I am Using WiX 3.5 for making installer, i need to copy many files and folder.
I used heat.exe to do that, and it is working fine.
But i need to call bat file during installation, and the bat file is present in those folders i mentioned above. That bat file is depended on some other files.
I am able to call the batch file but by that time the other files are not loaded.
Below is the custom action i am using for running bat file.
<Custom Action="InstallFeature" After="InstallFinalize"><![CDATA[
(&TypicalFeature=3) AND NOT(!TypicalFeature=3)
]]></Custom>
Need help, may be files are loading after i call the bat file.
Thanks
Ravi S
Calling a batch file from an MSI is a really really bad idea. MSI is declarative - you simply define what the system should look like on a successful installation, if something goes wrong, MSI can roll back the changes.
However by using a batch file, Windows Installer doesn't know what changes were made to the system and can't roll anything back.
I would look into what the batch file is doing, and implement what it is doing either in WiX, or via a custom action in C++/C# with corresponding rollback action. (Native code is best, but it's hard. Managed code is the next best thing and VBScript is a last resort - but still better than a batch file)
Related
Is their a way to zip a file without VB Script.I got a lot of examples on web to zip file or folder using vbs but i want to do it in a single BAT file.
Yes and no. There is no built in way to do this inside windows. You can use a external application like vbscript, a exe file like 7zip, rar, lots of resources can do this. Since windows is application poor when it comes to command lines is not really surprising. But no you do not need the VB Script for anything.
Just not so easy out of the box. Maybe makecab could do it for you? As a general rule you have a hard constraint in your question. A single BAT file which in general can not do almost anything without the support of hundreds of preinstalled or commonly installed other applications.
Could you specify a the constraints a bit better. Tel WHY you need this particular constraint? And what does it mean as even most of the bat command you use require more than one file.
I have looked everywhere and cannot find any simple solution to this. It must be a single file installer.
I had created it with a simple 2 line batch file
copy .\Files\WGMX.ocx C:\Windows\System32\
C:\Windows\System32\regsvr32.exe /s wgmx.ocx
But translating this simple 2 line batch file into any of the installer helpers I have used has been an incredible nightmare. Any help would be appreciated.
Assuming you want a normal MSI package, this can be done very easy with the free version of Advanced Installer. Just create a new "Simple" project, i.e. the free one, go to Files and Folders page and add your OCX files, than double click it and go to Registration tab, so enable the desire settings.
Very important, if you want the same file in "System32" folder on x64 machines you need to create a separate MSI, with the installation type set to AMD64, option available in Install Parameters page.
I would like to create an installer of my program.
However because the installation is quite complicated, I need something more advanced than installshield limited edition.
I have to run another installer from my current one. It doesn't matter if the user press "cancel" or installs the program, I just need to run it.
I have to install a directory structure on user computer which has a lot of files, that's why i'm going mad with wix: 100 files and I should write all of them with my hands in that xml file? Are we mad?
I have to install files from point 2 into a registry key. That's why I was using wix
I played with nsis long time ago and I liked it, but the language is not so nice.
Wix has "similar" problem. I would love using something like C# and things like that otherwise I'll stick with wix but I need a way to add files faster to xml file, can't add 100 files manually.
Any suggestion?
You can give Advanced Installer a try. It has folder synchronization, which means it can batch add contents of folders, with the possibility to filter out certain file name patterns, for example you'd want to filter *.pdb files and add all the rest to the project automatically.
I use it myself and never had a problem.
Wix Heat can generate the wxs source files for you.
You should look at InnoSetup. It has an IDE available that allows drag and drop of files (and multiple select in a file selection dialog), can launch other applications (including additional setup files), create and modify registry settings, and supports pretty complex scripting if needed. It's pretty easy to use, and the documentation is pretty good. It comes with pretty comprehensive sample installations, too.
The installation scripts are created by the IDE and then compiled into an installer, so the script source is editable by hand if needed. It's also not XML, but more like an INI file, so it's a little easier to work with manually as well.
Best of all it's free, and so is the IDE.
I would go back to using NSIS, if you use the HMNSIS editor http://hmne.sourceforge.net/ to write your scripts you can use the Wizard mode to make a list of the files and directory structure you will use in your installer.
Running other installers and registry settings are also easily done with NSIS.
In an InstallShield project I have a VBScript custom action that conditionally needs to execute a certain file packaged with the install.
