The two Custom Actions work together to execute an arbitrary command. The first Custom Action sets the actual thing you want to execute as a property and the second executes it. You need to follow this pattern if your command…
Blog Archives
Simulating Slow Network on Virtual Machines
We needed to simulate that our data frameworks will work over a slow network link. There is a VMWare configuration option to limit a virtual NIC to a certain bandwidth. Just edit the VM’s .vmx file and enter the speed…
Java Active Directory Authentication
I had to quickly add some AD authentication to one of our applications and it was becoming cumbersome at best using the built in Java LDAP libraries. Most things had to have FQDNs, nested groups weren’t supported, the host name…
Generate Installer Product IDs Automatically
I had installed some scripting in Jenkins to generate a random guid on each build of our installers and inject it through maven into the WiX source files. It turns out WiX supports that natively by just placing a ‘*’…
A Better Grocery List
I’d like to get more into mobile development and what better way than to just do it. I was trying to figure out a decent idea that in the end could actually end up in an app store. A game…
Automating WiX Installer Builds with Maven: Actual Automation
Alright, now for how we actually automate the installer build! Everything mentioned here lives in the ‘installer’ profile. This allows your developers to still run the package command without invoking a lengthy installer build. Required Properties There is a set…
Automating WiX Installer Builds with Maven: Windows Installer Xml
The next step in creating an installer after assembling the application is generating the actual msi. There are a couple issues that need to be addressed when setting up the framework though. The installer may include jars that do not…
Automating WiX Installer Builds with Maven: Assembling Your Application
The Concept The first step in getting an installer built is to be able to construct what will roughly be the folder structure of your application. Out of trial and error, or maybe out of a Java convention I don’t know…
Automating WiX Installer Builds with Maven
Recently, I worked towards automating the build of all our installers after we integrated Maven into our Java-based projects. We standardized all of our installers on WiX which has proven to be a great tool to reliably build installers. The…
Command Prompt (or other executable) under System Account
If you have to debug or just run something under the System account, you can start a prompt with the at command. Just schedule cmd to start one minute in the future and allow it to interact with the desktop.…
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Matt McKnight's Blog 