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When an install completes successfully, the date and time and some other info needs to be written to the registry. How can a date be generated and how do you know if an install was completed successfully? (writing to the registry with wix is not a problem).

MX4399
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3 Answers3

10

What about using standard MSI properties Date and Time?

Note: Be warned that despite the documentation indicating the date will always be in the MM/DD/YYYY format, this is not in fact the case. A verbose MSI log on my system (in Australia) shows the property in DD/MM/YYYY format... e.g.:

Property(S): Date = 21/04/2010
saschabeaumont
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Yan Sklyarenko
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  • Example usage : – MX4399 Apr 20 '10 at 17:34
  • From the MSDN doc Yan referenced it indicates "The format of the value depends upon the user's locale, and is the format obtained using GetDateFormat with the DATE_SHORTDATE option. The value of this property is set by the Windows Installer and not the package author.". – MX4399 Apr 21 '10 at 05:48
8

For both date and time here is some sample code.

<RegistryValue Id="InstallDateTime"
               KeyPath="yes"
               Name="InstallDateTime"
               Value='[Date] [Time]'
               Type="string" />

enter image description here

If you want to use separator you can simply add it as text like:

<RegistryValue Id="InstallDateTime"
               KeyPath="yes"
               Name="InstallDateTime"
               Value='[Date]-[Time]'
               Type="string" />

enter image description here

Andreas
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Rikin Patel
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0

Env variables??

Can you access environment variables like PATH etc. ??

  • These return the current system date and time...

    You might want to access %DATE% & %TIME%

Alternately, since You are able to access the Registry, You can access the Env vars in the registry itself:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\<variable>

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment\<variable>

GoodLUCK!!

Community
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TheCodeArtist
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  • Interesting - but I cannot find a WIX method to read a env var - the Environment element can "create|set|remove" only. Looking at the registry entries on my machine does not show date or time entries. – MX4399 Apr 19 '10 at 08:12
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11181847/windows-environmental-variable-for-month-year – Brian Cannard Dec 12 '12 at 12:28