This was an interestingly annoying issue I came across with Windows Installer, when you use the ReserveCost Element to specify the disk space by populating the disk cost for your components in the ReserveCost Table. Here is the scenario: …

Disk Cost Issue with ReserveCost! Read more »

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Here is a major gotcha that you will encounter when you try to configure your product with deferred actions using configurable properties during the installation. Deferred actions do NOT have access to the MSI session objects which means that if …

CustomActionData in WiX with Deferred Custom Actions Read more »

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Again there is absolutely no documentation out there on this, WiX provides out of the box support for doing this though. Just define a custom action into wixca.dll with entry point PrintEula <CustomAction Id="PrintEula" BinaryKey="wixca" DllEntry="PrintEula" Return="ignore" Execute="immediate" /> And …

How to print EULA from WiX Read more »

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This is one of those elusive topics whose answer is hard to find with googling around, but you will discover that it’s pretty easy, again if only you knew the magic words.   Define this in your Main.wxs: <Property Id="_BrowseProperty" …

How to customize the install directory dynamically in WiX? Read more »

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Some useful WiX tools and Windows installer notes: WiXEdit WiXEdit is a decent WiX editor (open source). I used it extensively during the initial UI design, it works for most purposes but don’t expect it to be very intuitive like …

WiX tools, Logging and Silent installation Read more »

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Since WiX is still fairly new and is an Open Source project, don’t be surprised if you hear a lot of noise about the little or no documentation available . In this and the coming few posts I am going …

WiX and Databases Read more »

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WiX is an XML based wrapper around the Windows Installer which lets you create Installer packages without you having to get your hands too dirty with the obscurities of dealing with the Windows Installer directly or for that matter if …

Windows Installer XML (WiX) Read more »

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