wix path changes not appearing in an exec command - excel

I am installing a DLL into my programs own directory, I am adding myself to the path environment variable.
<Environment Id="NewEnvironment1" Name="Path" Value="[INSTALLDIR]Core" Separator=";" Action="set" Part="last" Permanent="no" System="yes" />
I then call a visual basic program that then uses excel that needs to use the DLL on the path. It is Excel that is complaining it can not find my DLL.
<CustomAction Id='LaunchXLAReg' FileKey='RegisterXLAs' ExeCommand="" Execute='commit' Return='asyncNoWait' />
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="LaunchXLAReg" Before="InstallFinalize">NOT Installed</Custom>
<Custom Action="LaunchXLAUnReg" Before="InstallFinalize">Installed AND NOT UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
but when i printed out the path environment variable from within the visual basic my changes were not present, so the VB failed.
I then tried using the visual basic to set the path env variable, but this time the variable wasn't set on my system at the end of the installation process.
This is on windows 8.1 it used to work on windows 7
Edit: added the InstallExecuteSequence block, added clarification of which program is producing the error.

Windows Installer doesn't flush the environment variables to the system until the end of the install. It's not wise to commit them to the system until the install has actually succeeded and can't roll back - I think that's part of the reason. Also you are running as the child process of a service that doesn't pick up environment variables until a reboot.
It might work if your program can do the SystemParametersInfo call with the SPIF_SENDCHANGE setting:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724947(v=vs.85).aspx
that will broadcast this, but your program would need to handle the change message here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms725497(v=vs.85).aspx
However, if you are running the exe from your own installed program directory and is deferred and after files have been installed, then it's not clear why it's not working because the Dll is right next to the exe, correct? So that means that if you specify a Directory in your custom action (which should be a type 34 or 35) then this will be the working directory. The WiX docs don't seem clear (to me) on this point but the custom action documentation clearly says that you can specify a directory as the working directory for your executable:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa372048(v=vs.85).aspx
See types 34 and 35. See also the WiX documentation that talks about using the Directory attribute:
http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/xsd/wix/customaction.html
In other words I think it all might just work if you use a directory of [INSTALLDIR] in your custom action specification.

Related

using electrod/nuXmv solver with Alloy on Windows?

I have nuXmv installed and added to my path on windows but have not seen instructions anywhere for adding it to the options->solvers menu on windows.
On Linux, as soon, as I've added nuXmv's bin folder to my path and restarted Alloy, it appeared in the list of available solvers. Make sure that you can run it in command line as nuXmv

How do I add "requires elevated privileges" to an existing EXE file? (Or can I set it when running IExpress?)

We have an installer for our application. (A C++ program, created in VisualStudio 2012.) The installer is now signed and require elevated privileges - the user gets a neat UAC question.
For some customers though, the installer needs a lot of other files. We use IExpress to create a self-extracting archive. The user runs the self-extracting EXE file, the files get unpacked and our installer starts.
But that doesn't work after we added UAC support. The EXE built by IExpress won't start a program that requires elevated privileges.
An easy solution would be that the EXE built by IExpress also requires elevated privileges. But I haven't found a flag to IExpress that does that. (Or did I miss something?)
Is there an easy way to add the "require elevated privileges" to an existing EXE file?
A fairly easy way to do it seems to be via cmd.exe. Just change your install program from, eg:
setup.exe
to
cmd /c setup.exe
Then the IExpress “magic UAC detection” won’t happen, and the user will get the standard UAC prompt when your program runs.
If you want to know more…
New versions of IExpress include a manifest which deliberately does not request UAC elevation for the IExpress-generated package itself. Here’s what it looks like in wextract.exe (the part that is actually bundled in your generated package):
<trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
<security>
<requestedPrivileges>
<requestedExecutionLevel
level="asInvoker"
uiAccess="false"/>
</requestedPrivileges>
</security>
</trustInfo>
According to MSDN, the asInvoker level means: The application will run with the same permissions as the process that started it.
Apparently there are some programs which can modify the manifest after-the-fact. One is called ResEdit, though I recommend that you download it from SoftPedia, as the .net site seems to carry some adware now. I didn’t have any luck with it (I think because I didn’t have Visual Studio installed) but maybe it will work for you.
If you decide to go this route, try to change the level to requireAdministrator.
you could try this in the post installation command of iexpress wizard:-
PowerShell -windowstyle hidden -command "Start-Process -Wait setup.exe -Verb Runas"
-windowstyle hidden hides the powershell window.
-Wait waits for the completion of setup.exe before deleting temp files(where iexpress files are extracted by default)
-Verb Runas Requests for elevation.
If you right click the installer exe file, go to Properties and click Compatibility then check the check box called Run this program as a administrator and click OK it should work.

