Windows Installer Property Reference

InstallShield 11

There are many properties that can be set during an installation. The following tables list most of them with their functions and, in many cases, the syntax needed to put these properties into action. Many of the properties can be set through the IDE, while others are initialized by the Windows Installer service at run time.

By default, Windows Installer writes the final value of every Windows Installer property contained in your project to a log file generated by launching MsiExec with the /L argument. Starting with Windows Installer version 2.0, you can prevent certain properties (such as those containing passwords) from being written to the log file by creating a property called MsiHiddenProperties in the Property Manager, setting its value to a semicolon-delimited list of property names.

Any of the properties that are with all-uppercase names can be set at the command line. Properties with all-uppercase names are called public properties. The following lists are organized according to the functions of the properties. Each table has a brief description of the kinds of properties it contains.

The following categories of Windows Installer properties are described in this topic. Click on a link to go directly to a category.

• Special Folder Properties
• Feature Installation Properties
• Other Configurable Properties
• User-Supplied Information
• Product-Specific Properties
• System Folders Set by the Installer
• Operating System Properties Set by the Installer
• Hardware Properties Set by the Installer
• Status Properties Updated by the Installer
• Date and Time Properties
• InstallScript Engine-Relatated Properties
• MDAC Properties

Do not confuse installer properties with path variables, which are surrounded by angle brackets (<>). While they both represent directories, you can use Windows Installer properties at run time, but path variables are used to point to source files only during setup design and at build time.

Special Folder Properties

Special folder properties are those properties that define where files are stored or installed on the target system.

To use a folder property in your setup, enclose it in square brackets: []. For example, to install a component to a Bin folder under the default destination folder, enter [INSTALLDIR]Bin in the component's Destination Folder property.

Feature Installation Properties

The following section provides information on feature installation properties, with which the end user can specify how features should be installed.

Other Configurable Properties

The following section contains information on various other configurable properties.

