Plain Old Stan: WiX: Set properties from Custom Action. Source code.

This is to share a source code for the the previous installment. The whole project can be downloaded here.
You register the action in a wxs file:

    <Binary Id="Tools.Wix.Actions.dll"

SourceFile="..\..\..\Tools\src\Tools.Wix.Actions\bin\Debug\Tools.Wix.Actions.CA.dll" />

    <CustomAction Id="Tools.Wix.Actions.SetProperties" BinaryKey="Tools.Wix.Actions.dll"

DllEntry="SetInstallEnvironmentProperties" Execute="immediate" />

And then define when to run it:

    <InstallExecuteSequence>

      <Custom Action="Tools.Wix.Actions.SetProperties" Before="CostFinalize" />

    </InstallExecuteSequence>

Just to repeat it again, in my case I set it as Before CostFinalize, as part of the job was to configure a property for an INSTALLLOCATION directory.

The code itself is very straightforward:

using Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller;

using System;

using System.Text;

using System.Xml.Serialization;

using System.IO;

namespace Tools.Wix.Actions

    public class CustomActions

        [CustomAction]

        public static ActionResult SetInstallEnvironmentProperties(Session session)

try

                session.Log("Begin CustomActions.SetInstallEnvironmentProperties");

                session["INSTALLLOCATION"] = "C:\\FORIS4\\bbb\\";

                string environmentPath = session["ENVIRONMENT"];

                session.Log("ENVIRONMENT: " + environmentPath);

                InstallEnvironment environment = null;

                if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(environmentPath))

try

                        environment = InstallEnvironment.ParseFromFile(environmentPath);

                        session.Log("Environment values:" +

GetEnvironmentAsStringData(environment).ToString());

                        if (environment.Configuration == null)

                            return ActionResult.Success;

                        foreach (var entry in environment.Configuration)

                            session[entry.Name] = entry.Value;

                    catch (Exception ex)

                        HandleException(session, ex);

                        return ActionResult.Failure;

            catch (Exception ex)

                HandleException(session, ex);

            return ActionResult.Success;

        private static void HandleException(Session session, Exception ex)

            string errorMsg = "Exception during custom action execution:" + ex.ToString();

            session.Log(errorMsg);

            session.Message(InstallMessage.Error, new Record { FormatString = errorMsg });

        private static StringBuilder

GetEnvironmentAsStringData(InstallEnvironment environment)

            var xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(InstallEnvironment));

            var sb = new StringBuilder();

            using (var sw = new StringWriter(sb))

                xs.Serialize(sw, environment);

            return sb;

With addition of classes to create an environment property bag:

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System;

using System.Xml;

using System.Xml.Serialization;

using System.Runtime.Serialization;

namespace Tools.Wix.Actions

    [Serializable]

    public class InstallEnvironment

        private List<Entry> _configuration = new List<Entry>();

        public string Name { get; set; }

        public string Description { get; set; }

        public List<Entry> Configuration

            get { return _configuration; }

            set { _configuration = value; }

        public static InstallEnvironment ParseFromFile(string filePath)

            return DeserializeFromFile(filePath, typeof(InstallEnvironment)) as InstallEnvironment;

        private static object DeserializeFromFile(string path, Type type)

            object ctc = null;

            if (path != null || path != String.Empty)

                XmlTextReader reader = null;

try

                    var xs = new XmlSerializer(type);

                    reader = new XmlTextReader(path);

                    reader.Normalization = false;

                    ctc = xs.Deserialize(reader);

                    // Complete post deserialization work.

                    var idc = ctc as IDeserializationCallback;

                    if (idc != null)

                        idc.OnDeserialization(null);

                catch (Exception e)

                    throw new Exception

                        "Exception ocurred while reading type " + type.FullName +

"from the file " + path + "\r\n" + e +

                        "\r\nType:" + e.GetType().Name,

);

                finally

                    if (reader != null) reader.Close();

            return ctc;

And

using System;

using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace Tools.Wix.Actions

    [Serializable]

    public class Entry

        [XmlAttribute]

        public string Name { get; set; }

        [XmlAttribute]

        public string Value { get; set; }

        [XmlAttribute]

        public string Description { get; set; }

Here is the sample environment file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>

<InstallEnvironment xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

  <Name>Test environment</Name>

  <Description>Environment for a test platform</Description>

  <Configuration>

    <Entry Name="INSTALLLOCATION" Value="c:\test5\bbb\"

Description="Location where to install the application" />

    <Entry Name="TESTURL" Value="http://test.com/" Description="Test url" />

  </Configuration>

</InstallEnvironment>

Hope someone can find it useful Smile .
Yours, Stan

Plain Old Stan