Plan msi features

[cap-Konst]

Could you please tell me in which place in the code it is possible to handle the setting of specific features. I want to put the installation of shortcuts for the application in the UI, however, I couldn't find a place where features are scheduled before installation. As I understand it is the OnPlanMsiFeature event, however, I don't reach this function when debugging during installation.

[rsmart8452]

When authoring an install package, I don't rely on the bundle to provide any of the installation logic. I use it for defining the bundle chain, gathering data from the user, and passing that data to the packages. However, I'm often authoring the packages, so I have the freedom to decide how to handle this stuff.

For example, in the case of an app shortcut, I'd define a bundle variable in bundle.wxs,

<Variable Name="InstallShortcuts" Type="numeric" Value="1" />

Then add a property to ConfigViewModel that can be bound to a checkbox,

public bool InstallShortcuts
{
  get
  {
    if (_model.Engine.ContainsVariable("InstallShortcuts"))
      return _model.Engine.GetVariableNumeric("InstallShortcuts") == 1;
 
    return false;
  }
  set
  {
    _model.Engine.SetVariableNumeric("InstallShortcuts", value ? 1 : 0);
    OnPropertyChanged();
  }

Finally, I'd pass the value of the bundle variable to a package property, then condition the feature or shortcuts based on that MSI property within my package.

<Chain>
  <MsiPackage
    Id                = "MyApp.Install"
    SourceFile        = "MyApp.msi"
    Visible           = "no"
    Compressed        = "yes"
    Vital             = "yes"
    >
    <MsiProperty Name='INSTALLSHORTCUTS' Value='[InstallShortcuts]'/>
  </MsiPackage>
</Chain>

This allows me to keep the logic of installing shortcuts neatly within my packages without having that bleed into my bundle, except for the data gathering.

If you didn't author the package, you can try looking at it with Orca to see if the features are conditioned by any properties that you can take advantage of.

As for why the event isn't firing, that's up to the Windows Installer service. Perhaps the service conditions the raising of this event. In my experience, this is the most likely reason you may not be seeing it, but only the devs at Microsoft would know. It's also possible there's a bug in WiX such that the event isn't bubbling correctly. It's my understanding that the WiX bundle exploits some of the events raised by Windows Installer. Others appear to be required by Windows, like the start and completion of each phase. For example, it seems intentional that your bundle has to start the apply phase after the plan phase completes. But for other events, I suspect WiX bundles are exploiting functionality that Windows has its own uses for. Sometimes Windows doesn't always raise events as you'd expect. As a whole, these events are raised frequently enough to rely on them for progress reporting and cancellation, but at the bundle level, they may not be good for much more.

[rsmart8452]

I migrated away from the old treeview "which features do you want to install" a long time ago, so I'm not strong on the functionality of Features. Instead, I authored multiple MSIs that the bundle can manage, but this also took more work. I can build a better UI, but it costs a bit more.

Features feel like a clunky holdover from Windows 3.0. I think of Fragments as being a more modern and flexible approach to this idea, but that's my perspective. This is a question for the WiX boards or Stack Overflow. I'll throw out there that perhaps you could wrap the Feature in a Fragment, which does accept a Condition.

[cap-Konst]

I don't use a tree to select components, I just want to give the user the ability to customize the installation any way they want. If I understand you correctly, I should separate the feature with the installation shortcuts into a separate Fragment and set it according to the variable.
I will try to implement my msi package this way, thanks!

[cap-Konst]

For some reason I can't use the Condition tag inside a Fragment. I added the WixToolset.Bal.wixext extension to the project, but still can't build the msi package due to an error with the wrong element inside the Fragment.
However, I found that Condition can be used as an attribute of the Component field, which finally gives the result I need. I set the check for each component shortcut and now they are installed depending on the value of the variable.

However, if you can tell me how to connect Condition for the whole Fragment - it would be useful for me.

[rsmart8452]

As I mentioned, I'm not the best to ask about this stuff because I haven't taken this kind of approach in a very long time. If you're trying to condition multiple components, it sounds like you were on the right track originally. You prompted me to get off my lazy rear and start looking into this, though. Here's what I've come up with.

Conditions can only be used in a Fragment in a bundle, not a package. That's why the Fragment's child Condition is in the bal schema, not the main schema. This makes sense, because WiX still has to play by rules defined by the MSI database structure, which only supports conditions for specific tables.

As you know, Features are intended to be installed or uninstalled based on some condition. This is done via the Feature's level. Features were often displayed in the UI as a treeview of checkboxes back in the day because that's really how they work - it's all based on level. So, disabling a parent feature also disables all child features. They're a bit confusing to work with, though. The feature's level defaults to 1, but anything greater than 0 will cause it to be installed. The feature's level is not (directly) dynamic, so it can't be changed on the fly. Not directly, anyway. The Feature element supports a Level child element. You can use this child to change the Feature's level during an install.

It's much more obvious to see how this works with an example. The feature's level will change to 0 when the Level element's Condition evaluates to true.

<Property Id="INCLUDEREADME" Value="1"/>

<Feature Id="ReadMe">
  <Level Value="0" Condition="INCLUDEREADME = 0"/>
  <Component Guid="*" Directory="INSTALLLOCATION">
    <File Id="F.ReadMe.txt" Source="ReadMe.txt" />
  </Component>
</Feature>

My apologies for wasting your time by sending you down the wrong path earlier.