This is my fourth post in my WiX and DTF series. Here are some others I’ve written:
Intro
In this article I’ll cover how to allow a user to choose which web site to install an application to by listing available web sites in a list box in the MSI installation wizard. As mention in my previous articles I'm applying best practices (at the best of my knowledge) to have the installer pass the Vista certification, so hopefully that will be the case if you use any of this in production 
When doing lookups in IIS using custom actions in the InstallUISequence (as we need to do in order to get available web sites), elevated privileges is required (at least in Vista SP1). This means we need the installation to run as admin. This is also an issue in the WiX extension for IIS as described in this bug report. See my previous article of a workaround for both the UI Sequence part and the bug: Using a bootstrapper to force elevated privileges in Vista
If you did not quite understand what I just said about the sequence stuff, elevated privileges etc., relax and keep reading, you will know by the end of this post and/or by clicking the link above
Overview
This article assume you’ve read my previous article about Using WiX to author MSI installations or that you are somewhat familiar with WiX. If you haven’t done so already and want to follow this article step-by-step, download the WiX project from my previous article here: SimpleWebApp.zip
There is another possibility of course If you’re lazy and just want the complete source for this article, you can download everything from here: SimpleWebApp_WSSelect.zip
Since this article became rather long I’ve structured it into 3 main sections with related sub sections, which hopefully will help you later if you need to look up something:
Now let’s dig into it!
To add a CA to your solution, do this:
- Add a new class library project to your solution and name it IISCustomAction
- Add a reference to Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller found in the WiX SDK
- Add a reference to System.DirectoryServices
- Rename the class created by VS to CustomAction.cs
- Add the following using’s to CustomAction.cs:
- using System.DirectoryServices;
- using Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller;
When building your project a couple of things happens:
- The managed dll (IISCustomAction.dll) is created as expected by a class library
- MakeSfxCA.exe (which is automatically called when building in VS) is creating a new dll based on the managed dll named IISCustomAction.CA.dll (this is the one you need to use in your WiX project)
It’s MakeSfxCA.exe that does all the magic here. The output dll that MakeSfxCA has created is actually a Win32 DLL. Here’s what Christopher Painter says about this:
At runtime, MSI thinks it’s calling a Win32 DLL in it’s own sandbox but in reality the CLR is being fired up out of process and communicated with through a named pipe.
Read the complete article here.
A typical CA looks something like this:
[CustomAction]
public static ActionResult MyCustomAction(Session session)
{
try
{
...
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
session.Log("CustomActionException: " + ex.ToString());
return ActionResult.Failure;
}
return ActionResult.Success;
}
The [CustomAction] attribute is needed to tag this method as a CA. The ActionResult returns either (in my case) Failure or Success allowing the installer to respond accordingly. The parameter for this method is a Session object. This object gives me access to the MSI database and the inner workings of Windows Installer allowing me to query the database, access MSI properties etc.
Now you have what you need to start writing CA’s for the Windows Installer, so let’s get cranking.
Custom action – Get web sites
Copy and paste the code below into the CustomAction.cs class in the project you created above:
[CustomAction]
public static ActionResult GetWebSites(Session session)
{
try
{
View listBoxView = session.Database.OpenView("select * from ListBox");
View availableWSView = session.Database.OpenView("select * from AvailableWebSites");
DirectoryEntry iisRoot = new DirectoryEntry("IIS://localhost/W3SVC");
int order = 1;
foreach (DirectoryEntry webSite in iisRoot.Children)
{
if (webSite.SchemaClassName.ToLower() == "iiswebserver" &&
webSite.Name.ToLower() != "administration web site")
{
StoreWebSiteDataInListBoxTable(webSite, order, listBoxView);
StoreWebSiteDataInAvailableWebSitesTable(webSite, availableWSView);
order++;
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
session.Log("CustomActionException: " + ex.ToString());
return ActionResult.Failure;
}
return ActionResult.Success;
}
Here’s what I’ve done in the code above:
- Open two views to the msi database. One for the ListBox table and one for a custom table which I will cover later called AvailableWebSites.
- Get the root entry in IIS by using an LDAP query.
- Iterate every child of the web site to get and store the information I need.
