4 replies to this topic

[hteichert]

Normally it's no problem to give multiple parameters to a deferred CA by using the property CustomActionData and split the params by using a special character as delimiter (I think most of the people use ";").

But:
I have to transfer several parameters to a deferred CA and one of them (a password) might contain everything (like " , ; ? ....).
How is it possible to split all these params without destroying the one, which might contain everything? Any idea?

[Irina]

Hi,
If you have only one parameters such this (all chars are possible), then set it at first and put it in any signs, like this:
CustomActionData      $Password$;Par2;Par3
Then find a first occurence of $ from the back, so you can separate this parameters from others. Use usually splitting for others.
Hope it helps.

[hteichert]

Thanks, Irina. I had the same idea, but using the PWD in the end and doing the work just vice versa.

But:
What can be done if there are more than one "unrestricted" parameters to be transferred? Like logging on as user1 with pwd1 to create another user2/pwd2??

OK, one idea is to use uuencode/decode to transfer the data, but isn't there a simpler way to do it?

[rjtonnis]

You could try this:
Write a CA that is not deferred and have it read the properties directly and transfer them to the registry.  Then have your Deferred CA read (and delete) the parameters from the registry.

[hteichert]

Good idea at first, but there is a security problem.

If the data transferred are passwords, then they could be read by somebody else - for example when the setup crashes just in the middle of the installation (power fail, another application running wild, ...). It's never a good idea to store passwords unencrypted.