I wouldn't ever do this because it's masking an application design problem. The application should work regardless of what the working directory is set to. The shotcut's working directory becomes "special sauce" tribal knowledge. One day someone else will create their own shortcut to the application and then wonder why it isn't working. Fix the app. Best case, fix whatever code requires the working directory so that it can resolve the location of the needed file/directory and worst case patch it with a call up front to resolve the directory and set the processes working directory.
--- Christopher Painter, Author of Deployment Engineering Blog Have a hot tip, know a secret or read a really good thread that deserves attention? E-Mail Me From: John Daintree <jo...@dyalog.com> To: 'General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset.' <wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net> Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2011 10:23 AM Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Setting the WorkingDirectory of a shortcut to a per-user location Hi Phil, I think that, whilst that "works", the environment variable is de-referenced at install time, so if I do an ALLUSER install, every user gets the value of USERPROFILE for the installing user. What I'm hoping to be able to do is get the literal string "%USERPROFILE%" into the shortcut. /john -----Original Message----- From: Wilson, Phil [mailto:phil.wil...@invensys.com] Sent: 10 August 2011 19:00 To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Setting the WorkingDirectory of a shortcut to a per-user location Working direcory is WkDir in the Shortcut table in the MSI file, and the documentation specifically says that you can put %USERPROFILE% in there, so maybe it just works the same way in WiX too. Phil Wilson -----Original Message----- From: John Daintree [mailto:jo...@dyalog.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 6:00 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [WiX-users] Setting the WorkingDirectory of a shortcut to a per-user location Hello all, In an ALLUSER install, I'm trying to set up my desktop icon(s) so that the WorkingDirectory is set to a per-user location. If I do (bits omitted for clarity): <Property Id="PERSONALFILES" Value="%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\Our Files" /> <Shortcut Id="shortcut".. WorkingDirectory="PERSONALFILES"/> Then every user's Working Directory is set to c:\Documents and Settings\john\My Documents\Our Files (as "john" did the original ALLUSERS install) If I modify the shortcut "by hand" to contain the literal string "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\Our Files" then Windows evaluates the variable as the process starts and the working directory is as I want it. So, in a nutshell, the question is how do I set the "WorkingDirectory" attribute to contain the literal text "%USERPROFILE%"? Thanks, John. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- uberSVN's rich system and user administration capabilities and model configuration take the hassle out of deploying and managing Subversion and the tools developers use with it. 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Learn more about uberSVN and get a free download at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/wandisco-dev2dev _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get a FREE DOWNLOAD! and learn more about uberSVN rich system, user administration capabilities and model configuration. Take the hassle out of deploying and managing Subversion and the tools developers use with it. http://p.sf.net/sfu/wandisco-dev2dev _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get a FREE DOWNLOAD! and learn more about uberSVN rich system, user administration capabilities and model configuration. Take the hassle out of deploying and managing Subversion and the tools developers use with it. http://p.sf.net/sfu/wandisco-dev2dev _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
