Store msi path when it’s copied to windows installer

Question

I'm currently developing a C# project that has a Setup Installer project. During the installation process, is there any way to access the path (especially the name) of the copied MSI file (it gets cached in C:\Windows\Installer)?

I would like to store this somewhere in a text file in order to be able to uninstall my application directly from within a Form.

Answer 1

Uninstall : There is no need to access that file directly, there are plenty of ways to uninstall without using the cached file name: Uninstalling an MSI file from the command line without using msiexec .

The easiest is just to uninstall by product code :

 msiexec.exe /x {PRODUCT-CODE-1111-1111-11111111111X}

And you can uninstall by upgrade code ( 2 ), or by name :

• WIX (remove all previous versions)

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You are not trying to uninstall the application that is running from its own GUI are you? :-) Breaking the law. Breaking the law. Wouldn't try that.

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LocalPath : There are also several ways to retrieve that local cache path via the MSI API:

On Error Resume Next
Set installer = CreateObject("WindowsInstaller.Installer")

' The product name you search for:
search = "Windows SDK EULA"

For Each product In installer.ProductsEx("", "", 7)
   name = product.InstallProperty("ProductName")
   cachepath=product.InstallProperty("LocalPackage")
   If name = search Then
      MsgBox name + ": " + cachepath
      Exit For
   End If
Next

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Links :

• Technical Tidbit: Finding Related Product Codes