Symantec WINDOWS INSTALLER EDITOR 8.0 - REFERENCE FOR WISE PACKAGE STUDIO V1.0 Reference

Windows Installer Editor Reference

Windows Installer Editor Reference 2

Windows Installer Editor

The software described in this book is furnished under a license agreement and may be used only in accordance with the terms of the

agreement.

Documentation version 8.0

Legal Notice

Symantec, the Symantec Logo, and Altiris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and

other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

The product described in this document is distributed under licenses restricting its use, copying, distribution, and decompilation/reverse

engineering. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior written authorization of Symantec

Corporation and its licensors, if any.

THE DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES,

INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE

DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE HELD TO BE LEGALLY INVALID. SYMANTEC CORPORATION SHALL NOT

BE LIABLE FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CONNECTION WITH THE FURNISHING, PERFORMANCE, OR USE OF THIS

DOCUMENTATION. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENTATION IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

The Licensed Software and Documentation are deemed to be commercial computer software as defined in FAR 12.212 and subject to

restricted rights as defined in FAR Section 52.227-19 “Commercial Computer Software - Restricted Rights” and DFARS 227.7202, “Rights in

Commercial Computer Software or Commercial Computer Software Documentation”, as applicable, and any successor regulations. Any use,

modification, reproduction release, performance, display or disclosure of the Licensed Software and Documentation by the U.S. Government

shall be solely in accordance with the terms of this Agreement.

Symantec Corporation

350 Ellis Street

Mountain View, CA 94043

http://www.symantec.com

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Technical Support

Symantec Technical Support maintains support centers globally. Technical Support’s

primary role is to respond to specific queries about product features and functionality.

The Technical Support group also creates content for our online Knowledge Base. The

Technical Support group works collaboratively with the other functional areas within

Symantec to answer your questions in a timely fashion. For example, the Technical

Support group works with Product Engineering and Symantec Security Response to

provide alerting services and virus definition updates.

Symantec’s maintenance offerings include the following:

z A range of support options that give you the flexibility to select the right amount of

service for any size organization

z Telephone and Web-based support that provides rapid response and up-to-the-

minute information

z Upgrade assurance that delivers automatic software upgrade protection

z Advanced features, including Account Management Services

For information about Symantec’s Maintenance Programs, you can visit our Web site at

the following URL:

www.symantec.com/techsupp/

Contacting Technical Support

Customers with a current maintenance agreement may access Technical Support

information at the following URL:

www.symantec.com/techsupp/

Before contacting Technical Support, make sure you have satisfied the system

requirements that are listed in your product documentation. Also, you should be at the

computer on which the problem occurred, in case it is necessary to replicate the

problem.

When you contact Technical Support, please have the following information available:

z Product release level

z Hardware information

z Available memory, disk space, and NIC information

z Operating system

z Version and patch level

z Network topology

z Router, gateway, and IP address information

z Problem description:

 Error messages and log files

 Troubleshooting that was performed before contacting Symantec

 Recent software configuration changes and network changes

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Licensing and registration

If your Symantec product requires registration or a license key, access our technical

support Web page at the following URL:

www.symantec.com/techsupp/

Customer service

Customer service information is available at the following URL:

www.symantec.com/techsupp/

Customer Service is available to assist with the following types of issues:

z Questions regarding product licensing or serialization

z Product registration updates, such as address or name changes

z General product information (features, language availability, local dealers)

z Latest information about product updates and upgrades

z Information about upgrade assurance and maintenance contracts

z Information about the Symantec Buying Programs

z Advice about Symantec’s technical support options

z Nontechnical presales questions

z Issues that are related to CD-ROMs or manuals

Maintenance agreement resources

If you want to contact Symantec regarding an existing maintenance agreement, please

contact the maintenance agreement administration team for your region as follows:

Additional enterprise services

Symantec offers a comprehensive set of services that allow you to maximize your

investment in Symantec products and to develop your knowledge, expertise, and global

insight, which enable you to manage your business risks proactively.

Enterprise services that are available include the following:

Asia-Pacific and Japan [email protected]

Europe, Middle-East, and Africa [email protected]

North America and Latin America [email protected]

Symantec Early

Warning Solutions

These solutions provide early warning of cyber attacks,

comprehensive threat analysis, and countermeasures to prevent

attacks before they occur.

