Question

I have an installer with ListBox and Add/Remove buttons on one of dialogs.
Items to ListBox adds and removes thru my CAs.

Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller.View listBoxView = session.Database.OpenView("select * from ListBox where Property = '" + listBoxProperty + "'");
            listBoxView.Execute(null);
            int count = 0;
            while (listBoxView.Fetch() != null)
                count++;

            Record newListBoxRecord = new Record(4);
            newListBoxRecord[1] = listBoxProperty;
            newListBoxRecord[2] = ++count;
            newListBoxRecord[3] = listItemValue;
            newListBoxRecord[4] = listItemValue;

            ICollection<ValidationErrorInfo> errors = listBoxView.ValidateNew(newListBoxRecord);
            if (errors == null)
                listBoxView.Modify(ViewModifyMode.InsertTemporary, newListBoxRecord);

The items adds and removes successfully, but later I need to store them in application config file. Deffered action doesn’t have access to Installer Database, so I used Immediate action after InstallFinalize. But when I read ListBox table it is empty. I supose it happens because of InsertTemporary modify mode. Insert mode gives me “Function failed during execution. Database: Table(s) Update failed.” error.

Answer 1

When you leave this wizard page, save the list to a property, with a separator character.

Deferred actions have access to a special property CustomActionData, so that you can write them to config file during install phase.

Using immediate action after InstallFinalize has a downside that you can’t write to protected system areas, like Program Files. Only deferred actions can be run elevated.