Is this application a regular executable? Or some sort of Web-App or Plug-In? In other words: does it have its own launch sequence? I sound like a broken record with this advice, but: folders and files in the user profile folder (and HKCU settings) are better created on application launch than during installation. Just leave … Read more
Adventures in Installing a C#/WPF Application (WiX)
The first thing that comes to mind with this question is whether the products in question are decomposed the way they should be. As a general rule all MSI files think they own whatever they install, and they will uninstall everything attached to a component GUID inside the MSI on uninstall if the reference count … Read more
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg05097.html gives an solution to republish the properties that were changed in the custom action immediately after it. Here is an example of how I have gotten it to work in my code: <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?> <Wix xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi”> <Fragment> <Binary Id=”ConnectionStringExtension.dll” SourceFile=”$(var.ConnectionStringExtension.TargetDir)$(var.ConnectionStringExtension.TargetName).CA.dll” /> <CustomAction Id=”MyCustomAction” BinaryKey=”ConnectionStringExtension.dll” DllEntry=”VerifyConnectionString” Execute=”immediate” /> <UI> <Dialog Id=”ConnectionStringDlg” Width=”370″ Height=”270″ Title=”Database … Read more
Newer answers: 1) Companion files, 2) file version hack using Visual Studio, 3) moving the file to another installation path, 4) variations of REINSTALLMODE, 5) “version lying”, etc… All kind of options, most of which are not ideal: File of a new component isn’t installed because there was an old component with the same file … Read more
Testing the Conditions Condition #1: Installed AND (NOT REMOVE=”ALL” OR UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE) This rather odd constellation of conditioning will cause the custom action in question to not run during a fresh install, nor a manual uninstall. It seems this custom action will run during: major upgrade (which is a special type of uninstall), modify and repair. … Read more
Creating a Transform: You can use a transform to modify any MSI file – a very common use for a transform is to remove such shortcuts. You should be able to apply that transform on the command line specified in your bootstrapper – though I have never tried this with WiX bootstrappers. Transforms are “little … Read more
ICE rules are Internal Consistency Evaluators – essentially a series of self-diagnosis scripts checking database referential integrity, database consistency, data type and schema compliance as well as running several content validation tests or logical tests on the whole MSI (which is really an MS-SQL database in disguise). DB Integrity: In other words you check the … Read more
Super Condensed: Install Orca, get someone else involved to help and go through the raw tables in sequence and then any custom action code. All of this is obvious – if this has happened to you and you have sensitive information in the wild: all you can do is pull back the MSI (from download … Read more
Attempted Specific Answer: Custom Actions: Based on the available information (0 conditions), I would assume one or more custom actions are used to implement the feature logic you describe above. You should be able to find the custom action code in the project’s Installscript view I would presume? (with an associated custom action entry in … Read more