Managed Security

Services

These services remove the burden of managing and monitoring

security devices and events, ensuring rapid response to real

threats.

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To access more information about Enterprise services, please visit our Web site at the

following URL:

www.symantec.com

Select your country or language from the site index.

Consulting

Services

Symantec Consulting Services provide on-site technical

expertise from Symantec and its trusted partners. Symantec

Consulting Services offer a variety of prepackaged and

customizable options that include assessment, design,

implementation, monitoring, and management capabilities. Each

is focused on establishing and maintaining the integrity and

availability of your IT resources.

Educational

Services

Educational Services provide a full array of technical training,

security education, security certification, and awareness

communication programs.

Windows Installer Editor Reference 6

Contents

Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Chapter 1: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

About Windows Installer Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Starting the Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

The Product Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Using Installation Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

About Page Views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Customizing Page Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Using the Current Feature Drop-Down List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Using the Current Release Drop-Down List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Using the Task List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Filtering the Task List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Finding Table Errors From the Task List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Adding User-Defined Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Generating Shared Resource Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Installation Resources and Their Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Generating Package Contents Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Downloading Redistributable Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Downloading Redistributables From the Wise Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Downloading Redistributables From Other Vendors’ Web Sites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Product Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Chapter 2: Setting Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

How you can set up Windows Installer Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Setting Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Setting General Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Setting .NET Assembly Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Setting Advertising Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Setting Digital Signature Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

About ExpressBuild. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Setting ExpressBuild Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

How ExpressBuild Groups Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Requirements for Using ExpressBuild . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Setting Installation Expert Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Setting Merge Module Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Activating Suppressed Prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Setting Repository Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Setting Source Control Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Setting Wildcard Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Creating and Editing Installation Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Component Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

About Component Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Selecting a Component Rule Set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Using Component Rules to Align GUIDs in an Upgrade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Customizing Component Rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Adding and Editing Component Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Microsoft Best Practices Component Rule Set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

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One File Per Component Rule Set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Chapter 3: Working With Wise Installation Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Before You Create an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

File Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Project Files and Database Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Target Platforms: 32-bit and 64-bit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

How to Specify the Target Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

What’s Different in a 64-bit Installation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

32-bit Applications on 64-bit Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Guidelines for Creating Platform-Specific Installations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Creating Multiple, Platform-Specific Installations from One Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Defining the INSTALLDIR Property in a Mixed-Platform Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Starting a New Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

About Standard User Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Creating an Installation for Standard Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Creating a Device Driver Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Options for New Installations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Opening an Installation Package. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Comparing Windows Installer Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Saving an Installation as XML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Working With Installations in the Software Manager Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Compiling An Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Testing and Running An Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Testing An Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Running An Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Chapter 4: Defining an Installation Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Project Summary Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Product Details Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Adding Meta Data to the Software Manager Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Incrementing the Product Version. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Setting the Default Installation Directory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

General Information Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Add/Remove Programs Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Features Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Strategies for Organizing Files Into Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Adding a New Feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Configuring a Feature Using Its Drop-Down List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Configuring a Feature Using the Feature Details Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Using Conditions With Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Adding and Deleting Feature Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Managing Binary Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Adding Binary Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Refreshing Binary Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Chapter 5: Assembling an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Files or Web Files Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

When to Use the File-Related Installation Expert Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Installation Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Files or Web Files Page Icons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Adding Files to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Adding Merge Modules Instead of Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Adding Files From the Wise Software Repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

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Adding Contents of Directories to the Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Adding .NET Assemblies to the Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

How Assembly Dependencies are Added to an Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Assembly Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

About Dependency Scan Exclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

About the Global Dependency Exclusion List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Editing Settings for Automatic Updating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Removing a File From the Destination Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Copying and Moving Files on the Destination Computer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Editing File Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Editing General File Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Setting Permissions for Files and Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Editing Self-Registration Settings for Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Editing Assembly Settings for Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Creating a Win32 Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Viewing Shared File Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Editing XML Files During Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Editing DIFxApp Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

How Self-Registration Information is Captured. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Using WiseComCapture.exe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Resolving File Conflicts Within Windows Installer Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Resolving Conflicts With Rules in Windows Installer Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Resolving Conflicts Individually in Windows Installer Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Registry Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Adding Registry Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Removing Registry Entries From the Destination Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Importing and Exporting Registry Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Configuring General Registry Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Setting Permissions for Registry Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Viewing Shared Registry Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Special Registry Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

