Retrieve data from MSI DLL in InstallScript

[ncalverley]

This may sound like a stupid question but I can't seem to find a definitive answer anywhere so here goes -

I currently have an MSI DLL written in C++ with several CA helper functions for my various Basic MSI installers. All this works without problems.

However I now have the need to create a pure InstallScript installer project but would like to use this same DLL for some of the functions (why re-invent the wheel 😉

I have managed to figure out how to successfully call the functions in InstallScript but how to retrieve the relevant data is the problem.
Obviously this being an MSI DLL all data is normally passed back to the installer via MsiSetProperty, so the question is how do you access this through InstallScript when the there is no running MSI installer process or is it even possible?

Any help will much appreciated.
Regards
Neil.

[RobertDickau]

For properties set with MsiSetProperty, I think you're correct, that the code won't work without a running MSI process.

[ncalverley]

Thanks Robert for the reply.

I guessed as much, so I was thinking the next best thing would probably be to modify the functions in the DLL to not only set msi proprties but to also write that same data temporarily to the registry. Thus I could read the data from their in InstallScript and still maintain one DLL for both types of Project.

This would seem the better long term solution unless someone has a better one to put forward...

Cheers
Neil.