How to log the installation date to the registry

Question

When an install completes successfully, the date and time and some other info needs to be written to the registry. How can a date be generated and how do you know if an install was completed successfully? (writing to the registry with wix is not a problem).

Slideaction

Answer 1

What about using standard MSI properties Date and Time?

Note: Be warned that despite the documentation indicating the date will always be in the MM/DD/YYYY format, this is not in fact the case. A verbose MSI log on my system (in Australia) shows the property in DD/MM/YYYY format... e.g.:

Property(S): Date = 21/04/2010

Smother

Example usage : <RegistryValue Type="string" Name="InstalledOn" Value="[Date]"/> – Slideaction

From the MSDN doc Yan referenced it indicates "The format of the value depends upon the user's locale, and is the format obtained using GetDateFormat with the DATE_SHORTDATE option. The value of this property is set by the Windows Installer and not the package author.". – Slideaction

Answer 2

For both date and time here is some sample code.

<RegistryValue Id="InstallDateTime"
               KeyPath="yes"
               Name="InstallDateTime"
               Value='[Date] [Time]'
               Type="string" />

If you want to use separator you can simply add it as text like:

<RegistryValue Id="InstallDateTime"
               KeyPath="yes"
               Name="InstallDateTime"
               Value='[Date]-[Time]'
               Type="string" />

Lima

Answer 3

Env variables??

---

Can you access environment variables like PATH etc. ??

• These return the current system date and time...

  You might want to access %DATE% & %TIME%

Alternately, since You are able to access the Registry, You can access the Env vars in the registry itself:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment\<variable>

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment\<variable>

GoodLUCK!!

Because

Interesting - but I cannot find a WIX method to read a env var - the Environment element can "create|set|remove" only. Looking at the registry entries on my machine does not show date or time entries. – Slideaction

#11182347 – Yongyoni