Question

I’m trying to do the following :

• Suppose a user with username “annie” is connected to the foo.example.com website
• On the website I give a link to download a msi setup (developped with WIX 3.5)
• The setup installs a small program that will ask logon information upon first launch (server name : foo.example.com, username : annie, password).

Since annie is already connected to the foo.example.com, it would be great if the server name and user name were alreay pre-filled.

I know that for some remote-control software (NetViewer for example), you can send a mail invite to the person whose computer you want to control. In the mail you have a link containing the session number (for example : https://get.netviewer.com/support/join.php?sinr=502436783&sipw=nv64) wich prompts a download for the client software that upon launch will automatically have the session number automatically filled.

I don’t know how they do it, but I suppose you can easily append a few bytes (session number) at the end of the exe file, and then have the executable look for the extra trailing bytes, the difference here is that it’s not an exe that I control completely but an MSI file developped with WIX.

Do you have any pointers on how to do that ?

Answer 1

This is another way to do it, if you do not want your private key to lie on a download webserver :

• The link to download the msi file is dynamic (and aspx page for example)
• This page creates a line in a central database that links “servername” + “username” to a unique identifier, say “connectid”
• the page then Transmit the msi file but changes the name to something like “ourprocuct_connectid.msi”
• The wix setup then stores the OriginalDatabase property in a registry value
• Upon first launch the program check that registry value, if it exists, extracts the connectid, connects to a uniquer server that accesses the central database, and returns username and servername from the connectid

Phew !