Would be grateful to any assistance on how I can install an MSI and modify its default property values through an xml file that has the new values to be inserted during install time. The new property values will then be passed into MSIEXEC as a parameter by referencing the xml file and will therefore look like this:
msiexec /I MyMSIFle.msi PROPERTIESFILE=ProdProperties.xml
The need for this is because we have a number of environments. For sake of argument let's say DEV, TEST and PROD. The MSI property values differ for each environment and will be held in discrete XML properties files, e.g. DEV-Properties.xml, TEST-Properties.xml and PROD-Properties.xml.
The MSI is a single, generic MSI that we intend to install across all three environments successfully, simply by passing in the correct property values, all embedded within the individual XML files.
I'll be particularly happy to accept solutions using Powershell, Windows Batch scripts, VBScript, etc, but no third-party software as we have strict restrictions on using any such products within my company.
Thank you
I suggest you create an custom action for your MSI. Here is an example how:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/alexshev/archive/2009/05/15/from-msi-to-wix-part-22-dll-custom-actions-introduction.aspx
You could pass the .xml file name as an property and deserialize the file from the given path to an object. From the object you could then override some more properties.
Anyhow I think it is not sensible to contain such logic in an installer. I think a better way would be to write a simple flag to registry telling what environment is in question and the let the installed program deduce rest.
Related
I'm defining my own Puppet class, and I was wondering if it is possible to have an array variable which contains a list of all files in a specific directory. I was wondering to have a similar syntax like below, but didn't found a way to make it work.
$dirs = Dir.entries('C:\\Program Files\\Java\\')
Does anyone how to do it in a Puppet file?
Thanks!
I was wondering if it is possible to have an array variable which contains a list of all files in a specific directory.
Information about the current state of the machine to be configured is conveyed to the catalog compiler via facts. These are available to your classes as top-scope variables, and Puppet (or Facter, actually) provides ways to define your own custom facts. That's a link into the Facter 3 manual, but similar applies to earlier versions. Do not overlook the rest of the Facter documentation, which has more relevant information on this topic.
On the other hand, information about the machine providing catalog-building services -- the master in a master / agent setup -- can be obtained by writing and calling a custom function. This is rarely what you actually want, but it's worth mentioning because you might one day want a custom function for some other purpose.
I've been given the task of researching whether one can use Powershell to automate the managing of References in VB6 application and then compile it's projects afterwards.
There are 3 projects. I requirement is to remove a specific reference in each project. Then, compile projects from bottom up (server > client > interface) and add reference back in along the way. (remove references, compile server.dll >add client reference to server.dll, compile client.dll > add interface reference to client.dll, compile interface.exe)
I'm thinking no, but I was still given the task of finding out for sure. Of course, where does one go to find this out? Why here of course, StackOverflow.
References are stored in the project .VBP files which are just text files. A given reference takes up exactly one line of the file.
For example, here is a reference to DAO database components:
Reference=*\G{00025E01-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}#5.0#0#C:\WINDOWS\SysWow64\dao360.dll#Microsoft DAO 3.6 Object Library
The most important info is everything to the left of the path which contains the GUID (i.e., the unique identifier of the library, more or less). The filespec and description text are unimportant as VB6 will update that to whatever it finds in the registry for the referenced DLL.
An alternate form of reference is for GUI controls, such as:
Object={BDC217C8-ED16-11CD-956C-0000C04E4C0A}#1.1#0; tabctl32.ocx
which for whatever reason never seem to have a path anyway. Most likely you will not need to modify this type of reference, because it would almost certainly break forms in the project which rely on them.
So in your Powershell script, the key task would be to either add or remove the individual reference lines mentioned in the question. Unless you are using no form of binary compatibility, the GUID will remain stable. Therefore, you could essentially hardcode the strings you need to add/remove.
Aside from all that, its worth thinking through why you need to take this approach at all. Normally to build a VB6 solution it is totally unnecessary to add/remove references along the way. Also depending on your choice of deployment techniques, you are probably using either project or binary compatibility which tends to keep the references stable.
