Well, I ended up finding a solution to this. The app is a .NET app, which means that the assemblies are versioned in Major.Minor.Build.Revision format.
Due to the way the compiler generates the Revision number, it can actually "downgrade" for a newer version, which seems to confuse Windows Installer in this scenario. In reality, at least the Build number should get incremented before we ship, but we don't always do this, causing the bug. By setting the CompanionFile attribute, all the versioning goes off the main EXE, which always has at least the Build component incremented for an upgrade, effectively solving the problem. Regards, Edward -----Original Message----- From: Edward Forgács Sent: Tuesday, 5 May 2009 2:01 AM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: RE: [WiX-users] Major Upgrade: some files are randomly not installed I am experiencing the exact same behaviour with one of our installation packages. Like you, we only do major upgrades. Out of 17 files, 4 are getting missed on a major upgrade. I'm not convinced that it has anything to do with versions, as almost every DLL has a different version in the newer version, including one of the problematic files (and most of the ones that work too). We are virtually at the point of shipping to a customer without upgrade capabilities. Did you end up solving the missing files issue? I am wondering if it's possible that this was caused by the current version of the product accidentally being shipped without the Checksum="yes" attribute on the DLLs and EXEs? However, adding that into the upgrade hasn't fixed anything, it's still deletes the exact same files on uninstall, and doesn't put them back. It is incredibly frustrating that this could ever happen - the installation ends up in a completely corrupted state, without any errors whatsoever during the upgrade. Regards, Edward -----Original Message----- From: little.forest [mailto:little.for...@ymail.com] Sent: Tuesday, 28 April 2009 10:02 AM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Major Upgrade: some files are randomly not installed Thanks Jeff. Actually, I did that in VMWare. But the result was the same - major upgrade was broken. I then narrowed it down: it seems it only happens to 3 files. So I thought why these 3 files? I then remove them from the package and rebuilt them. This time it seems working. By saying "seems", I mean I'm not 100% sure. But at least that 2 new made builds can upgrade themselves each other. I then thought, hmm, if I re-added them in, things maybe fixed? So I re-added these 3 files in, of course, I changed their GUID and their Component ID. But you know what? It stopped working again. This drives me nuts. I then used Orca to open these msi file to look into the problematic files. I found their file versions are different among the builds. I then thought it might be something about the file version. I contine to search the post in this community and found this: http://n2.nabble.com/Overide-a-file-version-to-force-upgrade-td699008.html#a699008 Mike Dimmick -2 said: I believe InstallShield lies in the Version column of the File table if this option is set (setting it to something huge like 65535.65535.65535.65535, which is the maximum supported value). I don’t think this is a particularly good idea, however. You can’t do it with WiX – the linker takes the information directly from thefile’s resources. I'm glad to find out this "dirty fact". But it's sad to learn that WiX doesn't support it. I've a question to MSI. For "Major Upgrade", if the current build is uninstalled entirely before the new build installing, why bother to "compare" the file version anyways? Should the new file be installed anyways without caring about the file version in the "Major Upgrae" case? Well, I know I probably shouldn't ask this in here. And I know MSI team might even have a reasonable explanation. But the problem is, I do major upgrade, old files gone, new files not installed - I got a broken installation. The whole thing is just because file version. And there is no way to ignore the file version checking in Major Upgrade case. Anyways, I'll make sure all of my file versions are the same to avoid this problem. Thanks. have a nice day, /Brian ________________________________ From: Jeff Reed <ree...@duckcreektech.com> To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. <wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net> Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 5:25:34 PM Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Major Upgrade: some files are randomly not installed > I appreciate if anyone can tell me why some times some files are not > installed during Major Upgrade. Perhaps you could try isolating the problem, by taking each version of the product that you've released so far and installing, then uninstalling on a "clean" machine? I like to use virtual machines so that when I shut down, I can throw the state away. Maybe you'll find some orphaned files in certain versions, and that would explain the behavior you're experiencing? I'm fairly new to WiX, but if I was in your shoes, that is one technique I would try. -Jeff ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensign option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users __________________________________________________________________ Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/gift/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Register Now & Save for Velocity, the Web Performance & Operations Conference from O'Reilly Media. Velocity features a full day of expert-led, hands-on workshops and two days of sessions from industry leaders in dedicated Performance & Operations tracks. Use code vel09scf and Save an extra 15% before 5/3. http://p.sf.net/sfu/velocityconf _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Register Now & Save for Velocity, the Web Performance & Operations Conference from O'Reilly Media. Velocity features a full day of expert-led, hands-on workshops and two days of sessions from industry leaders in dedicated Performance & Operations tracks. Use code vel09scf and Save an extra 15% before 5/3. http://p.sf.net/sfu/velocityconf _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