Here’s the code for the two helper methods I use to store the IIS data to the Windows Installer database:
private static void StoreWebSiteDataInListBoxTable(DirectoryEntry webSite, int order, View listBoxView)
{
Record newListBoxRecord = new Record(4);
newListBoxRecord[1] = "WEBSITE";
newListBoxRecord[2] = order;
newListBoxRecord[3] = webSite.Name;
newListBoxRecord[4] = webSite.Properties["ServerComment"].Value;
listBoxView.Modify(ViewModifyMode.InsertTemporary, newListBoxRecord);
}
private static void StoreWebSiteDataInAvailableWebSitesTable(DirectoryEntry webSite, View availableWSView)
{
//Get Ip, Port and Header from server bindings
string[] serverBindings = ((string)webSite.Properties["ServerBindings"].Value).Split(':');
string ip = serverBindings[0];
string port = serverBindings[1];
string header = serverBindings[2];
Record newFoundWebSiteRecord = new Record(5);
newFoundWebSiteRecord[1] = webSite.Name;
newFoundWebSiteRecord[2] = webSite.Properties["ServerComment"].Value;
newFoundWebSiteRecord[3] = port;
newFoundWebSiteRecord[4] = ip;
newFoundWebSiteRecord[5] = header;
availableWSView.Modify(ViewModifyMode.InsertTemporary, newFoundWebSiteRecord);
}
The first method stores data in the ListBox table and the second in my custom AvailableWebSites table.
My custom table (which I’ll explain in more detail later) contains the following columns:
- WebSiteNo
- WebSiteDescription
- WebSitePort
- WebSiteIP
- WebSiteHeader
The ListBox table has these four columns:
- Property
- Order
- Value
- Text
For the ListBox table the Property is used for identifying one specific list box and will allow you to get the Value of the selected item later. The Property must be the same for every record that you want displayed in one single UI list box. Order defines in which order the item are displayed in the list. Value is what’s being returned to you when accessing the property later on. The Text field is what is shown in the UI list box that the end user sees in the MSI wizard.
In my code I set the Property for all records to WEBSITE. The Order is set to 1 the first time and then incremented by 1 every iteration. The Value is set to the web site id and theText is set to the web site name.
After the user have selected the web site we can find out which one by using the WEBSITE property, which will give us the id of the web site (the Value field).
In my custom AvailableWebSites table I store some more details about every web site. But before I can do that I need to get the server bindings from IIS which is formatted like this: ip:port:header. I split these up and add them to to the database. I do the same with WebSiteNo and WebSiteDescription.
In both cases I store the values to the record and update the database (using modify). Note that you have to use InsertTemporary because you’re not allowed to write permanent data to the MSI database during installation.
Custom action – Add selected web site info to properties
After the user have selected a web site in the list box, I call a CA where I store the details about the web site to some public properties. This will make more sense later when we stitch everything together in the WiX product file, but for now here’s the code:
[CustomAction]
public static ActionResult UpdatePropsWithSelectedWebSite(Session session)
{
try
{
string selectedWebSiteId = session["WEBSITE"];
session.Log("CA: Found web site id: " + selectedWebSiteId);
View availableWebSitesView = session.Database.OpenView("Select * from AvailableWebSites where WebSiteNo=" + selectedWebSiteId);
availableWebSitesView.Execute();
Record record = availableWebSitesView.Fetch();
if ((record[1].ToString()) == selectedWebSiteId)
{
session["WEBSITE_DESCRIPTION"] = (string)record[2];
session["WEBSITE_PORT"] = (string)record[3];
session["WEBSITE_IP"] = (string)record[4];
session["WEBSITE_HEADER"] = (string)record[5];
}
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
session.Log("CustomActionException: " + ex.ToString());
return ActionResult.Failure;
}
return ActionResult.Success;
}
Remember the id for the web site that the user selected is stored in the WEBSITE property in the ListBox table? I can get this value by calling session[“WEBSITE”]. I then query my custom table that I populated earlier for details about this web site using Select with the id of the web site in the where clause. I then store these values to the properties: WEBSITE_DESCRIPTION, WEBSITE_PORT, WEBSITE_IP and WEBSITE_HEADER. These properties and where they came from will be explained later
To have the user see and select from available web sites, we need to create a dialog displaying a list box. Add a new wxs file to your project and name it SelectWebSiteDlg.wxs. Then replace any generated xml with this xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