INI Files Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Creating and Editing .INI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Shortcuts Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Adding a Shortcut to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Editing a Shortcut Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Adding an Environment Variable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Adding File Associations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Determining Extension Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Adding Command Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Selecting MIME Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Services Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Adding a Service to the Destination Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Controlling Services on the Destination Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Adding an ODBC Item. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Setting ODBC Data Source Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Setting ODBC Driver Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Setting ODBC Translator Details. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Adding to the Windows Firewall Exception List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Chapter 6: Your Installation on the Destination Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

About System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Setting a Requirement on the System Requirements Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Setting a System Requirement for Server Roles and Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Windows Installer Editor Reference 9

Adding Roles and Services to the Server Roles and Services Dialog Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Setting a Requirement by Creating a Launch Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Performing a System Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Searching For Files or Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Searching For Items in .INI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Searching For a Registry Value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Searching For a Previously-Installed Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Setting Version-Specific Windows Installer Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

About UAC Elevation of Windows Installer Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

About UAC Elevation of an Entire Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Setting Features for Installation Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Chapter 7: Organizing Your Installation Into Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

About Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Creating a New Release. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Outputting a Multiple-Language Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Customizing a Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Customizing Properties for a Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Customizing Summary Items for a Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Defining a Feature and Component Set for a Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Sharing Settings Between Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Example: Creating an Evaluation Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Setting Build Options for a Release. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

About the Installation of an .MSI into an SVS Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

About the Exclusion of Files on the Build Options Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

About Maintenance of an .MSI Installed into an SVS Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Adding Prerequisites to a Release. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Adding a Windows Installer or .NET Framework Runtime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Adding a Prerequisite File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Adding a Runtime Prerequisite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Editing the WiseScript That Creates the Installation .EXE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Creating Web-Based Installations With WebDeploy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

The WebDeploy Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Tips for Creating an Efficient WebDeploy Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Creating a WebDeploy Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Uploading a WebDeploy Installation to the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Setting Up Media for Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Adding a Media Item. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Adding a Media Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Including Features and Components in Media Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Sharing Media Settings Between Releases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Example: Spanning an Installation Across Media and Sharing Media Size Information. . . . . . . 215

Chapter 8: Advanced Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

About the Mobile Devices Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Process for Adding Mobile Device Support to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

About Windows Mobile Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Adding Windows Mobile Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

About Palm OS Installations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Adding Palm OS Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Setting Administrator Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Specifying Search Locations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Setting Options for an Administrative Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

About Command Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Windows Installer Editor Reference 10

Creating a Command Line To Apply to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Applying UI Options to an Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Applying Logging Options to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Applying an Advertising Option to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Applying a Repair Option to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Changing Public Properties in an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Applying Transforms to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Applying or Removing Patches With a Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Command Line Options For WFWI.EXE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

WFWI.EXE Command Line Option Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Automating the Build Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Adding a Digital Signature to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Creating an Installation for Microsoft SMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Creating a .NET Installation When You Have the .NET Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Creating a .NET Installation Without the .NET Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

About Web Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Features That Support Web Installations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Creating a Web Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Creating a Virtual Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Creating a New Web Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Setting Installation Options for a Web Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Setting Installation Options for a Child Virtual Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

About the Web Site Details Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Installing Web Settings From a File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Configuring a Microsoft SQL Server During Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Tips for Using the SQL Server Scripts Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Setting SQL Connection Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Specifying SQL Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Specifying Replacements in SQL Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Importing .NET Framework Security Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

MTS/COM+ Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Adding an MTS or COM+ Application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Chapter 9: Translating an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

About the Languages Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Creating a Translated .MSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Creating a Language Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Sharing Language Settings Between Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Removing a Language from an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Defining and Translating Into Additional Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

About the New Language Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Defining a New Language and Exporting All Text for Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Importing All Text Strings After Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Importing All Text Strings With the New Language Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Translating Text Strings You Have Added or Changed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Translating Text Strings by Exporting to a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Exporting Selected Text Strings to a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Importing Selected Text Strings From a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Translating Text Directly Without Exporting It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Translating Text on the Language Strings Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Changing Text in Installation Expert and Setup Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Resizing Dialog Controls After Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

About the Language Menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Changing the Default Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Windows Installer Editor Reference 11

About the Default Release Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

About the Language Strings Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

Keeping Track of Changed Text Strings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