Property Name	Description
ACTION	This property specifies which sequence to perform (installation, advertisement, or administration). Possible values are INSTALL, ADVERTISE, and ADMIN. The ACTION property is automatically set based on the command line used to launch the installation.
ALLUSERS	Specifies whether to perform a per-machine or per-user installation on Windows NT-based target systems. If this property is set to 2, the configuration data for the installation will be stored in the All Users profile if the user has administrative privileges, or otherwise to the current user's profile. If set to 1, configuration data will be written to the All Users profile if the user has administrative privileges, and if not the installation will display an error message and then exit. If this property is not set, that information will be stored in the user's personal profile. Certain registry entries are also determined by this property. This property is typically set with the Customer Information dialog box in Basic MSI projects, and with either the SdCustomerInformation or SdCustomerInformationEx dialog functions in InstallScript MSI projects. ALLUSERS has no effect on InstallScript variables like FOLDER_PROGRAMS. ALLUSERS has no effect until the Execute sequence runs.
ARPAUTHORIZEDCDFPREFIX	This property stores the URL for the update channel of the application.
ARPCOMMENTS	This property contains the comments about this product that are displayed in the Add/Remove Programs applet of the Control Panel. This value is set in the Add/Remove Programs Comments property. You should provide a string table entry to facilitate globalizing your setup.
ARPCONTACT	This property contains support contact information, such as an email address or a telephone number. This value is set in the Add/Remove Programs Support Contact property. You should provide a string table entry to facilitate globalizing your setup.
ARPINSTALLLOCATION	This property stores the fully qualified path to the application's primary folder. You can set ARPINSTALLLOCATION to the value of INSTALLDIR with a custom action of type “Set a property”.
ARPNOREPAIR	If this property is set to 1, no Repair button will be displayed in the Programs Wizard.
ARPREADME	Holds the fully qualified path or the URL for the product's Readme file. This value is set in the Add/Remove Programs Read Me property. You should provide a string table entry to facilitate globalizing your setup.
ARPSIZE	This property stores the estimated size, in kilobytes, of the application.
ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT	Set this property to 1 to keep your program from appearing in the user's Add/Remove Programs panel.
ARPURLINFOABOUT	This property stores the URL for the application's home page or the publisher's home page. This value is set in the Add/Remove Programs Publisher/Product URL property. You should provide a string table entry to facilitate globalizing your setup.
ARPURLUPDATEINFO	This property stores the URL for update information on your application. This value is set in the Add/Remove Programs Read Me property. You should provide a string table entry to facilitate globalizing your setup.
ARPNOMODIFY	Setting this property disables Add/Remove Programs and Programs Wizard functionality that would, by default, allow the product to be modified.
ARPNOREMOVE	Setting this property disables the Add/Remove Programs and Programs Wizard functionality that allows the product to be removed.
AVAILABLEFREEREG	This property allows you to set the amount of additional free registry space, in kilobytes, required by your application.
CCP_DRIVE	This property holds the root path on the installation disk for any of the qualifying products for a competitive upgrade.
DISABLEADVTSHORTCUTS	Setting this property disables the creation of advertised shortcuts.
DISABLEMEDIA	This setting prevents the installer from adding media information to the source list.
DISABLEROLLBACK	Set this property to 1 to stop the installer from creating a rollback script that will save copies of changed or deleted files during the installation process.
EXECUTEACTION	This property sets the top-level action initiated by the ExecuteAction action.
EXECUTEMODE	This property sets the mode of execution performed by the installer. The value None means that no changes are made to the system. The default value, Script, means that all changes made to the system are run through a script execution.
INSTALLLEVEL	This property holds a value that corresponds to the values of the features. If the level of features to be installed is less than or equal to the INSTALLLEVEL property, then a feature is installed. This is primarily used for different setup types, such as Typical or Custom.
LOGACTION	List of action names, separated by semicolons, that will be logged.
Privileged	This property will run an installation with elevated privileges if the user is an administrator or if the application is an administrator-assigned application.
PROMPTROLLBACKCOST	This property specifies what will happen if there is insufficient disk space to continue the installation. Depending on the user interface level, the rollback could happen automatically, without any input from the user, or it could ask the user to continue with rollback disabled.
PRIMARYFOLDER	The folder that you specify with this property will be the “primary” folder for the installation. The path to this folder will be used to determine the values for the PrimaryVolumePath property, the PrimaryVolumeSpaceAvailable property, the PrimaryVolumeSpaceRequired property, and the PrimaryVolumeSpaceRemaining property.
REBOOT	This property allows you to force or suppress a reboot after the installation completes. Possible values are: F To force a reboot when your installation is complete. S To suppress any reboot except one caused by the ForceReboot action. R To suppress any reboot caused by Windows Installer actions.
ROOTDRIVE	In Administration mode this property sets the default drive to the first writable network drive found. In all other modes, this property sets the default drive to the writable local drive with the most disk space available.
SCRIPTFILE	This property defines the location of the script file that contains all operations executed during the installation.
SEQUENCE	This property specifies an .msi database table that lists the order in which the actions in the table will run.
SHORTFILENAMES	In Administration mode, this property may be set to ensure that only short file names are used.
TRANSFORMS	This property stores a list of transforms to be applied to an MSI database. These transforms can be set only in Installation and Advertisement mode. The syntax for this property, if you are applying a transform to two tables, is as follows: c:\transforms\trans1;:trans2. Note that transforms are applied in the order that they appear in the string.
TRANSFORMSATSOURCE	By setting this property to 1, you are specifying the installer to look for the transforms at the installation source.
LIMITUI	Setting this property limits the user interface level at basic. This is useful if you do not create a custom user interface to interact with the installer's built-in UI.
DefaultUIFont	This property should be set to one of the predefined styles found in the TextStyle table in order to specify your default font. If this property is not set, the installer will use the system font, which may disrupt your formatting.

User-Supplied Information

The following section contains information about input taken from the end user. Such input can include the end user's name, company, or language.

Product-Specific Properties

Information on product-specific properties that can be set in the Property table is listed below. Examples of these types of properties include technical support numbers, product name, and serial number.

System Folders Set by the Installer

The following properties hold the fully qualified path to many of the folders on the end user's system. Many of these properties can be used directly in your script, without having to call MsiGetProperty.

Operating System Properties Set by the Installer

The following properties are set by the installer at run time. They refer to environment variables on the target system.

Hardware Properties Set by the Installer

The following properties are set by the installer at run time and store settings on certain hardware profiles for the end user's system.

Status Properties Updated by the Installer

The following properties are set by the installer at run time. The values of these properties have to do with the status of the installation.

Date and Time Properties

InstallScript Engine-Related Properties

These properties contain data related to the InstallScript engine.

MDAC Properties

These properties apply to version checking for MDAC.

See Also

Using Windows Installer Properties