Wix: Add a sequential registry key

Question

I am writing an installer using Wix 3 which installs a plugin to a 3rd party application. The application uses a group of registry keys to detect installed plugins. Each plugin is required to add a new subkey with a numerical name from 0-9 to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Vendor\App\Plugins. The key contains a single string value which is the ProgId of a COM component which the application will instantiate. So for example I would need to add the following key to install my plugin:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Vendor\App\Plugins\0
  REG_SZ   ProgId    "MyCompany.MyPlugin"

However, if the 0 key already exits, my installer needs to be smart enough to create key 1 instead of 0 and on down through key 9. Is there a way to achieve this using the Wix syntax? I know I can write a custom action to do this, but if at all possible I would like to avoid it.

Bob Arnson · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-31 16:59:31Z

2

You could use RegistrySearch to find the first empty value. But it would be easier to use the approach I describe at http://www.joyofsetup.com/2007/07/01/semi-custom-actions/.

answered Dec 31, 2009 at 16:59

Bob Arnson

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2 Comments

heavyd Over a year ago

Thanks for the answer that was very slick and helpful. Just one question, in the post the last parameter passed to WcaAddTempRecord is wzComponent. Is this supposed to be the ID of a component already in my Wix files or should I use WcaAddTempRecord to add a new component to the component table specifically for my registry entry? Thanks again!

Bob Arnson Over a year ago

It should be an existing component that controls whether the registry values are written.

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