<Fragment>
<CustomAction Id="UpdatePropsWithSelectedWebSite" BinaryKey="WebSiteCA" DllEntry="UpdatePropsWithSelectedWebSite" Execute="immediate" Return="check" />
<Binary Id="WebSiteCA" SourceFile="$(var.SolutionDir)\IISCustomAction\bin\Debug\IISCustomAction.CA.dll" />
</Fragment>
<Fragment>
<UI>
<Dialog Id="SelectWebSiteDlg" Width="370" Height="270" Title="Select Web Site">
<Control Id="Next" Type="PushButton" X="236" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Text="!(loc.WixUINext)" />
<Control Id="Back" Type="PushButton" X="180" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Text="!(loc.WixUIBack)" />
<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="Description" Type="Text" X="25" Y="23" Width="280" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes" Text="Please select which web site you want to install to." />
<Control Id="Title" Type="Text" X="15" Y="6" Width="200" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes" Text="Select Web Site" />
<Control Id="BannerBitmap" Type="Bitmap" X="0" Y="0" Width="370" Height="44" TabSkip="no" Text="!(loc.InstallDirDlgBannerBitmap)" />
<Control Id="BannerLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="44" Width="370" Height="0" />
<Control Id="BottomLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="234" Width="370" Height="0" />
<Control Id="SelectWebSiteLabel" Type="Text" X="20" Y="60" Width="290" Height="14" NoPrefix="yes" Text="Select web site:" />
<Control Id="SelectWebSiteCombo" Type="ListBox" X="20" Y="75" Width="200" Height="150" Property="WEBSITE" Sorted="yes" />
</Dialog>
</UI>
</Fragment>
</Wix>
This xml file is separated into two fragments; one for the CA and one for the actual UI. The CA entry define in which assembly the CA is located and defines an id we can use later when calling the CA. This CA is the one I created previously for updating some properties with IIS data. The reason I’m defining it here is that I can, and it makes sense to group it with the dialog that are using it. Because, as you will see later, we’re going to call this CA after the user have clicked next on this dialog.
The UI section is where the layout of the actual UI components is defined. Most elements are default for any dialog, except SelectWebSiteLabel and SelectWebSiteCombo which is the two controls specific to the web site dialog.
I also need to update MyUI.wxs which controls which and in which order the dialogs are displayed in the wizard. I’ve added the SelectWebSiteDlg between InstallDirDlg and VerifyReadyDlg as shown here:
<Publish Dialog="InstallDirDlg" Control="Next" Event="SetTargetPath" Value="[WIXUI_INSTALLDIR]" Order="1">1</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="InstallDirDlg" Control="Next" Event="DoAction" Value="WixUIValidatePath" Order="2">1</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="InstallDirDlg" Control="Next" Event="SpawnDialog" Value="InvalidDirDlg" Order="3"><![CDATA[WIXUI_INSTALLDIR_VALID<>"1"]]></Publish>
<Publish Dialog="InstallDirDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="SelectWebSiteDlg" Order="6"><![CDATA[WIXUI_INSTALLDIR_VALID="1"]]></Publish>
<Publish Dialog="InstallDirDlg" Control="ChangeFolder" Property="_BrowseProperty" Value="[WIXUI_INSTALLDIR]" Order="1">1</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="InstallDirDlg" Control="ChangeFolder" Event="SpawnDialog" Value="BrowseDlg" Order="2">1</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="SelectWebSiteDlg" Control="Next" Event="DoAction" Value="UpdatePropsWithSelectedWebSite" Order="1">1</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="SelectWebSiteDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="VerifyReadyDlg" Order="2">1</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="SelectWebSiteDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="InstallDirDlg" Order="1">1</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="SelectWebSiteDlg" Order="1">NOT Installed</Publish>
<Publish Dialog="VerifyReadyDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="MaintenanceTypeDlg" Order="2">Installed</Publish>
See that I use DoAction to call the CA I defined earlier? This is how you hook up a CA to the “click event” of a button (or any control for that matter). Not quite as easy as in Win Forms, but it’s still quite logical.
Also note that I’ve changed the Next event for InstallDirDlg and the Back event for VerifyReadyDlg to point to my new dialog. This so the wizard will navigate correctly when the user clicks the next and back buttons.
