Question

During installation, my application will:

Step A, Look for C:\WebService directory. If found do following:

copy *.bat      --> C:\WebService\
copy boost*.dll --> C:\WebService\libs\
copy myApp.dll  --> C:\WebService\plugins\

Step B, If not found, do following:

copy *.bat --> [LocalAppData]\myApp\bin\
copy *.dll --> [LocalAppData]\myApp\libs\

How can I do this?

EDIT:

I had finished Step 2 by:

1. Create a source directory:

   src\bin
src\libs

2. Copy files to these subdirs

3. Use heat to scan the src directory and generate group into wxs file.

The problem here is, looks like for Step A, I have to do the same again. But there are tons of *.dll, copying them again to another directory doesn’t look like a good idea.

Answer 1

Ok, finally worked it out.

In short, I do this by writing a C++ program to help.

Details follows..

My wxs starts like:

<Directory Id='TARGETDIR' Name='SourceDir'>
  <Directory Id='WebDir'>
      <Directory Id='INSTALLDIR' Name='$(var.ProductName)'/>
  </Directory>
  <Directory Id='DefaultDir'/>
</Directory>

Now use heat to harvest my source directory to generate another wxs file for candle and light to link

Then goes my C++ program, it was designed to

1. Scan the whole generated wxs file to create another directory structure.
2. Replace all IDs of Directories, Components and Files to make them unique.
3. Generate new GUIDs for all new components.
4. Gather all new component IDs to create a new component group.

This new component group can be referenced to be installed conditionally, depends on whether there is a registry key, or whether the directory is found, in my case it is:

  <Feature Id='RuntimeChrome' Level='1'>
    <Condition Level='0'>NOT INSTALLDIR_REGCU AND NOT INSTALLDIR_REGLM</Condition>
    <ComponentGroupRef Id='WebGroup' />
  </Feature>
  <Feature Id='RuntimeDefault' Level='1'>
    <ComponentGroupRef Id='DefaultGroup' />
  </Feature>

With these wxs files, the package can be installed into different places under different scenarios.