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POWindows Setup: Dynamic Registry Keys/Values
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copied!<p><strong>A synopsis of my question:</strong></p> <p>Is it possible to use your own, custom variables (the way that you can use [TARGETDIR]) in the Registry screen of a Windows Setup project in VS2010? Specifically, I need to store my assembly's strong name and assembly version in the registry, in order to register a COM object on a machine without the installing user having admin rights.</p> <p>I already tried using a custom action, and I'd rather not continue down that road if possible.</p> <p><strong>Here are the specifics, and what I've tried:</strong></p> <p>Recently, my employer started blindly removing all employees' admin rights from their machines.</p> <p>I had created a COM-exposed C# class that I'd been using on a few of my workstations, which is no longer able to be registered, because I no longer have the appropriate permissions under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.</p> <p>Through Googling, I found out how to register all of the appropriate keys under HKCU*, but now I'd like to implement this in my deployment project.</p> <p>I understand how to use the Registry screen within Windows Setup, but there are custom keys/values that need to be stored (install folder, assembly strong name, version).</p> <p>I could use a custom action, but ideally, I want Windows Setup to manage my registry settings, because (a) it's better than I am at automatically removing all the proper keys/values upon uninstall, (b) during the install, registry changes are transactional & rolled back upon install error, and (c) the logic for registry key install/removal/transactions is already written by Microsoft, and I won't have to rewrite it myself.</p> <p>The project was in VS2008 until today, but I just upgraded it to VS2010, so perhaps something has changed between 2008 and 2010 that might allow this behavior.</p> <p>So, rather than using a custom action, is there a better way to do this?</p> <p><strong>EDIT:</strong> I found <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/1801639/864414">this</a> answer, which seems to suggest that you can access the Windows Install "Registry" table within your install project. I'm not sure how to do access it, though. In the past, I seem to recall that you could access the MSI databases from a special external tool (Orca), but I don't know if you can access these tables in your setup project.</p> <p><strong>EDIT 2:</strong> Ah, I may be on to something; perhaps a post-build event:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/886842/use-orca-to-edit-msi-from-command-line">Use Orca to edit msi from command line?</a>, </li> <li><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa368562.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Examples of Database Queries Using SQL and Script</a>, </li> <li><a href="http://source.db4o.com/db4o/trunk/enterprise/omn/BuildScripts/WiRunSQL.vbs" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WiRunSQL.vbs</a></li> </ul> <hr> <p>* Run RegAsm twice - once with /codebase and once without; both times with the /regfile option. Then merge both files together (removing duplicates), and replace all HKCR references with HKCU\Software\Classes.</p>

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