R – Installing files to x64 “Program Files” from x86 msi

installationinstallshieldreporting-serviceswindows-installerx86-64

I'm creating installer using InstallShield 2010 (basic MSI) that is having two features.

First feature consists of:

main .NET application compiled as x86,
some native x86 third party dlls which are used by main application (x64 versions are unavailable).

Second feature contains single component which is an extension for MS Reporting Services compiled as AnyCPU.

During UI sequence I'm using InstallScript custom action to enumerate all available Reporting Services instances from both x86 and x64 registry trees.

The user is prompted to select on which instance he wants to deploy our extension.

Based on selected instance I'm quering registry for actual location of Reporting Services in file system which is usually something like "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\Reporting Services" and storing this value in a MSI Property.

Then by using Set Directory action I'm setting destination directory of a component (our extension) to the value of that MSI Property.

Everything is installing perfectly fine unless you've trying to install it for x64 Reporting Services in that case extension files are installed to wrong location. Even thou MSI Property is set to correct path "C:\Program Files\MicroSoft…" (I've checked msi log) it looks like system is automatically redirecting to "Program Files (x86)".

Is there any possible solution to overcome this issue?

Best Answer

If you need to install to the 64-bit ProgramFiles folder, use a 64-bit MSI.

Related Solutions

32bit MSI: Converting shortcut target path of 64bit app to 32 bit Path

You are swimming upstream against MSI on this one. (Although I can understand why. )

Officially MSI is never platform nuetral. I assume you are using a custom action to read the registry values because MSI's AppSearch/Reglocator will constrain you to the WoWSys64 node. After that, MSI will substitute even hard coded references to program files as part of an application compatibility approach ( basically microsoft assumes you didn't know what you were doing and that they know what you really meant to do ).

Unofficially- read this thread to find a hack that I figured out to work around this. The summary is I found that if you convert C:\Program Files\ to a short path ( C:\Progra~1 ) that MSI is no smart enough to figure out what you are referring to so it doesn't substitute the value.

http://www.joyofsetup.com/2010/03/27/wix-msbuild-v2-0-and-x64-systems/

Note, this a hack and there is no way of telling if Microsoft will 'fix it' in future releases. The only other approach I can think of is you to then not use the shortcut table and instead write custom actions to create the shortcuts for you.

If you don't want to swim against MSI, consider this workaround. Create a small 64bit EXE ( yes, you can deploy a 64bit or AnyCPU exe to Program Files x86 is a x86 MSI ) that acts as a front end launcher to AutoCAD. Make it query the registry table and find the file then launch it or display a message saying AutoCAD is unavailable if it can't be found.

If you do this you make your install far cleaner.

WiX: How to override “C:\Program Files (x86)” on x64 machine in WixUI_Advanced sequence

Something like this would probably do the trick:

<MajorUpgrade AllowSameVersionUpgrades="yes"
          DowngradeErrorMessage="Can't downgrade."
          Schedule="afterInstallInitialize" />


<Property Id="APPLICATIONFOLDER" Secure="yes">
    <RegistrySearch Id="FindInstallLocation"
        Root="HKLM"
        Key="Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\[WIX_UPGRADE_DETECTED]"
        Name="InstallLocation"
        Type="raw"
        Win64="yes" />
</Property>


<CustomAction Id="Overwrite_WixSetDefaultPerMachineFolder" Property="WixPerMachineFolder" Value="[ProgramFiles64Folder][ApplicationFolderName]" Execute="immediate" />
<InstallUISequence>
    <Custom Action="Overwrite_WixSetDefaultPerMachineFolder" After="WixSetDefaultPerMachineFolder" />
</InstallUISequence>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
    <Custom Action="Overwrite_WixSetDefaultPerMachineFolder" After="WixSetDefaultPerMachineFolder" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>

<SetProperty Id="ARPINSTALLLOCATION" Value="[APPLICATIONFOLDER]" After="CostFinalize" />

UPDATE: SetDirectory schedules the action prior to WixSetDefaultPerMachineFolder - code updated for manually scheduled elements to schedule between WixSetDefaultPerMachineFolder and WixSetPerMachineFolder. Tested OK with OP sample code under Win7 x64

UPDATE2: Added action to set ARPINSTALLOCATION as http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2011/1/14/ARPINSTALLLOCATION-and-how-to-set-it-with-the-WiX-toolset

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