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Controls (Windows Installer)

Developers of installation packages can author a user interface containing the controls discussed in this topic. For information on how to add a particular control to a dialog box, see the topic for that control and read the section Adding Controls and Text.

Some controls, such as CheckBox and ComboBox, are associated with a property specified in the Property column of the Control table. A user changes the value of this property by interacting with the control. Passive controls, such as Billboard and bitmap, are not associated with such a property.

For security, private properties cannot be changed by a user interacting with the user interface. For a property to be set by the user interface, it needs to be a public property and in uppercase. See also About Properties.

In some cases a control may be redrawn incorrectly when canceling out of a dialog. This has to do with the order in which the controls receive WM_PAINT messages after the Cancel dialog is removed. To fix this, try changing the order of the controls in the Control table.

Control name Associated property Brief description of control
Billboard No Displays billboards based on progress messages.
Bitmap No Displays a static picture of a bitmap.
CheckBox Yes A two-state check box.
ComboBox Yes A drop-down list with an edit field.
DirectoryCombo Yes Select all except the last segment of the path.
DirectoryList Yes Displays folders below the main part of path.
Edit Yes A regular edit field for any string or integer.
GroupBox No Displays a rectangle that groups other controls together.
Hyperlink No Displays a HTML link to an address, which opens in the default browser.Windows Installer 4.5 and earlier: Not supported.
Icon No Displays a static picture of an icon.
Line No Displays a horizontal line.
ListBox Yes A drop-down list without an edit field.
ListView Yes Displays a column of values with icons for selection.
MaskedEdit Yes An edit field with a mask in the text field.
PathEdit Yes Displays folder name or entire path in an edit field.
ProgressBar control No Bar graph that changes length as it receives progress messages.
PushButton No Displays a basic push button.
RadioButtonGroup Yes A group of radio buttons.
ScrollableText No Displays a long string of text.
SelectionTree Yes Displays information from the Feature table and enables the user to change their selection state.
Text No Displays static text.
VolumeCostList No Displays costing information on different volumes.
VolumeSelectCombo Yes Selects volume from an alphabetical list.