Question

Hi I have these two binary files:

<Binary Id="Sentinel" SourceFile="sentinel_setup.exe"/>
<Binary Id="Hasp" SourceFile="HASPUserSetup.exe"/>

And I would like to start them on a button click like so:

<CustomAction Id="LaunchHasp" BinaryKey="Hasp" ExeCommand="" Return="asyncWait" />
<CustomAction Id="LaunchSentinel" BinaryKey="Sentinel" ExeCommand="" Return="asyncWait"/>

<Publish Event="DoAction" Value="LaunchHasp">1</Publish>

But it doesn’t work, It only works when I run the installer from the command line with elevated privileges. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

Or can someone tell me how I could extract the file from the binary table using a c++ custom action as I cannot get it working at all..:(

Answer 1

Immediate custom actions doesn’t have elevated privileges. You should use deffered custom actions for such needs. Any action that make changes to the destimation environment should be deffered. For more details read this article: http://bonemanblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/custom-action-tutorial-part-i-custom.html

<CustomAction Id="LaunchHasp" Impersonate="no" Execute="deferred" BinaryKey="Hasp" ExeCommand="" Return="asyncWait" />

Though deffered custom actions are executed during installation phase, not on button click. Revise your installer logic. As I understand, your exe file “sentinel_setup.exe” changes the system, so should be scheduled between InstallInitialize and InstallFinalize events in InstallExecuteSequence

I would recommend adding a checkbox, that user should mark to install your “Hasp” (or installer Feature which user should select in the feature tree). And add deffered custom action with condition on this checkbox state.

Sometimes it is really required to launch admin actions during or before installer UI sequence. In this case you need to create a setup bootstrapper which asks for permission elevation and does required actions before running MSI process. To ask for permissions you need to add application manifest to your bootstrapper project. My bootstrapper is quite simple, but works in many cases. It is Windows application (though without any Windows forms – it allows to hide console window) which contains only icon, application manifest and small code file:

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace SetupBootstrapper
{
    class Program
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var currentDir = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
            var parameters = string.Empty;
            if (args.Length > 0)
            {
                var sb = new StringBuilder();
                foreach (var arg in args)
                {
                    if (arg != "/i" && arg != "/x" && arg != "/u")
                    {
                        sb.Append(" ");
                        sb.Append(arg);
                    }
                }
                parameters = sb.ToString();
            }

            bool isUninstall = args.Contains("/x") || args.Contains("/u");

            string msiPath = Path.Combine(currentDir, "MyMsiName.msi");

            if(!File.Exists(msiPath))
            {
                MessageBox.Show(string.Format("File '{0}' doesn't exist", msiPath), "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
                return;
            }

            string installerParameters = (isUninstall ? "/x" : "/i ") + "\"" + msiPath + "\"" + parameters;

            var installerProcess = new Process { StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("msiexec", installerParameters) { Verb = "runas" } };

            installerProcess.Start();
            installerProcess.WaitForExit();
        }
    }
}