The problem isn't so much with MessageBox specifically as it is with UI in general: Windows Installer doesn't support custom UI all that well. The "built-in" support for what you are trying to do is called either "embedded UI" or "external UI", not showing dialogs from your immediate custom actions, since Windows Installer doesn't make all of the UI information available to custom actions.
You can use MsiProcessMessage to send information from your custom action to your embedded/external UI. What you can't do is easily send information back in order to set properties, etc., so you will have to implement information flow going that way yourself (some sort of IPC, perhaps?). -----Original Message----- From: Tobi Ha [mailto:tob...@gmx.net] Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 1:50 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] UI Custom Action displays dialog behing MSI Hello, thanks for the advice, but the messagebox was just an example for a more complex dialog that would be displayed at this moment. For example: - LoadLibrary to get a handle - Call ShowMyC++dialog with the handle. The main idea is to show a dialog during installation that is also used later in the programm and so not implement it twice. The problem is not to show this dialog, but that it is "hidden" behind the normal MSI GUI. Best regards, Tobias Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:19:02 -0700 From: Richard <legal...@xmission.com> Subject: Re: [WiX-users] UI Custom Action displays dialog behing MSI UI To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Message-ID: <e1nkb39-0000g2...@shell.xmission.com> Use MsiProcessMessage to display message boxes, not MessageBox. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com> -------- Original-Nachricht -------- Datum: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:32:21 +0100 Von: "Tobi Ha" <tob...@gmx.net> An: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Betreff: UI Custom Action displays dialog behing MSI UI Hello, I have a WiX installation that shows within a custom action a dialog from a dll that is installed during this installation. It all works fine, except that the dialogs appears behind the normal MSI UI. Here a short example how my custom action looks like (instead of message box, a real UI appears) UINT __stdcall MessageBoxAction (MSIHANDLE hInstall) { Beep(500,2000); LPCTSTR lpszText = L"A message box text"; LPCTSTR lpszCaption = L"A message box title"; UINT nType = MB_OK; MessageBox(NULL,lpszText,lpszCaption,nType); return ERROR_SUCCESS; } Is there a way to display the own UI in foreground? Cheers, Tobias -- GRATIS für alle GMX-Mitglieder: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT! Jetzt freischalten unter http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/maxdome01 -- GRATIS für alle GMX-Mitglieder: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT! Jetzt freischalten unter http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/maxdome01 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