Lastly, I'll mention that there are existing tools such as Kinook's Visual Build Pro which already know how to build groups of VB6 projects and if using a 3rd party tool like that is an option, could save you a lot of work.
We have a need that periodically, we will run a build configuration that among other things, recreates tokens/logins etc. We want to save these back to Team City as Environment variables. Builds that we subsequently do will want to look at this Environment Variable store and do a string replace within our configurations as required.
I've taken a look at :
##teamcity[setParameter name='env.TEST' value='test']
But from reading the documentation, this is only used to pass variables between build steps within the same build. It doesn't actually save the variable back to Team City.
Is there any way (Preferably from a powershell script), to call Team City and tell it to add a Environment Variable (Or any other variable).
In order to persist a value back to a parameter you have to call the REST API.
I use a PowerShell script that acts as a wrapper around the Invoke-RestMethod cmdlets in PowerShell 3+ that can be reused in a build step to achieve what you want.
Step 1.
Save the script to a PowerShell file and add it to your source control rest-api-wrapper.ps1
Step 2.
Create a PowerShell build step referencing the script and pass in the following arguments, tailored for your situation
%teamcity.serverUrl%/httpAuth/app/rest/projects/project_id/parameters/parameter_name
"Username"
"Password"
"PUT"
"TheValueToSave"
More details can be found here - TeamCity Documentation
Hope this helps
Given this command:
MSBuild.exe build.xml /p:Configuration=Live /p:UseMerge=true /p:EnableUpdateable=false
how can I form a string like this in my build script:
UseMerge=true;EnableUpdateable=true
where I might not know which properties were used at the command line.
What are you going to do with the list?
There's no built in "properties that came via the commandline" thing a la splatting in PowerShell 2.0
Remember properties can come from environment variables and/or other scripts.
Also, you stripped on of the params out in your example.
In general, if one is trying to chain to another command, one uses defaulting (Conditions on elements in PropertyGroups) and validation (Messages Conditional on presence of options) and then either create a new property or embed the params you want to pass into a string.
Here's hoping someone has a nice neat example of a more general way to do this but I doubt it.
As covered in http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/.net-tools/extending-msbuild/ one can dump out the parameters passed by doing /v:diag on the commandline (but that's obviously not what you're after).
Have a look in the Common.targets files - you'll find lots of cases of chaininign involving manaully building up lists to pass onto subservient tasks.
In the past I've been able to embed a sripting languate (like JScript) inside the SQLCLR, so scripts can be passed as parameters of functions, to perform certain calculations. Here is a simplistic example (the function ssScriptExecute returns a concatenation of all the print's in the script):
select dbo.ssScriptExecute( 'print("Calculation: "+(1+2/3) );' )
-- Calculation: 1.6666666666666665
I'd love to be able to embed a Powershell runtime in the same way. But I've had all sort of problems because the runtime tries to find assemblies by path, and there are no paths inside the SQlCLR. I'm happy to provide more information on the errors I get, but I was wondering if anybody has tried this!
Thanks!
I use il code injection to modified System.Automation.Management.
make variable version in GetPSVersionTable() be "2.0"
then i can run Powershell Code in SQL Server.
Be sure reference this modified dll in your visual studio project.
http://www.box.net/shared/57122v6erv9ss3aopq7p
btw, automated registering all dll you needed with running powershell in SQL
you can use this ps1 code
http://www.box.net/shared/tdlpu1875clsu8azxq4b
I think the only way to do this is to create a WCF service hosting powershell, and let SQLCLR send the request dbo.ssScriptExecute(...) to that service for execution.
Besides from that, I've also successfully embedded paxScript.net in the SQLCLR (an interpreter that does not have the memory leak problems of the DLR languages).
I thought SQLCLR was restricted to just a certain set of assemblies and PS Automation is not one of them.