Question

My installer needs to read a value from the registry and set the install path to parent of that value.

For example, from registry I get:

D:\apps\client

Then the installer should install the app to

D:\apps

I tried [DIR]\..\ (in “Directory” or “CustomAction”), but seeing following error when installing:

Error 1324. The folder path '..' contains an invalid character.

How can I do this with WiX?

Answer 1

It seems that you can’t do it with pure wix. You can use the Custom Action Type 1. Execute it in immediate mode before ‘LaunchConditions’ action. Initialize somewhere in your wix-code new property like:

<Property Id="DIRFROMREG" Value="0" Secure="yes">  

And here is sample on C#:

 public class CustomActions
{
    [CustomAction]
    public static ActionResult DirectorySearchAction(Session session)
    {
        try
        {
            session.Log("Directory search");
            RegistryKey reg = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(@"...your subkey...");
            if (reg != null)
            {
                var dir=reg.GetValue("...your value...");
                /*
                    var parentdir= split here your directory
                */
                session["DIRFROMREG"] =parentdir;
                session.Log(@"directory is ");
            }
            else
            {
                session.Log(@"The registry key is not found");
            }
        }
        catch (Exception e) 
        {
            session.Log(@"Error "+e);
        }
        return ActionResult.Success;
    }
}

And the last thing:

<SetProperty Id="INSTALLLOCATION" Value="[DIRFROMREG]" After="Your custom action">NOT DIRFROMREG=0</SetProperty>

Hope this helps.