MAKEMSI quickly and reliably creates MSI files in a non-programmatic way\Source CodeCommandsSelfRegister

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The "SelfRegister" Command

This command is used to perform self registration and unregistration similar to that performed by the "REGSVR32.EXE" command.

The "File" and "Files" commands both have a "SelfReg" parameter which can invoke this command. Not only is this a single step operation but you also don't need to know the file's key.

The windows installer documentation states that this does not support ".EXE" files. To handle EXE files you could use the "ExeCa" command, once to register with "/REGSERVER" and again to unregister with "/UNREGSERVER".

The processing of the "SelfReg" table is table is undocumented so the order of registration is uncertain. If one of your registrations requires another registration to have already occurred then you must use the "order" parameter to ensure this ordering. You could use "Dependency Walker" to check for this as it shows dependent DLLs etc.

This command takes these parameters:

• File Table RowKey (positional)
  This is the file key (in the "File" table) for the file to be registered.

  Like all MSI identifiers it is case sensitive and if an unknown value is used the "MSI validation" step should generate an "ICE03" error with text similar to "Not a valid foreign key; Table: SelfReg, Column: File_, Key(s): SomeKey.DLL".

• Order (optional)
  If this parameter is:

  1. NOT SUPPLIED (or blank) then the registrations may occur in any order. This is what Windows Installer natively supports in its "SelfReg" table.

     All Unordered registrations are performed before any ordered ones and their unregistrations occur after all ordered unregistrations.

  2. IS SUPPLIED then it's value should be an integer value from 0 to 99999 or "next" to be ordered after any previously seen value.

     After the script completes the value supplied on this parameter is used to sort all ordered registration requests into the order they should occur.

     As Windows Installer doesn't natively supported "ordered registrations" these populate the "CustomAction" and "InstallExecuteSequence" tables.

• Cost (optional)
  This value defaults to 0. See the MSI doco for more details.

Error Handling

Windows Installer detects errors (registration only) for unordered self registrations however by default this command uses "msiexec.exe" for ordered registrations and this does not allow errors to be detected (another one to thank Bill for...).

It is possible to configure this command to use other registration executables such as "REGSVR32.EXE" which does appear to return meaningful return codes allowing you to alter the custom action type to check for errors.

Main Options

Please see the "options for commands" section of the manual.

#define? SELFREG_REGISTER_BY_SEQ                   RegisterComPlus      ;;All Ordered Registrations must be complete before this action
#define? SELFREG_UNREGISTER_FROM_SEQ               UnregisterComPlus    ;;No ordered unregistration at or before here
#define? SELFREG_ORDERED_CA_TYPE                   &H0C62               ;;As per MS MSI.CHM example (3170) - MSIEXEC.EXE doesn't return meaningful RC (more MS crap)!?
#define? SELFREG_ORDERED_REXXEXP_REGISTRATION      '"[SystemFolder]msiexec.exe" /y "[#' || {$FileKeyVar} || ']"'  ;;You could use "regsvr32.exe" which returns RC info...
#define? SELFREG_ORDERED_REXXEXP_UNREGISTRATION    '"[SystemFolder]msiexec.exe" /z "[#' || {$FileKeyVar} || ']"'
#define? SELFREG_ORDERED_KEY_PREFIX_REGISTRATION   Sr.R.                                                          ;;Start of Custom Action Name
#define? SELFREG_ORDERED_KEY_PREFIX_UNREGISTRATION Sr.U.                                                          ;;Start of Custom Action Name

EXAMPLE

<$Component "SomeFiles" Create="Y" Directory_="INSTALLDIR">
   ;--- Unordered -----------------------------------------------------------
   <$File SOURCE="SomeDll.DLL" RowKey="SomeDLL.DLL" KeyPath="Y" EXLIST="MY_DDLS">
   <$SelfRegister "SomeDLL.DLL">        ;;Not component specific - just keeping related items together

   ;--- We need these to occur in order -------------------------------------
   <$File SOURCE="SomeDLLOther1.DLL" RowKey="SomeDLLOther1.DLL" EXLIST="MY_DDLS">
   <$File SOURCE="SomeDLLOther2.DLL" RowKey="SomeDLLOther2.DLL" EXLIST="MY_DDLS">
   <$SelfRegister "SomeDLLOther1.DLL" Order="next">
   <$SelfRegister "SomeDLLOther2.DLL" Order="next">

   ;--- We have some other DLLS we wish to pick up... -----------------------
   <$Files "*.dll" EXLIST="MY_DDLS">        ;;All DLLS except those already handled.
<$/Component>

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