$iisdata function

$iisdata(key,attribute)

The $iisdata function retrieves a metadata string from the IIS (Internet Information Server, Microsoft's Internet server) database, or an empty string if IIS is not running or does not support the requested data. If the original metadata information is not a String type, it is converted automatically to a string if possible.

Tip: To retrieve IIS folder paths, use the $iispath function instead.

Note: Because IIS only runs on Windows NT-based systems (Windows NT4, 2000, XP, and later), the function always returns an empty string on other platforms.

Many of the metadata information requires elevated privileges (usually Administrator rights). Therefore, this function may fail if the installer is running with a less privileged account. Typically only /LM/W3SVC (and below) information is available to non-Administrator users.

Windows Installer does not support symbolic functions; if you use this function during an MSI build, you will get diagnostic message BLD:U0010 and the result is undefined.

Parameters

All parameters may contain symbolic references; these are resolved before the function is applied. See Examples below.

key

Metadata key path to look up. See Microsoft's IMSAdminBase::GetData documentation and the table below for commonly used paths.

attribute

Metadata attribute identifier. This is a number that identifies the data that you want to retrieve from the metadata key. See Common IIS attribute IDs below for details.

Common IIS path names

The key parameter must specify the metadata path of the information that you want to retrieve. Here are some commonly used keys (refer to Microsoft's IMSAdminBase::GetData documentation for a full list):

Common IIS attribute IDs

The attribute parameter must be the numeric identifier of the metadata attribute that you want to retrieve from the given key. The available numeric identifiers are listed in the file iiscnfg.h that is part of the Platform SDK, plus in other Microsoft IIS documentation. Below are some commonly used attribute identifiers. You can also use the IIS Metabase Editor to inspect the IIS database and obtain the required attribute IDs.

Examples

Here are some usage examples for this function:

<$iisdata(/LM/W3SVC/1, 1015)>

Returns the server comment for the first web server running under IIS.

<$iisdata(/LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT, 3001)>

Returns the physical path to the virtual root folder of the first web server running under IIS, or an empty path if IIS is not running or is not configured as a web server. This is equivalent to <$iispath(/LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT)>.