How to add image background to custom MSI dialog?

Question

I have a custom MSI dialog in my wxs file:

<Dialog Id="OpDialog" Width="300" Height="250" Title="[ProductName]: Operations">
    ...
</Dialog>

How can I set its background to some image file (bmp/png/...)?

@SteinÅsmul no, I don't think it's possible, unfortunately. — Tar, Sep 27 '19 at 08:58
Maybe try the [`WiXCustomDialog.zip` ad-hoc sample here](https://github.com/glytzhkof/all/). And [a direct link to zip](https://github.com/glytzhkof/all/blob/master/WiXCustomDialog.zip) (still need to click download I think). — Stein Åsmul, Sep 27 '19 at 12:53

Stein Åsmul · Answer 1 · 2019-09-22T14:04:22.250

Quick Link: Hotlinking (direct link) a single page from WiX's own tutorial (also check the other pages): https://www.firegiant.com/wix/tutorial/user-interface-revisited/tuning-up/

Sample WiX Markup Download: SampleCustomUI

Not sure how this all behaves on high DPI screens.

Generic Trick: The WiX toolkit dark.exe tool can decompile an MSI file (dark.exe -x Output File.msi). You can use the decompiled files to figure out syntax that is poorly documented. I decompiled an MSI and combining it with the samples I linked to, you can try something like this (this does not show how to insert the dialog into a sequence, and I am not sure all constructs are good, but it compiles OK):

<!--<Binary Id="bannerbmp" SourceFile="Banner.bmp" />-->
<Binary Id="imagebmp" SourceFile="Image.bmp" />

<!--<Property Id="BannerBitmap">bannerbmp</Property>-->
<Property Id="ImageBitmap">imagebmp</Property>

<Dialog Id="ServerDlg" Width="370" Height="270" Title="Dialog Title">
  <!--<Control Id="BannerBitmap" Type="Bitmap" X="0" Y="0" Width="370" Height="44" TabSkip="no" Text="[BannerBitmap]" />-->
  <Control Id="Image" Type="Bitmap" X="0" Y="0" Width="374" Height="234" TabSkip="yes" Disabled="yes" Text="[ImageBitmap]" />

  <..>

</Dialog>

Note that the above has a BannerBitmap (that is the one at the top going across the dialog) disabled and the whole dialog is now covered by the main image ImageBitmap.
You can toggle the banner on easily if that is what you want to use. Just comment out the large image and enable the top banner.
The above does not show proper localization - if you want to use localization files for translation.
The above was simplified, I took out the WixVariable entry, see revision history if you want to see.

Documentation: WiX documentation on GUI customization: https://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/wixui/wixui_customizations.html

Tutorial: https://www.firegiant.com/wix/tutorial/user-interface-revisited/a-single-dialog/

More Details: Adding a link to a larger description of WiX GUI. Shows various tricks with WiX and MSI GUI.

Samples: Maybe some practical samples?

I found nothing related to **custom MSI dialog** background image. I learned a lot about styling text, which was very beneficial (and took advantage of), but nothing about background. Again - these links only tell you how to change the **default dialogs** background, not the **custom** dialogs. — Tar, Sep 20 '19 at 15:22
OK, it was a bit rushed last night, have a quick look at the updates please. — Stein Åsmul, Sep 20 '19 at 16:52

How to add image background to custom MSI dialog?

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