What Pre-Translated Languages Are Available?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Language IDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Chapter 10: Distributing an Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Package Distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

WiseUpdate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

The WiseUpdate Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Using WiseUpdate in an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Configuring the WiseUpdate Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

About the WiseUpdate Update File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Customizing the WiseUpdate Dialog Boxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Uploading WiseUpdate Files With an FTP Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Testing WiseUpdate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Options for Running WiseUpdate Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

WiseUpdate Tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Troubleshooting WiseUpdate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Chapter 11: Upgrading Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

About Upgrading Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Preparing for Software Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Archive the Shipping Version of the .MSI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Determine the Form of the Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Determine the Product Code and Product Version. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Check the Installation With UpgradeSync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

UpgradeSync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Patch Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Upgrades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Creating an Upgrade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Chapter 12: Working With Source Paths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

About source paths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Using Source Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Adding an Installation to Source Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Adding Files to an Installation in Source Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Checking Files Into Source Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Checking Files Out from Source Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Getting Latest Version of Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Removing Files from Source Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Undoing the Check Out of Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Showing History of the Installation File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Showing the Differences Between Installation Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Comparing the Current Installation to the Latest in Source Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

About Path Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Turning Path Variable Substitution On and Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Creating a User-Defined Path Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Creating a Path Variable Based on an Environment Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Creating a Path Variable Based on a Registry Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Source Paths in an Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Changing Source Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Converting to Relative Source File Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Converting to UNC-Based Source File Paths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Windows Installer Editor Reference 12

Changing the Source Directory Dynamically During Compile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Chapter 13: Merge Modules and Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

About Merge Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Available Tabs and Pages in Merge Modules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Setting Merge Module Details. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Setting Dependencies for a Merge Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Setting Exclusions for a Merge Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Creating a Merge Module As a New Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

Creating a Merge Module From Existing Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Creating a Configurable Merge Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Setting Configuration Item Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Specifying Drop-Down List Values for Substitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Specifying a Bitfield for Substitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Specifying a Key for Substitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Example: Configuring an Item for a Merge Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

About the Merge Modules Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Adding a Merge Module to an Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Editing Merge Module Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

About Transforms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Creating a Transform Based on an Existing .MSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Setting Transform Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Creating a Universal Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Applying a Transform to an Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Multiple Instance Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Installing Multiple Instances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

Chapter 14: Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

About Windows Installer Editor tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

ApplicationWatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Convert SMS Installer or WiseScript Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Converting an SMS Installer or WiseScript Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Import Visual Studio Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

Importing an Installation From a Visual Studio Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Removing Dependencies from the Project Dependency Exclusion List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Manage Assembly Exclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

MSI to WSI Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Converting an .MSI to a .WSI File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Specifying Merge Module Source Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Specifying File Source Directories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Package Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Removing Files With Missing or Invalid Source Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Chapter 15: Setup Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

About Setup Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Product Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Specifying Summary Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Features Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Assigning a Component to a Feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Modules Icon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Advertising Icon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Creating a Folder in Setup Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Creating Duplicate File Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Components Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Windows Installer Editor Reference 13

Component Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Adding and Editing a Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Moving Items Between Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

About the Key Path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

Isolating a .DLL With an .EXE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Adding Published Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Tables Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Creating a New Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

Creating a New Row in a Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Editing Existing Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Searching for Table Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Finding Validation Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Editing Binary Data in the Icon Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Chapter 16: Using Conditions and Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Where Can You Use Conditions?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Condition Guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Examples of Conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

WiseFixConditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Creating Conditions With Condition Builder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Checking the Value of a Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

Checking the Value of an Environment Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Checking If and How a Feature or Component is Currently Installed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Checking If and How a Feature or Component Will Be Installed by This Installation . . . . . 394

Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

How Do You Use Properties? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

Creating a New Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Chapter 17: Working With Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

About Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

About the Wizard Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Using the Dialogs Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Changing the Theme of Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Adding and Editing Dialog Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

Importing Text into License and Readme Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Changing the Order of Web Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Using the Dialogs Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Adding Controls to Dialogs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

Editing Dialog Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

Creating a New Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

About Dialog Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Types of Dialog Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Editing Dialog Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Basic Control Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Setting an Event on a Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Assigning Help to a Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Assigning Conditions to a Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Setting the Graphic for a Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

Setting the Items in a Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

Organizing and Aligning Controls on Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Aligning Dialog Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Centering Dialog Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Making Dialog Controls the Same Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Windows Installer Editor Reference 14

