How to call a command line program in WiX

Question

I want to call a command line program of OpenOffice in WiX. To do so, I created a custom action, as seen below:

<CustomAction Id="ca_RunOpenOfficeProgram" Return="check" Directory="TARGETDIR"  ExeCommand="cmd.exe /K &quot;C:\OpenOffice.org3\program\unopgk.com list --shared&quot;" />

The Custom Action is being run in an Install Execute Sequence:

<InstallExecuteSequence>            
  <Custom Action="ca_RunOpenOfficeProgram" Before="InstallFinalize" />
 </InstallExecuteSequence>

When running the resulting MSI-File, I receive the following error message in a command line:

Invalid command 'C:\OpenOffice.org3\program\unopkg.com' could not be found.

Well, of course, the command is available and I may run it from command line. But it just doesnt work if the command line is being called by WiX. It`s also notable that the part 'list --shared' is completely ignored.

Does anyone know what`s going on here?

Answer 1

I would recommend using the ShellExecute custom action from the WiX toolset.

Here is the sample code:

<Property Id="WixShellExecTarget" Value="[#myapplication.exe]" />
<CustomAction Id="LaunchApplication" BinaryKey="WixCA" DllEntry="WixShellExec" Impersonate="yes" />

Change the Value of property WixShellExecTarget to cmd.exe /K "C:\OpenOffice.org3\program\unopgk.com list --shared" and it should work.

Answer 2

Are you sure that cmd.exe /K "C:\OpenOffice.org3\program\unopgk.com list --shared" works? It looks like you have the quotes in the wrong place.

And, do you really want the console window kept open (/k)? Does the user have to enter more commands before the installation continues? You might want /c instead. See the help with cmd /?.

But, if there is only one command needed, why not just run the program directly?

ExeCommand=""C:\OpenOffice.org3\program\unopgk.com" list --shared"

Finally, if the above is the only command needed and assuming C:\OpenOffice.org3\program\unopgk.com is a console application, a useless console window will be opened. This can be avoided with WiX's QtExecCmdLine custom action.

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If you are running the program to gather information, and it is a console application, you could do:

cmd /c "C:\OpenOffice.org3\program\unopgk.com" list --shared >path\out.txt

and use another custom action to read the file and make decisions on it or show it to the user in a Windows Installer dialog. This would be a better experience than leaving the user with a console window with a blinking prompt that they have to exit out of.