OpenInstaller supports updating of configuration during install by passing messages back to the OI engine, for display on the progress page, using JMX.

However, the configurator must be written in Java to use JMX. Historically for a Java-based configurator, a developer would create shell script wrappers which would call the java-based configurators (since OI historically only called configurators via the CLI, meaning a native script/executable).

However, there is a way to also create a pure Java implementation for a configurator. See the original RFE.

To use it, you define a VM system variable when you call the engine-wrapper (you can also do this in beanshell at any time before the configuration occurs, e.g. System.setProperty()).

-Dorg.openinstaller.provider.configurator.class=com.sun.foo.MyConfigurator

This class must implement the org.openinstaller.provider.conf.Configurator interface,
and have a constructor that takes 4 params (see the org.openinstaller.provider.conf.ConfiguratorFactory's
newConfigurator method for details).

It does not simplify the JMX calls (it would be nice to be able to pass back the JMX
info through the Configurator interface instead of using JMX) but it does allow you
to write a configurator in java, which may be better than individual .bat/.exe/.vbs/sh
for each platform.