CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wixwindows-installerwix3.5
Simon Featherstone
Simon Featherstone

Reputation: 1796

Encrypting files within a WiX built MSI installer

I have a requirement to create an installer that includes third party dll's that are licensed. I can see a way of using custom actions to read an XML licence file to prevent sections of my installer from be able to install, but I can't prevent someone from using MSIExec to extract those files anyway.

Is there a way of encrypting the files within WiX to prevent their extraction by such tools?

Or is the answer to use custom actions to decrypt the files myself after storing them as encrypted? Which I assume will make the uninstall/upgrade more tricky?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1459

Answers (1)

Rob Mensching
Rob Mensching

Reputation: 36006

You'll have to write a custom action and it will make things more complicated. :)

Note, you are entering an arms race trying to protect data in a declarative format. The data is there and it's just a matter of transforming it to find it. Putting the transform in DLL makes it a bit harder for people to see the transformation but ultimately, the bad guys will see it if they want to.

Upvotes: 3

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