Strange double frame for password text box in Wix UI

Question

When I use in my custom dialog Control Edit with attribute password set to "yes"

<Control Id="TextBoxPass" Type="Edit" Password="yes" Property="SQLPASSWORD">

the text box have double frame in Windows Server 2012.In other versions of Windows Server (2008, 2008R2, 2003) it looks like normal text box. How can I change this behavior? (I mean delete double frame)

double frame for password textbox in 2012

Also seen here: http://sourceforge.net/p/wix/mailman/message/32101693/ — Morten Frederiksen, May 28 '15 at 15:30
Sounds like a bug, but out of curiosity; if you hit tab several times, does it show a tab-order? Btw, nicely presented question. — Stein Åsmul, May 28 '15 at 16:42

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 28 '15 at 18:00

Quick answer: AFAIK, you can't change this behavior.

Long answer: If you run Microsoft Spy++ and search for both controls you will see the class for the regular edit is RichEdit20W, while for the password is Edit.

Then inspecting the Window Styles you will find the WS_BORDER. This is the culprit for the border. In WiX and in MSI there is no way to code the window styles of a control, so I assume there is no solution to this issue.

Additionally, some styles (like ES_PASSWORD) can be changed using Orca and editing the Attributes column in table Control. The solution would be to have both edits set as password and after the build you manually edit the Attributes setting of the non-password control to 196611.

In case you want to automate this process, I think you can code an application using the MSI API to execute a query against the package and change the value.

Here is a real example:

Two edit controls, one without the ES_PASSWORD style.

Strange double frame for password text box in Wix UI

1 Answers1