Best Way to Write Property to a File

[bleachga]

I'm wondering what the best/easiest way is to accomplish the following:

If (and only if) the user provides a command line property, e.g. LICENSEKEY=value, I would like Advanced Installer to write the value to a file, e.g. [CommonAppData] /MyCompany/MyProduct/license.dat.

Do I need a custom action for this? Is there an example/tutorial like this anywhere?

Thanks in advance,

-brian

[Catalin]

Hello Brian and welcome to Advanced Installer forums,

No, we do not have a sample for this, but I can help you achieve it.

First thing we want to know here is the fact that a property can have only two states:

1. it has a value => it exists

2. it does not exist

Yes, you are right, this can be achieved through a custom action. For instance, a PowerShell script that adds some content to a text file looks like this:

Code: Select all

Add-Content "path_to_your_text_file" "text_to_be_appended"

We have said discussed above about the two states that a property has. This will be helpful for our condition that will determine if the custom action will execute or not.

Let's consider the following property: MY_PROP

Property exists ==> the condition is: MY_PROP

Property does not exist ==> the condition is: NOT MY_PROP

In our case, the condition will be "MY_PROP".

The above script can be added in Advanced Installer as a "PowerShellScriptInline" custom action.

The custom action content may look something as it follows: (added after the "#your code goes here" comment)

Code: Select all

$myProp = AI_GetMsiProperty MY_PROP

# the above line simply gets the value of MY_PROP property and stores it in the $myProp variable.

Add-Content "C:\Users\Catalin\Desktop\test.txt" "$myProp"

Under "Execution Stage Condition" field, the condition may look something as it follows:

Code: Select all

(VersionNT > 501) OR (VersionNT = 501 AND ServicePackLevel >= 2) AND MY_PROP

Now you can run the following command:

Code: Select all

msiexec /i <path_to_msi> MY_PROP="SomeValue"

and the value of your property ("SomeValue") should be added to the text file.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Catalin

[bleachga]

Thank you! That got me far enough to make it happen.

[Catalin]

You are always welcome.

Glad to help.

Best regards,
Catalin