Custom Table – Storing web site info
I promised to cover my custom table in more detail later, so here it is. First the code:
<CustomTable Id="AvailableWebSites" >
<Column Id="WebSiteNo" Category="Identifier" PrimaryKey="yes" Type="int" Width="4" />
<Column Id="WebSiteDescription" Category="Text" Type="string" PrimaryKey="no"/>
<Column Id="WebSitePort" Category="Text" Type="string" PrimaryKey="no"/>
<Column Id="WebSiteIP" Category="Text" Type="string" PrimaryKey="no" Nullable="yes"/>
<Column Id="WebSiteHeader" Category="Text" Type="string" PrimaryKey="no" Nullable="yes"/>
<Row>
<Data Column="WebSiteNo">0</Data>
<Data Column="WebSiteDescription">Bogus</Data>
<Data Column="WebSitePort">0</Data>
<Data Column="WebSiteIP"></Data>
<Data Column="WebSiteHeader"></Data>
</Row>
</CustomTable>
When a user have selected the web site to install to, instead of querying IIS for details about the web site (web site number, description, port etc), I can just get it from my AvailableWebSite table. Note that I’ve added some dummy data in the first row. Without this the custom table was not stored to the MSI and I did not find any other way of getting this to work.
Properties: Define, store and retrieve
Earlier I created a CA that stored info about the selected web site into some public properties. Where did these properties come from? Well, they’re defined in the Product.wxs file like this:
<Property Id="WEBSITE_DESCRIPTION">
<RegistrySearch Id="WebSiteDescription"
Name="WebSiteDescription"
Root="HKLM"
Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
<Property Id="WEBSITE_PORT">
<RegistrySearch Id="WebSitePort"
Name="WebSitePort"
Root="HKLM"
Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
<Property Id="WEBSITE_IP">
<RegistrySearch Id="WebSiteIP"
Name="WebSiteIP"
Root="HKLM"
Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
<Property Id="WEBSITE_HEADER">
<RegistrySearch Id="WebSiteHeader"
Name="WebSiteHeader"
Root="HKLM"
Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
I’ve also defined a registry search within each property. Why? In order to have access to these values during e.g. repair or uninstall we need to store them in the registry for later use. Why? Well, the Windows Installer does not maintain state (except from INSTALLDIR and maybe a few others). Meaning any values or selections a user did during installation is not kept for later use. Since we will need to know which web site the user installed the application to, so we can remove it on uninstall, we need to store the state to the registry. If the application has been installed before, the registry search above get’s these values from the registry and stores them in their respective properties.
But how did they end up in the registry to begin with? I do that by defining a new component like this:
<Component Id="PersistWebSiteValues" Guid="C3DAE2E2-FB49-48ba-ACB0-B2B5B726AE65">
<RegistryKey Root="HKLM" Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install">
<RegistryValue Name="WebSiteDescription" Type="string" Value="[WEBSITE_DESCRIPTION]"/>
<RegistryValue Name="WebSitePort" Type="string" Value="[WEBSITE_PORT]"/>
<RegistryValue Name="WebSiteIP" Type="string" Value="[WEBSITE_IP]"/>
<RegistryValue Name="WebSiteHeader" Type="string" Value="[WEBSITE_HEADER]"/>
</RegistryKey>
</Component>
And we need to reference the component under the Feature tag:
<ComponentRef Id="PersistWebSiteValues" />
Registry key’s in WiX require a component, which is good. That means that these keys/values will be added on install and removed on uninstall, saving us manual work. The registry key above is created at SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install. The actual values are the properties as you see in the Value attributes. To reference a property just use [MY_PROPERTY]. This comes in handy many times when authoring MSI installations.
Reference CA’s
One of the CA’s (the UpdatePropsWithSelectedWebSite) is actually already referenced in the SelectWebSiteDlg, but we need to reference the GetWebSites CA as well:
<CustomAction Id="GetIISWebSites" BinaryKey="IISCA" DllEntry="GetWebSites" Execute="immediate" Return="check" />
<Binary Id="IISCA" SourceFile="$(var.SolutionDir)IISCustomAction\bin\Debug\IISCustomAction.CA.dll" />
The CustomAction tag defines a logical entry that we can use later to call this CA by using the id GetIISWebSites. In addition there is a Binary node that tells where WiX can find this CA when build the project. The CustomAction node point to this by using the BynaryKey attribute.
Then we need to make sure it’s being called:
<InstallUISequence>
<Custom Action="GetIISWebSites" After="CostFinalize" Overridable="yes">NOT Installed</Custom>
</InstallUISequence>
The above code tells the installer to run this CA in the UISequence only when the application is not already installed (defined by the NOT Installed condition).
