Alexey Solofnenko blog

While our installer developer was busy on another project, I created a simple patch installer with WIX that just places few assemblies with their policies into GAC. It required some tweaking. My first approach of reading instructions only after all other possibilities failed did not really work. There was one positive outcome - Wix 2.0 was unusable (what is up with 8.3 names!?). I wonder how other people are using it. So I quickly downloaded Wix 3.0 beta and decided to use VisualStudio integration to create my installer. VisualStudio helped a little, but soon I was back editing the file in UltraEdit. After few minutes the installer was ready and it was installing the patch without any user interaction. That was the problem - I needed a question "do you really want to install this thing or you clicked on it by mistake?". Fortunately there were pre-built UIs and I selected WixUI_Minimal. Again it worked great, but what is up with EULA? I did not need it for a patch installer. Searching on internet did not return anything useful besides putting a readme instead of a licence. There were comments about changing standard UIs, so I downloaded WIX sources and started tweaking. Simple replacing WelcomeEulaDlg with WilcomeDlg did not work - there were messages about "next" button left without any action, but what is the "install" action? After few tries I broke my perfectly working installer into something unusable. Fortunately I foresaw that problem and put the script into ClearCase to be able to track my progress. I restored the last working revision and started gradually copying pre-built UI out of WixUI_Minimal into my script. First the UI itself, then the WelcomeEulaDlg. After each iteration I checked that the installer was still working. The last step was to update the dialog with content similar to WelcomeDlg dialog. The whole process actually was a trivial task. By the end the installer worked correctly without any funny EULA business.

This is what I have right now. I guess it can be cleaned up a little, but it should be done with care, each time checking that the installer is still working, so I am not going to do it now:

<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
  <Product Id="...." Name="... HotFix 3" Language="1033" Version="3.1.0.3" Manufacturer="..." UpgradeCode="...">
    <Package InstallerVersion="200" Compressed="yes" />

    <Media Id="1" Cabinet="hotfix3.cab" EmbedCab="yes" />

    <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
      <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
        <Directory Id="INSTALLLOCATION" Name="hotfix3">
          <Component Id="....dll" Guid="..." DiskId="1" Feature="ProductFeature">
            ....
          </Component>
          ...
        </Directory>
      </Directory>
    </Directory>

    <Feature Id="ProductFeature" Title="Hotfix 3" Level="1">
    </Feature>
    <Property Id="WIXUI_INSTALLDIR" Value="TARGETDIR" />
    <UI>
        <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Normal" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="8" />
        <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Bigger" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="12" />
        <TextStyle Id="WixUI_Font_Title" FaceName="Tahoma" Size="9" Bold="yes" />

        <Property Id="DefaultUIFont" Value="WixUI_Font_Normal" />
        <Property Id="WixUI_Mode" Value="Minimal" />

        <DialogRef Id="ErrorDlg" />
        <DialogRef Id="FatalError" />
        <DialogRef Id="FilesInUse" />
        <DialogRef Id="MsiRMFilesInUse" />
        <DialogRef Id="PrepareDlg" />
        <DialogRef Id="ProgressDlg" />
        <DialogRef Id="ResumeDlg" />
        <DialogRef Id="UserExit" />

        <Dialog Id="WelcomeEulaDlg2" Width="370" Height="270" Title="!(loc.WelcomeEulaDlg_Title)">
            <Control Id="Bitmap" Type="Bitmap" X="0" Y="0" Width="370" Height="234" TabSkip="no" Text="!(loc.WelcomeEulaDlgBitmap)" />
            <Control Id="Description" Type="Text" X="135" Y="80" Width="220" Height="60" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes" Text="!(loc.WelcomeDlgDescription)" />
            <Control Id="Back" Type="PushButton" X="180" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Disabled="yes" Text="!(loc.WixUIBack)" />
            <Control Id="Install" Type="PushButton" ElevationShield="yes" X="236" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Text="!(loc.WelcomeEulaDlgInstall)">
                <Publish Event="SpawnWaitDialog" Value="WaitForCostingDlg">CostingComplete = 1</Publish>
                <Publish Event="EndDialog" Value="Return"><![CDATA[OutOfDiskSpace <> 1]]></Publish>
                <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="OutOfRbDiskDlg">OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND OutOfNoRbDiskSpace = 0 AND (PROMPTROLLBACKCOST="P" OR NOT PROMPTROLLBACKCOST)</Publish>
                <Publish Event="EndDialog" Value="Return">OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND OutOfNoRbDiskSpace = 0 AND PROMPTROLLBACKCOST="D"</Publish>
                <Publish Event="EnableRollback" Value="False">OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND OutOfNoRbDiskSpace = 0 AND PROMPTROLLBACKCOST="D"</Publish>
                <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="OutOfDiskDlg">(OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND OutOfNoRbDiskSpace = 1) OR (OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND PROMPTROLLBACKCOST="F")</Publish>
            </Control>
            <Control Id="InstallNoShield" Type="PushButton" ElevationShield="no" X="236" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Text="!(loc.WelcomeEulaDlgInstall)" Hidden="yes">
                <Publish Event="SpawnWaitDialog" Value="WaitForCostingDlg">CostingComplete = 1</Publish>
                <Publish Event="EndDialog" Value="Return"><![CDATA[OutOfDiskSpace <> 1]]></Publish>
                <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="OutOfRbDiskDlg">OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND OutOfNoRbDiskSpace = 0 AND (PROMPTROLLBACKCOST="P" OR NOT PROMPTROLLBACKCOST)</Publish>
                <Publish Event="EndDialog" Value="Return">OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND OutOfNoRbDiskSpace = 0 AND PROMPTROLLBACKCOST="D"</Publish>
                <Publish Event="EnableRollback" Value="False">OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND OutOfNoRbDiskSpace = 0 AND PROMPTROLLBACKCOST="D"</Publish>
                <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="OutOfDiskDlg">(OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND OutOfNoRbDiskSpace = 1) OR (OutOfDiskSpace = 1 AND PROMPTROLLBACKCOST="F")</Publish>
            </Control>
            <Control Id="Cancel" Type="PushButton" X="304" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Cancel="yes" Text="!(loc.WixUICancel)">
                <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="CancelDlg">1</Publish>
            </Control>
            <Control Id="Title" Type="Text" X="135" Y="20" Width="220" Height="60" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes" Text="!(loc.WelcomeDlgTitle)" />
            <Control Id="BottomLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="234" Width="370" Height="0" />
        </Dialog>

        <Publish Dialog="ExitDialog" Control="Finish" Event="EndDialog" Value="Return" Order="999">1</Publish>

        <Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg">1</Publish>

        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceWelcomeDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg">1</Publish>

        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Control="RepairButton" Event="NewDialog" Value="VerifyReadyDlg">1</Publish>
        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Control="RemoveButton" Event="NewDialog" Value="VerifyReadyDlg">1</Publish>
        <Publish Dialog="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceWelcomeDlg">1</Publish>

        <Property Id="ARPNOMODIFY" Value="1" />
    </UI>
        <InstallUISequence>
            <Show Dialog="WelcomeEulaDlg2" Before="ProgressDlg">NOT Installed</Show>
        </InstallUISequence>

    <UIRef Id="WixUI_Common" />
  </Product>
</Wix>