Wixsharp: How to pass command line arguments to uninstall actions?

[ayman-eltemsahi]

Hi,

I have an msi that checks for a condition before installation, if the condition is not valid, it will stop the installation unless a FORCE parameter is provided. In that case, it will kill whatever process invalidates the installation and continue.

The problem happens when I have an installed version and I want to upgrade. So when starting the installation, the RemoveExistingProducts step kicks in and it runs the uninstall custom actions from the _old msi_, but it does not pass the arguments ( FORCE ) to these custom actions.

How can I make it so that the uninstall custom actions of the old msi get the command line arguments/parameters as well?

All installation/uninstallation happens silently without any UI.

[Xaddan]

Oh, I understand you. I came across this, and for a long time I was looking for an answer, but I could not find it. It seems that it is impossible to pass any parameters to the old msi. All that remains is to not start the CA.

[ayman-eltemsahi]

I did a workaround by adding a file in a specific location in the machine and all installations/uninstallations check for this file. Before triggering the msi, I create the file if I need to FORCE. It is not the nicest solution, but it works.

@oleg-shilo if there are no available solutions or nothing on your mind to pass the parameters, please feel free to close the issue.

[oleg-shilo]

The only work around I can come up with is really inelegant approach when you write your parameters to some well known location (file system, registry) from your before-LaunchConditions CA and then your old MSI reads them and acts accordingly.

[ayman-eltemsahi]

Yeah, that's basically the gist of what I'm doing now, I'll close the issue then.