*Windows Installer* can't do that by default due to the dynamic nature of the problem.
One way you could solve it (but would require a fair chunk of coding) would be to do all your UI externally before launching the MSI & then add the required rows to the Directory & File tables in your MSI before installing it. That would be far cleaner than using a batch script but it would involve re-inventing the wheel to some extent due to having to write an External UI. It does however all you to provide a rich installation experience since your UI won't be limited to what Windows Installer provides. If you wanted an easy way to do it without the ugliness & problems of a batch script you could use a DTF Custom Action to create the directory structure & copy the file into the newly created directories from the installed location. That way you could modify the WiXUI to add a dialog where you ask the user for the number of directories to create & then pass that Property & the location of the file to the Custom Action as parameters. You would however also need to code your Custom Action to handle uninstall & rollback so you may want to write the value you get from the user to the registry so you can pass it to your DTF Custom Action during uninstall. Palbinder Sandher Software Deployment & IT Administrator T: +44 (0) 141 945 8500 F: +44 (0) 141 945 8501 http://www.iesve.com **Design, Simulate + Innovate with the <Virtual Environment>** Integrated Environmental Solutions Limited. Registered in Scotland No. SC151456 Registered Office - Helix Building, West Of Scotland Science Park, Glasgow G20 0SP Email Disclaimer -----Original Message----- From: Keith Hassen [mailto:keith.has...@gmail.com] Sent: 07 July 2010 14:03 To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [WiX-users] Dynamic directory creation Hi, I am faced with a problem of building an MSI that requires a set of directories to be created during installation. These directories are all prefixed with a common string (eg "folder") followed by a sequence number (eg "01") so that their final construction might be something like "folder01", "folder02", etc. I need to place the same executable in each of these generated directories, but the number of directories isn't known until install time. I would like to prompt the user for that number during the setup and then dynamically build the directories. My original assumption was that WiX simply couldn't do this task because of the dynamic nature of the problem. I assumed that I'd have to write a batch script that would do this work for me: my approach was to always generate 1 directory, and then use a CA to invoke a batch script that would copy the directory as many times as was needed. I thought I'd post this problem to this list to see if there were other solutions (using WiX or otherwise) that might be cleaner or more effective. Keith ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Sprint What will you do first with EVO, the first 4G phone? Visit sprint.com/first -- http://p.sf.net/sfu/sprint-com-first _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Sprint What will you do first with EVO, the first 4G phone? Visit sprint.com/first -- http://p.sf.net/sfu/sprint-com-first _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