Spacing Dialog Controls Evenly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Setting Dialog Tab Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

About Billboards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

Adding Billboards to a Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Obtaining Logon Information From a Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

Adding the Logon Information Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

About the SQL Connection Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Adding the SQL Connection Dialog to an Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

Editing Additional SQL Connection Dialogs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Adding the Custom Property Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Chapter 18: Macro Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

About the Macro Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

About Macro Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Creating, Editing, and Running a Macro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

Events That Can Trigger a Macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

About the Macro Editor Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Chapter 19: Debugger for Windows Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

About the Debugger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

The Debugger Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Running the Debugger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Setting Properties and Applying Transforms in the Debugger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Setting and Clearing Debugger Breakpoints. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Evaluating Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Working With Temporary Tables and Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Searching For Text in Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Chapter 20: Using MSI Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

About MSI Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

The MSI Script Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

About Installation Modes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Adding a Custom Action Outside a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Adding a Custom Action to Multiple Sequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

About Installation Sequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444

Finding Text in MSI Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444

Editing Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Types of Actions in MSI Script Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

About the Standard and Custom Tabs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Adding and Editing Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Commenting Out Script Lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Calling WiseScripts with Custom Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Examples of WiseScripts You Run From an .MSI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

Using a WiseScript to Parse a Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

Using a WiseScript to Install a License File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

Uninstalling Changes Made by a WiseScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

Troubleshooting: When WiseScript Custom Actions Fail on Windows Vista or later . . . . . . . . . 452

Guidelines for Using Custom Actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Guidelines for Custom Action Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Guidelines for Custom Action Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

Guidelines for Nested Installation Custom Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

Guidelines for Calling VBScripts and JScripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

Guidelines for Calling .DLLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

Launching a Custom Action from a Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Windows Installer Editor Reference 15

Troubleshooting Custom Actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Chapter 21: Custom Action Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

About Custom Actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Call Custom DLL From Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Call Custom DLL From Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462

Call Custom DLL From Installed Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

Configuring .DLL Parameter Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

Call DLL From Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Call DLL From Installed Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Call JScript From Embedded Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Call JScript From Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Call JScript From Installed Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Call JScript From Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Call VBScript From Embedded Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Call VBScript From Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Call VBScript From Installed Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Call VBScript From Property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

Display Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

Download File From Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

End Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Execute Program From Destination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Execute Program From Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Execute Program From Installed Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

Execute Program From Path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

If Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

Install MSI From Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

Install MSI From Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Install MSI From Relative Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

Launch Web Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

Open Document From Installed Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Pause Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Post Data to HTTP Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Remark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

Run WiseScript From Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Run WiseScript From Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Run WiseScript From Installed Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Set Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

Set Feature State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

Set Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Terminate Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Using the Custom Action Location Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Using the Custom Action Location Tab for Merge Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Using the Custom Action Properties Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Using the Custom Action Description Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493

Chapter 22: Windows Installer and .NET Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

About Microsoft Windows Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

Frequently Asked Questions About Microsoft Windows Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Working With Components and Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

About GUIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

About Microsoft .NET Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Frequently Asked Questions About Microsoft .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498

Requirements for Creating a .NET Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Windows Installer Editor Reference 16

Appendix A: Wise Custom Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Appendix B: Wise Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508

Appendix C: Property Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512

Build Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512

INI File Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516

Run Time Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

Windows Installer Editor Reference 17

Chapter 1

Introduction

This chapter includes the following topics:

z About Windows Installer Editor on page 17

z Starting the Software on page 17

z The Product Interface on page 18

z Using Installation Expert on page 19

z Using the Task List on page 25

z Installation Resources and Their Locations on page 28

z Generating Package Contents Reports on page 29

z Downloading Redistributable Files on page 30

z Product Documentation on page 32

About Windows Installer Editor

Windows Installer Editor is an installation development tool for creating and editing

Windows® Installer (.MSI) installation packages. It is a complete and user-friendly front

end for generating Windows Installer database files, which are executed by the Windows

Installer engine.

With Windows Installer Editor, you can:

z Create installations that are compliant with the Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, and

Vista logo program.

z Edit and refine installations that you have converted from other formats.

z Import development projects.

