Windows Installer：安装后运行exe

Question

I have an msi. In it I have several config files ( a.config , etc) and exes ( jux.exe , etc).

In my msi I created a custom actions - commit for one of the exe (jux.exe). I make the installerclass false.

The idea is for the msi to call jux.exe right after install.

jux can start ok until it tries to validate the existence of some of the files ( jex.exe , jax.exe etc.) and reading files inside the msi ( a.config , b.config etc). seems like jux.exe cant find the files.

Should I not use commit? ideas?

Answer 1

It's most likely failing because you are making assumptions about the locations of the files, and they are incorrect. Your exe is being run from an msiexec.exe with the system account and an unknown working directory. It is not being run from an interactive user shell with explorer setting the working directory and running it with your credentials. If your code just tries to open a.config without specifying the full exact path then it won't find it.

All VS custom actions run after everything is installed, so you got lucky there. You don't need a Commit custom action - an install custom action will work too. That will also be called after all the files are installed. It's not clear why you want to validate the existence of the files - there's no point. An MSI install either works and installs everything or fails, rolls back and restores the system to its previous state. So there's no point in checking that it installed files.

Answer 2

There's no good way around this problem using this project type. It simply fails to expose full control over when to schedule your custom action and boils it down to overly simplistic choices. If I was you I'd factor this custom action out into a WiX merge module and then merge that into your VDPROJ installer (or go full WiX).