MSI Custom Actions  with Wise Package Studio  and the KiXscripts Editor

Many organizations utilize KiXtart scripts, and scripted or EXE compiled "wrappers" for their deployment operations. However, by using the facilities provided right within Windows Installer itself, you may accomplish everything from dropping a file footprint for inventory purposes, to using the existence of a file as a condition of installation. To take this even further, custom actions provide a means to kick off a customized script within the MSI installation process, even a full-blown scripted installation.

A Windows Installer custom action is a user-defined process executed by Windows Installer during execution of a Windows Installer setup (MSI). It may be a DLL call, VBscript, or any Executable file. This paper describes the steps that may be taken in order to generate an MSI package using Wise Package Studio that spawns a scripted installation using the familiar KiXtart scripting language. This can be valuable in environments that rely on Group Policy as their sole means of deployment (only MSI packages may be deployed in such an environment). Additionally, KiXtart is a scripting language that many systems administrators are familiar with. In this example we will use the Java Runtime Environment setup as the custom action to install. However, the procedure for any scripted installation or change would be similar.

1)    Create JRE InstallShield answer file

2)    Create EXE of KiXtart installation script

3)    Create MSI with custom action for deployment
 

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