Loading R libraries [duplicate]

I am running R on Windows, not as an administrator. When I install a package, the following command doesn't work:
> install.packages("zoo")
Installing package(s) into ‘C:/Program Files/R/R-2.15.2/library’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
Warning in install.packages :
'lib = "C:/Program Files/R/R-2.15.2/library"' is not writable
To install a package, I have to specify a library location:
install.packages("zoo", lib="C:/software/Rpackages")
To load a package, I also have to specify the library location:
library("zoo", lib.loc="C:/software/Rpackages")
All of this is OK, but I wanted to see if I could add C:/software/Rpackages to the library path somehow and thus not have to type it each time.
As I searched online, I found that one way to do this is to edit the Rprofile.site file and to add the line
.libPaths("C:/software/Rpackages")
However, after doing this, and starting RStudio, this is the output that I get
> .libPaths()
[1] "C:/Program Files/R/R-2.15.2/library" "C:/Program Files/RStudio/R/library"
The .libPaths command that I added to the Rprofile.site doesn't seem to have had any effect! Why is this the case? Or more importantly, how can I fix the problem so that I can install and load packages without typing in the library location?
Note: if I start RStudio the .libPaths() command seems to work as it is supposed to
.libPaths("C:/software/Rpackages")
> .libPaths()
[1] "C:/software/Rpackages" "C:/Program Files/R/R-2.15.2/library"
Isn't that strange?
The proper solution is to set environment variable R_LIBS_USER to the value of the file path to your desired library folder as opposed to getting RStudio to recognize a Rprofile.site file.
To set environment variable R_LIBS_USER in Windows, go to the Control Panel (System Properties -> Advanced system properties -> Environment Variables -> User Variables) to a desired value (the path to your library folder), e.g.
Variable name: R_LIBS_USER
Variable value: C:/software/Rpackages
If for some reason you do not have access to the control panel, you can try running rundll32 sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables from the command line on Windows and add the environment variable from there.
Setting R_LIBS_USER will ensure that the library shows up first in .libPaths() regardless of starting RStudio directly or by right-clicking an file and "Open With" to start RStudio.
The Rprofile solution can work if RStudio is always started by clicking the RStudio shortcut. In this case, setting the default working directory to the directory that houses your Rprofile will be sufficient. The Rprofile solution does not work when clicking on a file to start RStudio because that changes the working directory away from the default working directory.
I generally try to keep all of my packages in one library, but if you want to add a library why not append the new library (which must already exist in your filesystem) to the existing library path?
.libPaths( c( .libPaths(), "~/userLibrary") )
# obviously this would need to be a valid file directory in your OS
# min just happened to be on a Mac that day
Or (and this will make the userLibrary the first place to put new packages):
.libPaths( c( "~/userLibrary" , .libPaths() ) )
Then I get (at least back when I wrote this originally):
> .libPaths()
[1] "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.15/Resources/library"
[2] "/Users/user_name/userLibrary"
The .libPaths function is a bit different than most other nongraphics functions. It works via side-effect. The functions Sys.getenv and Sys.setenv that report and alter the R environment variables have been split apart but .libPaths can either report or alter its target.
The information about the R startup process can be read at ?Startup help page and there is RStudio material at: https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/200549016-Customizing-RStudio
In your case it appears that RStudio is not respecting the Rprofile.site settings or perhaps is overriding them by reading an .Rprofile setting from one of the RStudio defaults. It should also be mentioned that the result from this operation also appends the contents of calls to .Library and .Library.site, which is further reason why an RStudio- (or any other IDE or network installed-) hosted R might exhibit different behavior.
Since Sys.getenv() returns the current system environment for the R process, you can see the library and other paths with:
Sys.getenv()[ grep("LIB|PATH", names(Sys.getenv())) ]
The two that matter for storing and accessing packages are (now different on a Linux box):
R_LIBS_SITE /usr/local/lib/R/site-library:/usr/lib/R/site-library:/usr/lib/R/library
R_LIBS_USER /home/david/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.5.1/
I managed to solve the problem by placing the code in the .Rprofile file in the default working directory.
First, I found the location of the default working directory
> getwd()
[1] "C:/Users/me/Documents"
Then I used a text editor to write a simple .Rprofile file with the following line in it
.libPaths("C:/software/Rpackages")
Finally, when I start R and run .libPaths() I get the desired output:
> .libPaths()
[1] "C:/software/Rpackages" "C:/Program Files/R/R-2.15.2/library"
[3] "C:/Program Files/RStudio/R/library"
https://superuser.com/questions/749283/change-rstudio-library-path-at-home-directory
Edit ~/.Renviron
R_LIBS_USER=/some/path
I found what I think is a solution here (thank you Carl Schwarz at SFU) for adding a personal library that is permanently (you don't have to define it each session) recognized whether using R or Rstudio, and Rstudio treats it as the default on my Mac machine. I hadn't seen it laid out this explicitly on SO, so I summarized the steps they provided, for Windows and then for Mac.
For a Windows 7 OS:
Create a directory on the drive where you want to have your personal library, e.g. C:\User\Rlibs (or another that you have permissions to)
Search for/go to "Edit environment variable for your account" in the Windows search bar to edit control panel settings
Click "New..." in the middle of the "Environmental Variables" window
In the "New User Variable" window, type R_LIBS for the "Variable name", and the path to the personal library directory you created, e.g. C:\User\Rlibs
Click OK and you should see the Variable/Value pair in the User variables window
Click OK again
Now when you start R (or Rstudio) and type the command .libPaths() you should see the personal library you created as well as the R system library.
For Mac:
In your "Home" or "username" directory create a folder called Rlibs
Launch the Terminal application
Type: echo "R_LIBS=~/Rlibs" > .Renviron Make sure the spelling and case matches.
Type ls -a to see the full list of files in the directory, which should now include .Renvrion
Verify that the .Renviron file has been set properly: more .Renviron
Launch R/Rstudio and type .libPaths() and you should see the new path to your personal library.
If you do not have admin-rights, it can also be helpful to open the Rprofile.site-file located in \R-3.1.0\etc and add:
.First <- function(){
.libPaths("your path here")
}
This evaluates the .libPath() command directly at start
just change the default folder for your R libraries in a directory with no Administrator rights, e.g.
.libPaths("C:/R/libs")
On Ubuntu, the recommended way of changing the default library path for a user, is to set the R_LIBS_USER variable in the ~/.Renviron file.
touch ~/.Renviron
echo "R_LIBS_USER=/custom/path/in/absolute/form" >> ~/.Renviron
I've had real trouble understanding this. gorkypl gave the correct solution above when I last re-installed my OS & Rstudio but this time round, setting my environment variable didn't resolve.
Uninstallled both R and Rstudio, creating directories C:\R and C:\Rstudio then reinstalled both.
Define R_LIBS_USER user variable to your prefered directory (as per gorkypl's answer) and restart your machine for User variable to be loaded. Open Rstudio, errors should be gone.
You can also use Sys.setenv() to modify R_LIBS_USER to the path of your alternative library which is easier and does not need to restart your computer.
To see what R_LIBS_USER is set to:
?Sys.getenv()
Reading help(Startup) is useful.
If your default package library has been changed after installing a new version of R or by any other means, you can append both the libraries to use all the packages with the help of the commands below.
Get the existing library path :
.libPaths()
Now,set the existing and the old path :
.libPaths(c(.libPaths(), "~/yourOldPath"))
Hope it helps.
I read the readme. In that they mentioned use .libPaths() in command line to check which paths are there. I had 2 library paths earlier. When I used the command .libpath("C:/Program Files/R/R-3.2.4revised/library") where I wanted, it changed the library path. When I typed in .libPaths() at the command line again it showed me the correct path. Hope this helps
getwd()
# [1] "C:/Users/..../software/My R studio"
copy the above link with double inverted comma
.libPaths(new="C:/Users/..../software/My R studio")
Your default path will change for installing pakages
If you want to change your library path permanently (without calling .libPath() every time when entering in R, this works for me:
create .Rprofile under your home directory. (~/.Rprofile)
type
.libPaths(c( .libPaths(), "your new path" ))
in .Rprofile file, save.
open R (any directory) and check, just type .libPaths(), you can find your libaray path is updated!
Since most of the answers here are related to Windows & Mac OS, (and considering that I also struggled with this) I decided to post the process that helped me solve this problem on my Arch Linux setup.
Step 1:
Do a global search of your system (e.g. ANGRYSearch) for the term Renviron (which is the configuration file where the settings for the user libraries are set).
It should return only two results at the following directory paths:
/etc/R/
/usr/lib/R/etc/
NOTE: The Renviron config files stored at 1 & 2 (above) are hot-linked to each other (which means changes made to one file will automatically be applied [ in the same form / structure ] to the other file when the file being edited is saved - [ you also need sudo rights for saving the file post-edit ] ).
Step 2:
Navigate into the 1st directory path ( /etc/R/ ) and open the Renviron file with your favourite text editor.
Once inside the Renviron file search for the R_LIBS_USER tag and update the text in the curly braces section to your desired directory path.
EXAMPLE:
... Change From ( original entry ):
R_LIBS_USER=${R_LIBS_USER-'~/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.0'}
... Change To ( your desired entry ):
R_LIBS_USER=${R_LIBS_USER-'~/Apps/R/rUserLibs'}
Step 3:
Save the Renviron file you've just edited ... DONE !!
I had the same problem and I run into this. If you want to create another location c("C:/Users/mynewlocation") should be working as well. As mentioned in here "You should be able to right-click on the Rstudio.exe icon, click Properties, and select an option to always run Rstudio as administrator. Be sure you use that same icon whenever you want to open Rstudio."
myPaths <- .libPaths() # get the paths
myPaths <- c(myPaths[2], myPaths[1]) # switch them
.libPaths(myPaths) # reassign them
I was looking into this because R was having issues installing into the default location and was instead just putting the packages into the temp folder. It turned out to be the latest update for Mcaffee Endpoint Security which apparently has issues with R. You can disable the threat protection while you install the packages and it will work properly.