Change the WebSite standard action
In order for the installer to pick up the properties we’ve set for the selected web site (description, port, ip etc) we need to change the code we had previously:
<iis:WebSite Id='DefaultWebSite' Description='Default Web Site'>
<iis:WebAddress Id='AllUnassigned' Port='80' />
</iis:WebSite>
To this:
<iis:WebSite Id="SelectedWebSite" Description="[WEBSITE_DESCRIPTION]">
<iis:WebAddress Id="AllUnassigned" Port="[WEBSITE_PORT]" IP="[WEBSITE_IP]" Header="[WEBSITE_HEADER]" />
</iis:WebSite>
Makes sense right? I’ve also changed the id to SelectedWebSite which is more accurate in this case, meaning you need to update the WebSite reference in WebVirtualDir in the IISAppplication component as well. If you fail to do this the WiX compiler will complain, so you’re in safe hands
The complete Product.wxs
There’s a lot of snippets above, so for your convenience I’ve included the complete code for Product.wxs here so you see everything together:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension" xmlns:iis="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/IIsExtension">
<Product Id="77da05c4-1644-4bc3-ac14-c0f721fe31fe" Name="Simple Web App" Language="1033" Version="1.0.0.0" Manufacturer="Jon Torresdal" UpgradeCode="a897ccc5-1c81-47e0-a837-65c07a72a7bc">
<Package InstallerVersion="400" Compressed="yes" />
<Media Id="1" Cabinet="WixProject1.cab" EmbedCab="yes" />
<Property Id="TARGETVDIR" Value="SimpleWebApp"/>
<Property Id="WEBSITE_DESCRIPTION">
<RegistrySearch Id="WebSiteDescription"
Name="WebSiteDescription"
Root="HKLM"
Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
<Property Id="WEBSITE_PORT">
<RegistrySearch Id="WebSitePort"
Name="WebSitePort"
Root="HKLM"
Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
<Property Id="WEBSITE_IP">
<RegistrySearch Id="WebSiteIP"
Name="WebSiteIP"
Root="HKLM"
Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
<Property Id="WEBSITE_HEADER">
<RegistrySearch Id="WebSiteHeader"
Name="WebSiteHeader"
Root="HKLM"
Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install"
Type="raw" />
</Property>
<CustomAction Id="GetIISWebSites" BinaryKey="IISCA" DllEntry="GetWebSites" Execute="immediate" Return="check" />
<Binary Id="IISCA" SourceFile="$(var.SolutionDir)IISCustomAction\bin\Debug\IISCustomAction.CA.dll" />
<InstallUISequence>
<Custom Action="GetIISWebSites" After="CostFinalize" Overridable="yes">NOT Installed</Custom>
</InstallUISequence>
<Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
<Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
<Directory Id="INSTALLLOCATION" Name="SimpleWebApp">
<Component Id="Default.aspx" Guid="fc46b1a2-35e9-4a17-896b-80b2daaae567">
<File Id="Default.aspx" Name="Default.aspx" Source="$(var.SolutionDir)SimpleWebApp\Default.aspx" DiskId="1" KeyPath="yes" />
</Component>
<Component Id="Web.config" Guid="2ED81B77-F153-4003-9006-4770D789D4B6">
<File Id="Web.config" Name="Web.config" Source="$(var.SolutionDir)SimpleWebApp\Web.config" DiskId="1" KeyPath="yes" />
<util:XmlFile Id="AppSettingsAddNode" File="[INSTALLLOCATION]Web.config" Action="createElement" ElementPath="/configuration/appSettings" Name="add" Sequence="1" />
<util:XmlFile Id="AppSettingsKeyAttribute" Action="setValue" File="[INSTALLLOCATION]Web.config" ElementPath="/configuration/appSettings/add" Name="key" Value="AddedDuringInstall" Sequence="2" />
<util:XmlFile Id="AppSettingsValueAttribute" Action="setValue" File="[INSTALLLOCATION]Web.config" ElementPath="/configuration/appSettings/add" Name="value" Value="This text was added during installation." Sequence="3" />
