Change the WixBundleExecutePackageCacheFolder for Custom Wix Bundle installer

Question

I have a custom wixtoolset 3.10.2 bundle that installs 8 different .msi packages. I need to have the extraction/cache folder for the bundle be a folder different than the the standard "C:\Users\myuser\AppData\Local\Temp". Is this possible? I need to do this because we are not allowing any executable to run from this standard temp folder for security reasons. I would like the cache folder to be something like "C:\MyCompany\Install\Temp" That way I can 'whitelist' that folder.

Answer 1

You can redirect the package cache but you cannot change where Burn extracts the BA from the bundle for use during initialization.

Answer 2

As part of the work done for #5830 and #5856 in v4, Burn can have separate locations for the extraction folder (where the clean room process and the elevated process will start from) and the acquisition folder (where payloads are copied/downloaded to before moving to the Package Cache folder). Note that none of these are WixBundleExecutePackageCacheFolder, which is a dynamic value that indicates where a specific package is currently executing from.

The acquisition folder is still not configurable and uses %TEMP%. Burn should not execute files from here so that should be sufficient.

The extraction folder still defaults to %TEMP% but can be overridden on the command line (-burn.working.directory=<path>) or in the registry (EngineWorkingDirectory in HKLM\Software\Policies\WiX\Burn).