CustomAction in Wix not executing

Question

So I'm creating my first Wix project and I seem to be having a problem executing a custom action. I'm not sure that it's being included in the msi and I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong. The following is my Wix file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
    <Product Id="*" Name="ExactaDynamicManifest" Language="1033" Version="1.0.0.0" Manufacturer="Bastian Software Solutions" UpgradeCode="274ff2d9-e291-4706-a8db-ce80ccd91538">
      <Package InstallerVersion="200" Compressed="yes" InstallScope="perMachine"/>

      <MajorUpgrade DowngradeErrorMessage="A newer version of [ProductName] is already installed." />
      <MediaTemplate />

      <Feature Id="ProductFeature" Title="ExactaDynamicManifest" Level="1">
        <ComponentGroupRef Id="ExactaDynamicManifest"/>
      </Feature>

      <Icon Id="exacta.ico" SourceFile="icons\exacta.ico"/>
      <Property Id="ARPPRODUCTICON" Value="exacta.ico" />

    </Product>

    <Fragment>
        <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
            <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
        <Directory Id="ExactaFolder" Name ="Exacta">
                  <Directory Id="INSTALLFOLDER" Name="ExactaExactaDynamicManifest" />
        </Directory>
            </Directory>
        </Directory>
    </Fragment>

    <Fragment>
      <CustomAction Id="InstallService" FileKey="ExactaDynamicManifest.exe" ExeCommand="install"/>
      <InstallExecuteSequence>
        <Custom Action="InstallService" After="InstallFinalize"/>
      </InstallExecuteSequence>
    </Fragment>
</Wix>

The last fragment contains my custom action which what I hoped would do is the following on the command line after all files have been placed in the directory:

ExactaDynamicManifest.exe install

One thing to note is that exe is actually coming from a ComponentGroupRef defined above. Not sure if this is a problem or not but thought I'd mention it. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I finally got something that is working. My initial problem of the CustomAction not loading seemed to be due to it being in a different <fragment>. I consolidated all of the code into a single fragment and it seemed to run.

After battling with user permissions etc I finally ended up with this solution:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
    <Product Id="*" Name="ExactaDynamicManifest" Language="1033" Version="1.0.0.0" Manufacturer="Bastian Software Solutions" UpgradeCode="274ff2d9-e291-4706-a8db-ce80ccd91538">
      <Package InstallerVersion="200" Compressed="yes" InstallScope="perMachine"/>

      <MajorUpgrade DowngradeErrorMessage="A newer version of [ProductName] is already installed." />
      <MediaTemplate />

      <Feature Id="ProductFeature" Title="ExactaDynamicManifest" Level="1">
        <ComponentGroupRef Id="ExactaDynamicManifest"/>
      </Feature>

      <Icon Id="exacta.ico" SourceFile="icons\exacta.ico"/>
      <Property Id="ARPPRODUCTICON" Value="exacta.ico" />

    </Product>

    <Fragment>
      <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
        <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
          <Directory Id="ExactaFolder" Name ="Exacta">
            <Directory Id="INSTALLFOLDER" Name="ExactaExactaDynamicManifest" />
          </Directory>
        </Directory>
      </Directory>

      <CustomAction Id="RunTopShelfServiceInstall" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER" Execute="deferred" Return="ignore" Impersonate="no" ExeCommand="[INSTALLFOLDER]ExactaDynamicManifest.exe install"/>
      <CustomAction Id="RunTopShelfServiceUninstall" Directory="INSTALLFOLDER" Execute="deferred" Return="ignore" Impersonate="no" ExeCommand="[INSTALLFOLDER]ExactaDynamicManifest.exe uninstall"/>

      <InstallExecuteSequence>
        <Custom Action="RunTopShelfServiceInstall" After="InstallFiles">
          NOT Installed
        </Custom>
        <Custom Action="RunTopShelfServiceUninstall" After='InstallInitialize'>
          (NOT UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE) AND (REMOVE="ALL")
        </Custom>
      </InstallExecuteSequence>

    </Fragment>
</Wix>

Answer 2

1. Are you going to register a service using a custom action? You also have to handle uninstall, repair actions. It's much simpler to use standard MSI feature to install services: http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/xsd/wix/serviceinstall.html

2. If you want to use custom actions for this purpose and UAC is enabled your service won't be installed due to permissions. You have to use deferred and not impersonated custom action scheduled before InstallFinalize (after InstallFinalize custom actions can't be scheduled).