Custom Action returned actual error code 1154 when using Wise Installer Studio 7.0

Question

First of all this is very similar to the issue addressed Custom Action in C# used via WiX fails with error 1154

However, I was not able to discern specific steps to solve the problem in my situation. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

In my case I am using Wise Installation Studio 7.0 to execute a C# custom action I wrote to start the Server Manager Feature for .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 on Server 2008 R2 and newer.

I created the custom action in visual studio 2010 as a standard .Net 2.0 Class Library.

My guess is that I need to do something different here - that this needs to be compiled as something than a managed DLL. The code I am using is fairly straight forward ... taken from the flexera forums where someone else posted a solution to the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 issue on Server 2008 R2.

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using Common_Functions;


namespace ActivateDotNetFramework
{
    /**
 * @brief helper library to activate .Net Framework on certain operating systems
 * 
 * @args None
 * 
 * 
 * @author Daniel Lee
 * @date Jan 17,2012
 * @version 1.0
 * @bug 6540 Role Management tool required for 2008R2 to install .NET 3.5 SP1
 **/
    class ActivateDotNetFramework
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            string logFile = "ActivateDotNetFeatures.log";
            WriteToLog logWriter = null;
            Process p = null;            
            ProcessStartInfo startInfo = null;

            try
            {
                logWriter = new WriteToLog(logFile, "");
                logWriter.UpdateLog("AMAZINGCHARTS! ActivateDotNetFramework Custom Action");

                //open powershell process to activate the .net framework feature. See: 
                //http://community.flexerasoftware.com/archive/index.php?t-182914.html                
                startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
                startInfo.FileName = "powershell.exe";
                startInfo.Arguments = "Import-Module ServerManager ; Add-WindowsFeature as-net-framework";
                startInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
                startInfo.UseShellExecute = true;

                string sLogMsg = "";
                p = new Process();
                p.StartInfo = startInfo;

                sLogMsg = "ProcessStartInfo Data ... ";
                logWriter.UpdateLog(sLogMsg);
                sLogMsg = "FileName: " + p.StartInfo.FileName + "\n Arguments:" + p.StartInfo.Arguments;
                logWriter.UpdateLog(sLogMsg);

                p.Start();
                p.WaitForExit();
                sLogMsg = "ActivateDotNetFramework Custom Action Return Code: " + p.ExitCode.ToString();
                logWriter.UpdateLog(sLogMsg);
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {

            }
        }
    }
}

Any ideas on how I should proceed with this in VS2010? Or is the issue in my Wise Installation Studio package CA configuration? As far as I can see VS2010 only builds the managed ActivateDotNetFramework.dll file and nothing else. I added this file to my resources in the wise package and listed the function name as ActivateDotNetFramework.

I have been around and around on this for over a day now. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Dan Lee AmazingCharts! Release Engineer

Answer 1

That code should be compiled as an EXE and ran as an EXE custom action. But my bigger question is why bother at all? All you have to do in Windows to install a feature is call:

dism /online /Enable-Feature FeatureName

For a list of feature names type:

dism /online /Get-Features