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MSI database data at runtime?


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cgarstin

cgarstin
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Posted 21 April 2005 - 21:26

After reading some good articles on MSI best practices, I've heard a few arguments that state, quite simply "The use of VBScript and JScript custom actions is bad news".

I use VBScript to query the MSI database itself and do comparisons of some file versions withing the install to those found on the target machine. I have no problem using the "AppSearch" table to define a search for the target file, but without a VBScript I'm not sure how to query rows withing the database.

Is there a way, without using a VBScript, JScript or even a DLL, that I can query the MSi datbase at runtime?

Thanks,
Chris Garstin

Zweitze

Zweitze
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Posted 22 April 2005 - 00:08

I know of three problems with scripting CAs:

1. Scripting is not present on Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 default installations. The user needs to install Internet Explorer 4 or higher, or the Windows Scripting Host.
2. Certain antivirus programs may block access to certain objects. For instance, Norton Antivirus may block certain methods of the FileSystemObject object. For instance, when you attempt to delete a file with this object, Norton Antivirus notifies the user that a program "Msiexec.exe" is trying to corrupt his system.
3. On certain systems, Active Scripting (the technology used for VBScript and JScript) appears to be vanished. I've heard of this two or three times, where my installs has run on over 50,000 systems.

The only alternative is writing a Windows Installer DLL function - none of the problems above apply.