How to remove a feature from msi feature selection tree at runtime?

Question

When we launch an msi, after some screens we will get the feature selection page.

Feature selection page:

We can remove any feature by just changing the feature table, display column value to 0.

But how to alter it at runtime, I mean, based on some property value,which might get altered from a different custom dialog we add or based on a custom action.

I tried by creating a property and adding that property at the display column of feature table as [Property1].

But it is not accepting non-integer values.

Any suggestion, how to implement this please.

I tried this so far.

Created a custom action of vbscript type

UpdateFeatureDisplay "erwinDM",Session.Property("DM_VISIBLE")   
UpdateFeatureDisplay "NoSQLStandalone",Session.Property("NS_VISIBLE")   

Sub UpdateFeatureDisplay(featureName,display)   
    Set viewlist = Database.OpenView("SELECT * FROM `Feature` WHERE `Feature`='"& featureName &"'")
    viewlist.Execute
    Set reclist = viewlist.Fetch
    viewlist.Modify 6 , reclist
    reclist.StringData(5)= CStr(display)
    'reclist.IntegerData(5)= CInt(display)
    viewlist.Modify 7 , reclist 
    viewlist.Close
End Sub

And, kept it to trigger when I click next , before the custom feature selection page.Where I take values from the check boxes.

But I am getting error in the log as below.

MSI (c) (14:B4) [17:50:30:269]: Note: 1: 1720 2: setFeatureDisplay 3: -2147467259 4: Msi API Error 5: Modify,Mode,Record 6: 8 7: 2 
Action ended 17:50:30: setFeatureDisplay. Return value 1.

Instead of keeping it in the Next event of dialog, if I keep it after setupinitilialization of ui sequence, it is not giving the above error.But not reflecting in the feature page also.

If we pass the property value, which are altering using UI, as a command line parameter, then only it is reflecting.I mean, during launch of msi.

Answer 1

If you want to remove the feature from a tree at a runtime then you'll need to modify Feature table with an SQL query within a custom action. Something like this (I didn't test the code but it should be pretty close to your needs):

featurename="Your Feature Name"
Set oView = Database.OpenView("SELECT * FROM `Feature` WHERE `Feature`='"&featurename&"'")
oView.Execute

' test on first Feature record
Set oRecord = oView.Fetch

' delete the original
oView.Modify 6, oRecord

' modify and temporarily write back new
oRecord.IntegerData(5) = 0
oView.Modify 7, oRecord

' close up shop
oView.Close