Wix Installer Custom Action

Question

I am making an installer which includes several projects. My setup installs several components and DLLs.

My requirement for a custom action has only one execution to be done after installation has been successfully completed. The problem is that my executable depends upon a DLL which is included in the MSI package.

The Custom Action is as follows :-

<InstallExecuteSequence>
  <Custom Action='LaunchFile' After='InstallFinalize'>NOT Installed</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
<CustomAction Id='LaunchFile' FileKey='Migration_and_SQL_Utility.exe' ExeCommand="configurationmanager" Return="asyncNoWait" Impersonate="no" />

I have also tried tweaking this and also read a lot of documentation and solution but still I can't understand why my application won't run.

When launched anytime Before=InstallFinalize or After=InstallFiles , it will always show me a JIT compiler error for the DLL dependency. And when After=InstallFinalize then it just won't execute my exe at all. I have also tried putting in other variables with different configuration such as Execute=deferred and Return=check but they give me different errors such as following from Event Viewer :-

Product: EasyReports -- Error 1721. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. Action: LaunchFile, location: C:\\Program Files (x86)\\EasyReports\\EasyReports\\Migration and SQL Utility.exe, command: configurationmanager

Is there something that I do not understand about Wix Installer or something that I am missing out on. I am fairly new to WiX but I have made a successfully running setup for another project and with the same Custom Action to execute the executable after the installation has been completed and it was working just fine.

Answer 1

My solution would be:

Add Migration and SQL Utility.exe to your components:

<Component Id="Migration and SQL Utility.exe" Guid="SOME GUID">
    <File Id="Migration and SQL Utility.exe" Source="YOUR SOURCE" KeyPath="yes" Checksum="yes"/>
</Component>

Next define your custom action:

<CustomAction Id="LaunchFile"                  
          Execute="immediate" 
          Impersonate="no"
          Return="asyncNoWait"
          FileKey="Migration and SQL Utility.exe"
          ExeCommand="" />

Call the action:

<InstallExecuteSequence>
   <Custom Action='LaunchFile' After='InstallFinalize'>NOT Installed</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>