Predefined Windows Installer properties

You've seen that you can define your own properties, but there are also a number that come predefined for you. Quite a few are created automatically as part of the install process. For example, there's the property called Installed that's set if the product is already installed locally. Looking through the install log will uncover many more.

In this section, you'll be introduced to some of these automatic properties. You'll also see that some properties, although their Id attributes are defined for you, only come to life when you instantiate them with Property elements.

Implied properties

There are certain properties that don't need to be set with a Property element. They're implied. They're set for you. First, there are those that are created when you set attributes on the Product element. So, for example, the following code snippet:

<Product Id="3E786878-358D-43AD-82D1-1435ADF9F6EA"
         Name="Awesome Software"
         Language="1033"
      ...