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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-31T20:07:47+00:00

I am running a VBScript as a Custom Action at the Commit part of

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I am running a VBScript as a Custom Action at the Commit part of an MSI installation. The script calls an .exe that installs drivers for a ZB device. What I want to do is check the file system first to see if the drivers are already there and skip the installation if they are.

So far the script looks like this:

Sub Run(ByVal sFile)
Dim shell
    Set shell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    shell.Run Chr(34) & sFile & Chr(34), 1, false
    Set shell = Nothing
End Sub

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

IF objFSO.fileExists("c:\windows\system32\drivers\ftser2k.sys") THEN
    MsgBox("You already have the drivers installed.")
ELSEIF objFSO.fileExists("c:\windows\system32\ftserui2.dll")  THEN
    MsgBox("You already have the drivers installed.")
ELSE
    Run Session.Property("CustomActionData") & "CDM20600.exe"
END IF

These files do exist on my machine. So if I double click the vbs file I get the MsgBox coming saying that I already have the file. However, when I run the msi installation, no matter what it installs the driver as if the first two conditional statements weren’t even there. I did read that you cannot use the WScript object in MSI, so I took out the WScript.Echo lines and replaced them with MsgBox. I was wondering if maybe you can’t use the FileSystemObject in msi either.

My ultimate goal is not to have any message come up. I just want the driver install to be skipped if the files are present on the system. The messages are there just for debug purposes right now.

If it helps, the msi package was built in Visual Studio 2010. Also the CustomActionData is the TARGETDIR.

I am new to both VBScript and install packages, so please be gentle 🙂

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I have to be honest, I have many concerns about your proposed solution:

    1) VB/JScript CA’s Suck. I would read the link and take it to heart.

    2) I’ve seen many machines in my career where the FSO was broken.

    3) You’ve hard coded the path to System32 instead of using SystemFolder or System64Folder.

    4) Commit custom actions don’t execute when rollback is disabled.

    5) You are running double out of process with no error logging of the EXE call.

    6) Visual Studio Deployment Projects suck in so many ways that I can’t count. Evidence is that Micrsoft has killed them in Visual Studio 11.

    If it was me, I’d ask if you have to use this EXE to install the driver package or if there’s an INF file to go along with the SYS/DLL files. If so, I’d look at create a WiX merge module that uses the DifxAppExtension. This allows you to encapsulate the behavior of driver installation in a discrete module and then add it to your VDPROJ installer or even better a WiX or InstallShield Limited Edition ( free ) installer.

    Here are several blog articles that should help you understand what I mean:

    Augmenting InstallShield using Windows Installer XML – Certificates

    Augmenting InstallShield using Windows Installer XML – Windows Services

    Redemption of Visual Studio Deployment Projects

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