WiX Registry Search Strip File Name

Question

I'm building a WiX installer where I want to do a registry search for the install directory for a 3rd party application. The 3rd party application I'm interested in creates a registry entry under HKLM which points not only to the install directory, but it also includes the file name and extension (ie. C:/Program Files/MyApp/myapp.exe). What I need is just the actual parent directory (ie. C:/Program Files/MyApp) so that when I do a Directory/File search it looks in the correct location. Is there a way to modify the @Property that gets returned from the registry search to only include the parent directory and strip out the file name and extension? Here's what I have:

<Property Id="MYAPPINSTALLFOLDER">
  <RegistrySearch Id='InstallPathRegistry' 
       Type='raw' 
       Root='HKLM' 
       Key='SOFTWARE\Company\SomeLongPath' 
       Name='FileName' 
       Win64='yes'/>
</Property>

<Property Id="ISINSTALLED">
  <DirectorySearch Id="CheckFileDir" Path="[MYAPPINSTALLFOLDER]" Depth="0">
    <FileSearch Id="CheckFile" Name="myapp.exe" />
  </DirectorySearch>
</Property>

Starceaker Starceaker · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-28T14:03:49

Create a separate class in which you can add your own Custom Actions:

public static class InstallCustomActions
    {
        [CustomAction]
        public static ActionResult GetDirectoryFromPath(Session session)
        {
            string fullPath = session["MYAPPINSTALLFOLDER"];
            session["MYAPPINSTALLFOLDER"] = Path.GetDirectoryName(fullPath); //You can also create a separate property. In that case I would rename MYAPPINSTALLFOLDER to MYAPPFULLPATH.
        }
     }

Then you declare your CustomAction (either in your Product.wxs or in a separate .wxi file):

<CustomAction Id="GetDirectoryFromPath"
                BinaryKey="PROJECTNAMEHERE"
                DllEntry="GetDirectoryFromPath"
                Execute="immediate"
                Return="check" />

And then you can call it in your UISequence for example:

<Publish Dialog="MyDlg" Control="Next" Event="DoAction" Value="GetDirectoryFromPath" Order="1">1</Publish>

If anything is unclear, let me know. This is based on a working project but I have not tested this specific code after altering it to match your request.

WiX Registry Search Strip File Name

1 Answers