Microsoft® Windows® Installer is a Microsoft technology that provides a standard

installation engine that can be used for the installation of any 32-bit Windows

application. It resides on the destination computer and performs the installation of

applications. Windows Installer technology provides features that are not available in

traditional installation-building products (examples: self-healing and install-on-

demand).

Windows Installer Editor is a tool in Wise Package Studio®.

Starting the Software

To start the software

1. In Wise Package Studio, do one of the following:

Windows Installer Editor Reference 18

Introduction

 On the Projects tab, click the Run link to the right of the task or tool associated

with Windows Installer Editor. The installation associated with the current

project might be opened by default. This tool might open to a different view

based on command-line options defined in Process Templates Setup.

 On the Tools tab, double-click Windows Installer Editor.

2. Select File menu > New.

The New Installation File dialog box appears.

3. Complete the dialog box:

a. In the Categories list, click Predefined Templates.

b. In the Templates/Tools list, click the Windows Application icon.

The Windows Application icon lets you create a standard installation. You can

create other types of installations.

See Starting a New Installation on page 70 and Options for New Installations on

page 73.

c. In the File type section, specify the type of file to create.

d. In Target Platform, specify whether this installation is enabled for 32-bit, 64-

bit (x64), or 64-bit (Itanium) platforms. This sets the initial target platform for

the Default release.

e. If the application has been written to be installed and run by standard users

without elevation, mark Create a Vista Standard User Installation. This

clears the Enable User Account Control (UAC) check box in Installation

Expert > Windows Installer Options page.

See Creating an Installation for Standard Users on page 71.

f. Click OK.

The new installation opens.

The Product Interface

Windows Installer Editor has the following views, each of which provides you with a

different development environment.

Installation Expert Installation Expert lets you create basic Windows Installer

installations and provides an easy-to-use, task-oriented user

interface to perform the most common installation tasks.

Each page of Installation Expert lets you configure a specific

aspect of your installation.

See Using Installation Expert on page 19.

Windows Installer Editor Reference 19

Introduction

To navigate between views, click the navigation tabs at the lower left of the main

window.

Additional Interfaces

z The Tools menu contains powerful tools that perform specialized functions.

See About Windows Installer Editor tools on page 349.

z The Compile, Test, Debug, and Run buttons let you test and compile the installation.

See Compiling An Installation on page 78, Testing and Running An Installation on

page 80, and About the Debugger on page 436.

Using Installation Expert

To access Installation Expert, click Installation Expert at the lower left of the Windows

Installer Editor main window.

MSI Script MSI Script provides a powerful yet easy-to-use environment

for editing Windows Installer installation sequences. A

sequence is a set of actions that are performed during a

particular type of installation.

MSI Script is easy to work with even if you are not familiar

with the underlying Windows Installer technology. Just

double-click the custom action to add to your sequence or

start typing the action name, then fill out options for the

action. A new line based on the action and the options you

entered appears in the sequence at the location of the last

selected action. The resulting sequence is displayed in clear,

readable statements.

See About MSI Script on page 440

Setup Editor Setup Editor is a powerful view of the installation, and using

its advanced features requires proficiency in the Windows

Installer development environment or in software

development. Setup Editor lets you create fully customized

interactive installations. Certain advanced tasks can be

performed only in Setup Editor.

See About Setup Editor on page 363.

Windows Installer Editor Reference 20

Introduction

Installation Expert window in Windows Installer Editor

Page Views

Use the Page Views drop-down list to select a page view, which is a set of Installation

Expert page groups and pages.

See About Page Views on page 21 and Customizing Page Views on page 22.

Page Groups

When you select a page view, its pages are organized into page groups.

Click the group name to expand or collapse its pages. Click a page name to display that

page.

Page Area

When you click a page name in a page group, this area displays the page’s options. Each

page lets you define a specific aspect of the installation. (Examples: On the Files page,

you define what files are included in the installation. On the Registry page, you define

what registry keys and values are created on the destination computer.) Complete only

the pages that are pertinent to your particular installation, in any order. If required

information is missing, an error message appears during compile.

z Use on the toolbar to navigate from page to page, or click the page name in

the list of pages.

z To display help for the current page, press F1.

z To return a page to its last saved state, select Edit menu > Reset Page.

View Navigation

Click these tabs to change views.

Page Area

Page Groups

View Navigation

Page Views

Compile and Test

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