Hi,
I asked the same question a while ago. After some experiment, I repost this question with more information. It is very important for me because the C# custom action solution cannot scale without resolving signing issue. Without strong name signed, customaction.dll cannot consume other signed managed dlls. This is my original question: My msi uses custom action from C# custom action project. As you know, as C# custom action project will generate mycustom.dll and mycustom.CA.dll. The former is managed and the later is unmanaged. In my project, all binaries (including mycustom.dll and mycustom.CA.dll) are signed and the msi is not. When I installed the msi, it threw below exception: Error: could not load custom action class My.CustomActions from assembly: My.CustomAction System.IO.FileLoadException: Could not load file or assembly 'My.CustomAction, Version=1.0.82.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bb5956ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. Strong name validation failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8013141A) File name: 'My.CustomAction, Version=1.0.82.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bb5956ad364e35' ---> System.Security.SecurityException: Strong name validation failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8013141A) The Zone of the assembly that failed was: MyComputer at System.Reflection.Assembly._nLoad(AssemblyName fileName, String codeBase, Evidence assemblySecurity, Assembly locationHint, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean throwOnFileNotFound, Boolean forIntrospection) at System.Reflection.Assembly.InternalLoad(AssemblyName assemblyRef, Evidence assemblySecurity, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean forIntrospection) at System.Reflection.Assembly.InternalLoad(String assemblyString, Evidence assemblySecurity, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean forIntrospection) at System.AppDomain.Load(String assemblyString) at Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller.CustomActionProxy.GetCustomActionMethod(Session session, String assemblyName, String className, String methodName) Currently, my solution is isolating C# custom action project from other managed projects so that it does not reference any other managed dlls. I did not sign custom action project (strong name sign for customaction.dll, authenticode sign for customaction.ca.dll). However, I am more interested about change the build process so that managed assembly gets fully signed before being packed up in the .CA.dll. We are using corext and msbuild to build the csproj and wixproj. The current build process is: Step 1: build managed binaries as delay signed (include custom action project); Step 2: in postbuild1, the managed binaries are signed (include customaction.dll); Step 3: in postbuild2, the msi is generated; To make managed assembly gets fully signed before being packed up in the .CA.dll, the build process should be changed to: Step 1: build managed binaries as delay signed (include custom action project); Step 2: in postbuild1, the managed binaries are signed (include customaction.dll); Step 3: in postbuild2, customaction.ca.dll using the signed customaction.dll; Step 4: still in postbuild2, the msi is generated. However, I have trouble to separate building customaction.dll and customaction.ca.dll from the custom action csproj file. How can I author files like wix.ca.targets to let the build engine know to use the signed customaction.dll instead of regenerating a new one? Does anyone have any experience on get customaction.dll strong name signed and work? Appreciate your help. Thanks Lian ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