Environment Variable not being passed to CruiseControl, specifically the 'nodosfilewarnings' ENV variable from Cygwin

I have a Perl program that someone else created and I am calling on with CruiseControl. The program calls on Unix Commands using Cygwin. However, everytime that the Perl program calls on a Unix like command with a DOS like address, I get the well known error:
cygwin warning:
MS-DOS style path detected: E:\regression
Preferred POSIX equivalent is: /cygdrive/e/regression
CYGWIN environment variable option "nodosfilewarning" turns off this warning.
Consult the user's guide for more details about POSIX paths:
http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.html#using-pathnames
I have set both the User Variable AND System Variable CYGWIN to nodosfilewarning. This removes the error when I run the program from the command line, but the error still occurs in CruiseControl when called as an automated process from a batch file. I have called on both the batch file from the Desktop AND Command Line and ran as an administrator. Nothing changes.
Other Notes
For purposes of this problem, I don't have access to the Perl Program
I am trying to go back to Cygwin 1.5.*, but since I am using Server 2008, I am encountering compatibility issues
This is occurring on one of the distributed servers, not the main server running the Webdashboard.
I have read somewhere that this issue may stem from a different user calling on CruiseControl, but the issue should have been solved by setting this as an ENV System variable
Is it possible to modify the registery to set the ENV variables?
Thank you in advance
The way I do it is like this
printf 'export CYGWIN=nodosfilewarning' >> ~/.bash_profile
If CruiseControl is connecting to the server via ssh, reinstall sshd and explicitly include nodosfilewarning when prompted for the CYGWIN environment variable during the install.
Re-installing with modified environment will work but if you don't want to or cannot re-install, an alternative is to change the registry instead of re-installing the service.
See: CYGWIN windows cygrunsrv sshd server and MS-DOS style path detected

What is the best way to install a .bin file using default installer options?

I'm working on a small shell script to set up my development environment (eclipse + java + a bunch of other stuff) on linux. Installing .bin files is among them - these launch a GUI installer where user input is necessary - how do I simply use the default installer options and force the installation to complete?
You can try running them from a terminal passing the '-h', '--help' or '--usage' arguments to see if they handle it (and provide the listing of commands you can give it), but if it wasn't designed to receive any parameters there won't be much you can do for it.

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