CustomActionData Property

The format for the CustomActionData property depends on the type of the custom action.

• For custom actions that are installation components (ProjectInstaller classes), the CustomActionData property takes a format of /name=value. Each name must be unique and have only one value. Multiple values must be separated by a single space: /name1=value1 /name2=value2. If the value has a space in it, it must be surrounded by quotation marks: /name="a value".

  Windows Installer properties can be passed using the bracketed syntax: /name=[PROPERTYNAME]. For Windows Installer properties such as [TARGETDIR] that return a directory, in addition to the brackets you must include quotation marks and a trailing backslash: /name="[TARGETDIR]\".

  Note:
  In order for a custom action to be treated as an installation component, the InstallerClass property must be set to true. For more information, see RunInstallerAttribute.

• For all other custom actions (.exe, .dll, or script), there are no format requirements. You can pass any string in the CustomActionData property, since you must parse it yourself in your custom action.

If your custom action relies on customers typing a path to an installation folder, you may see a ArgumentException error message. This may be related to an invalid directory or URL.

To prevent this error message, replace the backslash with a space: /name="TARGETDIR] ". Then, parse the value and create a fully qualified path using the Combine method.

Tasks

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