Using Standard Actions

An action is executed in the Windows Installer either by calling the MsiDoAction function or including the action in a sequence table. Because most actions encapsulate a single purpose, the most common way to use actions is to order a series of actions into a sequence to accomplish a larger task. The installer has three standard top-level actions that call an associated set of sequence tables. These associated sequence tables may contain standard actions, custom actions, and user-interface elements. Each action in a sequence table has an associated sequence number and may also have an associated conditional expression. All actions in a sequence table are visited in order and are only executed if the conditional expression evaluates to True.

While a standard action can have any sequence number associated with it, many have sequence restrictions which must be followed for the action to function properly. For example the FileCost action, must be called after the CostInitialize action. For more information on standard action sequencing restrictions, see Actions with Sequencing Restrictions, Actions without Sequencing Restrictions, or Standard Actions Reference.

The following topics provide more information about using standard actions.

• Publishing Products, Features, and Components
• File Searching
• File Costing
• File Installation
• Modifying the Registry
• Running Actions

See also About Standard Actions or Standard Actions Reference.