</Component>
<Directory Id="binFolder" Name="bin">
<Component Id="SimpleWebApp.dll" Guid="7FC6DA37-12E5-463d-8E7E-08F73E40CCF2">
<File Id="SimpleWebApp.dll" Name="SimpleWebApp.dll" Source="$(var.SolutionDir)SimpleWebApp\Bin\SimpleWebApp.dll" DiskId="1" KeyPath="yes" />
</Component>
</Directory>
</Directory>
</Directory>
<Directory Id="ProgramMenuFolder">
<Directory Id="MyWebAppStartMenuFolder" Name="SimpleWebApp">
<Component Id="StartMenuFolder" Guid="B3AEC4C4-3F8E-4865-B87A-B750533776B5" >
<util:InternetShortcut Id="SimpleWebAppShortcut" Name="SimpleWebApp" Target="http://localhost/SimpleWebApp/Default.aspx" Directory="MyWebAppStartMenuFolder" />
<RemoveFolder Id="RemoveStartMenuFolder1" On="uninstall"/>
<RegistryKey Root="HKCU" Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\SimpleWebAppShortcut">
<RegistryValue Type="string" Value="Default Value"/>
</RegistryKey>
</Component>
</Directory>
</Directory>
<Component Id="IISApplication" Guid="FFA12D9C-5AEC-45f8-AA7D-5C4CEC7FA466">
<iis:WebAppPool Id="SWAAppPool" Name="SWAAppPool" />
<iis:WebVirtualDir Id="VirtualDir" Alias="[TARGETVDIR]" Directory="INSTALLLOCATION" WebSite="SelectedWebSite">
<iis:WebApplication Id="SimpleWebAppApp" Name="[TARGETVDIR]" WebAppPool="SWAAppPool" />
<iis:WebDirProperties Id="WebVirtualDirProperties" Execute="yes" Script="yes" Read="yes" WindowsAuthentication="no" AnonymousAccess="yes" IIsControlledPassword="yes" />
</iis:WebVirtualDir>
</Component>
<Component Id="PersistWebSiteValues" Guid="C3DAE2E2-FB49-48ba-ACB0-B2B5B726AE65">
<RegistryKey Root="HKLM" Key="SOFTWARE\torresdal.net\SimpleWebApp\Install">
<RegistryValue Name="WebSiteDescription" Type="string" Value="[WEBSITE_DESCRIPTION]"/>
<RegistryValue Name="WebSitePort" Type="string" Value="[WEBSITE_PORT]"/>
<RegistryValue Name="WebSiteIP" Type="string" Value="[WEBSITE_IP]"/>
<RegistryValue Name="WebSiteHeader" Type="string" Value="[WEBSITE_HEADER]"/>
</RegistryKey>
</Component>
</Directory>
<CustomTable Id="AvailableWebSites" >
<Column Id="WebSiteNo" Category="Identifier" PrimaryKey="yes" Type="int" Width="4" />
<Column Id="WebSiteDescription" Category="Text" Type="string" PrimaryKey="no"/>
<Column Id="WebSitePort" Category="Text" Type="string" PrimaryKey="no"/>
<Column Id="WebSiteIP" Category="Text" Type="string" PrimaryKey="no" Nullable="yes"/>
<Column Id="WebSiteHeader" Category="Text" Type="string" PrimaryKey="no" Nullable="yes"/>
<Row>
<Data Column="WebSiteNo">0</Data>
<Data Column="WebSiteDescription">Bogus</Data>
<Data Column="WebSitePort">0</Data>
<Data Column="WebSiteIP"></Data>
<Data Column="WebSiteHeader"></Data>
</Row>
</CustomTable>
<iis:WebSite Id="SelectedWebSite" Description="[WEBSITE_DESCRIPTION]">
<iis:WebAddress Id="AllUnassigned" Port="[WEBSITE_PORT]" IP="[WEBSITE_IP]" Header="[WEBSITE_HEADER]" />
</iis:WebSite>
<Property Id="WIXUI_INSTALLDIR" Value="INSTALLLOCATION" />
<UIRef Id="MyUI" />
<Feature Id="ProductFeature" Title="SimpleWebApp" Level="1">
<ComponentRef Id="Default.aspx" />
<ComponentRef Id="Web.config" />
<ComponentRef Id="SimpleWebApp.dll" />
<ComponentRef Id="StartMenuFolder" />
<ComponentRef Id="IISApplication" />
<ComponentRef Id="PersistWebSiteValues" />
</Feature>
</Product>
</Wix>
The End!
That’s that! If you’ve come this far you (hopefully) have a functional CA with goodies that allow your user to select web sites in your installer. Hope you found this post useful and let me know if you find any errors or questions, and I’ll help you out. Btw here’s the end result:
