teamzone.ch » WISE Package Studio

Orca 5.0 – the simple MSI table editor

Fabio Cortesi — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 13:21:16 +0000

Orca.exe is a database table editor for creating and editing Windows Installer packages and merge modules. The tool provides a graphical interface for validation, highlighting the particular entries where validation errors or warnings occur.

This tool is only available in the Windows SDK Components for Windows Installer Developers. It is provided as an Orca.msi file. After installing the Windows SDK Components for Windows Installer Developers, double click Orca.msi to install the Orca.exe file.

Source: MSDN Microsoft

Since this is a bit complicated to become the Orca-source to install the tool, you can download Orca 5.0 on the following link:

Ontrex Software Package Atelier Blog [German]

Fabio Cortesi — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:20:00 +0000

Ontrex – a professional software packager in Switzerland is online with a technical blog:

http://spablog.ontrex.ch/

There exist already Windows7/Windows Installer 5.0 posts.

recommended!

Deleting a folder structure with all files and subfolders using VB Script

Fabio Cortesi — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:51:00 +0000

By default WISE can’t delete a folder structure with all files and subfolders. The technologie of MSI is designed to delete only these components by uninstalling, which were installed.

With the following VB-Script can do just that. It makes sense, that the script uses a property of the directory-table. The example uses the “JUNIPER” directory, which will be deleted by the script.

Option Explicit 
Dim WshShell,SystemFolder,Fso,strFolder, strFile, ret
 
' Set the property
strFolder = GetAProperty("JUNIPER")
 
' Delete the last character at the end of the string 
' -> example: C:\Programm Files\Test"\"
' For a correct deleting of a directory-property, 
' the backslash at the end has to be deleted
strFolder = Left(strFolder,Len(strFolder)-1)
 
' Environment variable reading 
set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") 
set Fso=createobject("scripting.filesystemobject") 
 
' Delete the folder
If Fso.FolderExists(strFolder) Then 
ret = Fso.DeleteFolder (strFolder,True) 
End If
 
Set WshShell = Nothing 
Set fso = Nothing 
 
' Getting a property
Function GetAProperty (PROPERTYNAME)
dim szStringVal
szStringVal = Session.Property(PROPERTYNAME)
GetAProperty = szStringVal
End Function

The script must be implemented in the “immediate” section of the MSI-Script. In my example it has to be on the latest position – immediately before the completion of the installation.

How to use "Active Setup" to install user-components by MSI-packages

Fabio Cortesi — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:35:43 +0000

Active Setup is included in the Windows Operating System and can be used to do something after the user logs in. Especially when you have to install some files, registry keys, user-certificates or other things into the user-profile is Active Setup a nice technology to use. It is originally a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook.

With WISE Package Studio you can easily implement Active Setup by adding the following Registry-Keys (minimum) to your project:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\[UpgradeCode]

"ComponentID"="[ProductName]"

"StubPath"="[SystemFolder]\msiexec.exe /fu [ProductCode] /qb-!"

With only these keys is active setup ready to run. After the user-login, the technology is going to compare the entries between HKLM and HKCU. If there is a difference, Active Setup is going to run the commands in the "StubPath"-key. It runs only once. If you add a version-key, you can change the version-key and active setup will run again.

With the commands in the example, the computer repairs all your user-sections in your MSI-package. So it’s necessary how you created your MSI. You can also make a Custom Action to run under the user-contex.