Normally I get the current directory of a vbs using code such as
sCurPath = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject").GetAbsolutePathName(".")
Which, if it returned the location of the Setup.exe that initiated the install, should work.
However when running the install, the current path (on XP) is C:\Windows\system32 instead of the location of the Setup.exe file I was expecting.
Assuming the output of my InstallShield build looks like the following
Disk1
->Setup.exe
->ISSetupPrerequisites
-->Req1
-->Req2
-->...
->OtherReqs
-->ConditionallyRunMe.exe
How could I run "\OtherReqs\ConditionallyRunMe.exe" from a VBScript custom action?
Thanks!!
(Note: I realize there are ways to conditionally run exe files from withing InstallShield, but in this case the requirements are not supported by InstallShield - unless there is a way to use a VBScript custom action return value as a condition to run another file?)
After a lot of messing around, I got it (actually found it in the InstallShield manual, and not Google, go figure :))!
This line of VBScript does the trick
disk1Path = Session.Property("SETUPEXEDIR")
The line above points to where ever the setup exe file was, so from there it's trivial to run any exe included with your install media.
Other useful ones I found, which I'll past here for reference are
'points to app data\downloaded install directory
MsgBox Session.Property("SourceDir")
'where the software wants to install to on the users system
MsgBox Session.Property("INSTALLDIR")
Not sure why it's so hard to find a good reference on MSI Standard properties (even just a list). The closest I found was this, but not all of them work (and not specifically for InstallShield at all). If anyone finds a good link with documentation about MIS Standard properties and their description please add a link here, so no one has to waste as much time on this as I did :).
My installer requires there be two files in the same directory in order for it to install.
The installer (.msi file)
An organization specific config file that the installer copies. (This file is customized by the organization and then distributed to it's end users).
Since there are two files, the file has to be distributed as a zip file. Which presents the issue of if a user tries running the .msi without actually extracting the zip... only the msi file gets extracted. I am able to detect the issue in the install process and tell the user they need to unzip the file... but you know how noone actually reads error messages.
So, I'd like to make it more foolproof and so i was wondering if there was a simple tool that i could let my customers (ie the organization) be able to make modifications to the config file and when finished create a .exe file which when clicked would extract to a temp folder and then run the msi. I know there are solutions for this which require commercial software. I'm wondering if a simple freeware tool exists that can do this.
Edit: Accepted Solution Notes:
The one issue i ran into is the iexpress wasn't designed to be used for .msi files. As a result on the step that asks you for the Install Program. It's a combo box which if you had added a .exe file in the previous step could just select the .exe file from. Instead you have to manually type in
msiexec /i yourinstaller.msi
I was very pleased to find such a simple solution that's built in to windows. The only way this could be better is if it allowed for wildcards so that your iexpress project would be able to handle changes in the msi file's name which occur with each version. And defaulting the Install Program to the .msi file. These minor inconveniences are offset by the fact that end user wouldn't need to install any new software to create the package so I have stopped looking for other tools.
You could try using iexpress.
It enables you to package up a set of files which can be extracted, with the option of running an installation command automatically after extraction. It also has options to enable you to prompt users about things, show a EULA, restart the computer, etc..
I believe it comes as part of Windows (part of IE?) - try running iexpress.exe from the run dialog to get the UI.
The Wix project has a bootstrapper and packager for dealing with this kind of thing.
I've used wix a lot but haven't really looked at the bootstrapper/packager much - last time I had a quick look it wasn't really usable but that was a long time ago so it may be better now.
I'm guessing that the config file is something like a properties file, and that you want users to set the values of the properties "foo" and "bar". You don't need a separate tool to update the file.
I would do this:
Put one or more dialogs in the install that ask the user what the values of foo and bar should be, and set a couple public properties accordingly.
Write a custom action that writes the config file out to whatever location you want, including whatever values you want for foo and bar. This would be pretty easy in vbscript.
Put the custom action somewhere in the execute sequence (ideally as a deferred execution action, since you're making changes to the system).
Add an entry to the RemoveFile table, so the config file is removed on uninstall (assuming you don't want it to be left behind.)
Add an entry to the LaunchCondition table, to prevent users from doing a silent install. Or if you want silent install to be allowed, make the names of the public properties that hold the config data known, and make them part of the LaunchCondition. You would block "msiexec /i myapp.msi", but you could choose to allow "msiexec /i myapp.msi FOO=Something BAR=SomethingElse".