Signing an Uninstaller
Note 2: Running a dummy command with !uninstfinalize may also be useful if only the installer will be signed. This could prevent bogus header fields in the uninstaller, see feature request ticket #577.
Especially since Windows Vista, installer/uninstaller binaries need to be signed to avoid alarming looking dialog boxes with dire warnings about "unknown publishers" etc.
This presents a difficulty in that the uninstaller binary would normally never be present on your development/packaging machine, only being written onto the target machine at install time. So how can you sign it?
The answer is to run the installer on the development machine in a special mode which only writes the uninstaller to some known location, then sign that binary in the usual way, and finally package the signed uninstaller using a normal File command rather than WriteUninstaller.
#TODO: RequestExecutionLevel #TODO: InstallDir !ifdef INNER !echo "Inner invocation" ; just to see what's going on OutFile "$%TEMP%\tempinstaller.exe" ; not really important where this is SetCompress off ; for speed !else !echo "Outer invocation" ; Call makensis again against current file, defining INNER. This writes an installer for us which, when ; it is invoked, will just write the uninstaller to some location, and then exit. !makensis '/DINNER "${__FILE__}"' = 0 ; So now run that installer we just created as %TEMP%\tempinstaller.exe. !system 'set __COMPAT_LAYER=RunAsInvoker&"$%TEMP%\tempinstaller.exe"' = 0 ; That will have written an uninstaller binary for us. Now we sign it with your ; favorite code signing tool. !system "SIGNCODE <signing options> $%TEMP%\uninstaller.exe" = 0 ; Good. Now we can carry on writing the real installer. OutFile "my_real_installer.exe" SetCompressor /SOLID lzma !endif ; ... Function .onInit !ifdef INNER ; If INNER is defined, then we aren't supposed to do anything except write out ; the uninstaller. This is better than processing a command line option as it means ; this entire code path is not present in the final (real) installer. SetSilent silent WriteUninstaller "$%TEMP%\uninstaller.exe" SetErrorLevel 0 ; avoid exit code 2 Quit ; just bail out quickly when running the "inner" installer !endif ; ...[the rest of your normal .onInit]... FunctionEnd ; ... Section "Files" ; or whatever ; ... ; where you would normally put WriteUninstaller ${INSTDIR}\uninstaller.exe put instead: !ifndef INNER SetOutPath $INSTDIR ; this packages the signed uninstaller File $%TEMP%\uninstaller.exe !endif ; ... SectionEnd !ifdef INNER Section "Uninstall" ; your normal uninstaller section or sections (they're not needed in the "outer" ; installer and will just cause warnings because there is no WriteUninstaller command) SectionEnd !endif
This script should just be compiled in the usual way. It will invoke makensis a second time with the additional symbol INNER defined to generate a slightly unusual installer that does nothing except write the uninstaller binary to a specified location (%TEMP%/uninstaller.exe). Next it actually invokes the generated installer and sure enough it writes %TEMP%/uninstaller.exe with no user interaction needed. Now we can sign the binary with our usual tools (I use SIGNCODE because I have a rather arcane development environment, but SIGNTOOL would be more usual I guess). Once that is done, we run through the rest of the normal stuff, except instead of calling WriteUninstaller again we just package the already-created, signed uninstaller instead. Job done.
Hope you find this helpful.
Davida 07:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC): If you are using the Modern UI, you also need to add the conditionals as follows:
!ifdef INNER !insertmacro MUI_UNPAGE_CONFIRM !insertmacro MUI_UNPAGE_INSTFILES !endif
This prevents yet another warning message.
9999 4 July 2021: Setting "SetCompress off" is not a good idea since it will result in a larger uninstaller.
