How can I get UAC elevation with custom action exe?

Question

I'm trying to add a custom action to the end of my installer but it requires elevation.

I am using Installshield Limited Edition and my custom action is written in C#.

The custom action executes when there is no elevation but as soon as I add elevation to the manifest, I get an error and the msi rolls back.

I had hoped that the exe would inherit the elevation from the installer but this isn't the case. I can't use a dll for the custom action in this version of Installshield.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Alan

Answer 1

Actually there are ways of using a DLL CA in InstallShield LE. Check out my "Augmenting InstallShield" blog articles such as:

Augmenting InstallShield using Windows Installer XML - Certificates

The concept is you use Windows Installer XML (WiX) Deployment Tools Foundation (DTF) to author a C# managed custom action. (See more here: Deployment Tools Foundation (DTF) Managed Custom Actions ) You then author a merge module to encapsulate this custom action and it's sequencing information. Then finally you consume this merge module in InstallShield.