You can also try creating an uninstall log to see what happens with the custom action:
msiexec.exe /x <ProductCode> /L*V "C:\uninstall.log"
where you use your actual ProductCode.
So I need in some way the un-install process to halt or what ever,
until the user has closed the feedback form. After the form has been
closed, it should continue and remove all software including the
feedback form program.
To do this one would set After="InstallValidate"
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="InstallCustomLogic" After="InstallFinalize" />
<Custom Action="UninstallCustomLogic"
After="InstallValidate" >
NOT UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE) AND (REMOVE="ALL")
</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
Set Return attribute to check so that the installer will halt until the specified executable returns.
<CustomAction Id="UninstallCustomLogic"
Directory="INSTALLFOLDER"
ExeCommand="[INSTALLFOLDER]\RetailConnectCustomLogic.exe uninstall"
Return="check"
/>
This is useful in the event where you need to run something located in the program directory before uninstalling the program. One could also set the attribute to ignore if it doesn't return 0
I have to build an MSI-based installer using WiX and I need to set environment MY_HOME before running a command action.
I have a component:
<Component Id="SEMYHOME"
Guid="*my guid*">
<CreateFolder />
<Environment Id="MY_HOME"
Action="set"
Part="all"
Name="MY_HOME"
Permanent="no"
System="yes"
Value="[APPLICATIONPATH]myapp"/>
</Component>
Then I have a custom action:
<CustomAction Id="InstallMyService"
Directory="INSTALLDIR"
ExeCommand='"[INSTALLDIR]myapp\install_service.bat" install'
Execute="immediate"
Return="ignore"/>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="InstallMyService"
After="InstallFinalize"/>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
NOTE: This action need the MY_HOME variable to be set before running.
When install this MSI, I got a log showing that the MY_HOME variable is set before running the custom action "InstallMyService", but the command to install my service still fails. I found that the cause is when command called, MY_HOME still not set.
After an install is finished, MY_HOME was set as expected, but the custom action fails :(
How can I fix this problem?
Windows Installer and Custom Actions are hosted via the Service Control Manager which has a long history of not respecting broadcast messages that are sent announcing Environment changes. So even if you fix the immeadiate / deferred problem that Yan mentions you'll find that your custom action still doesn't have the environment variable.
Why don't just just pass "[APPLICATIONPATH]myapp" to your .bat file and fetch it in as %2?
BTW I also don't reccomend calling batch files from an installer. It's fragile and embarrassing to see installs that run popping up little black windows.
You CA is immediate. This means that it runs immediately when Windows Installer is processing your MSI package. And this obviously happens before the component containing <Environment/> is installed. Modify it to be deferred (Execute="deferred") and schedule before InstallFinalize.