I have made an installer that attempts to remove a previous version of a product before installing the new version.The installer runs and appears to remove old files and coy new ones... but it at the end of it all there are files missing.
I have a merge module that installs a common component into "Program Files\Company Name\commonThing" and the same merge module is used in version 1 and version 2 of my product. It is some files from the common component(s) that are missing after installing version 2. I used the following blogs as reference for my major upgrade installer http://blogs.technet.com/alexshev/archive/2008/02/15/from-msi-to-wix-part-8-major-upgrade.aspx http://johnmcfadyen.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9DD01136FC094724!249.entry In particular I choose to schedule the RemoveExistingProducts action to emulate a full uninstall followed by an install. I have a comment in my code that I've copied from somewhere on the interweb that says: <!-- <RemoveExistingProducts After='InstallValidate'/> Don't do this on Vista for things that use VC 2005 merge modules --> <!-- When RemoveExistingProducts is sequenced in the InstallInitialize area you effectively get an uninstall of the old product followed by an install of the new product. All other things being equal, this means that file versions and Component guids are irrelevant. When sequenced in the InstallFinalize area the install of the new product happens over the old product, so file versioning rules apply to each file being installed. Component guids also matter because RemoveExistingProducts uses ref counting to decide whether to remove the old files or just decrement the reference count. The components in the new install (files and registry items) are effectively being shared with those in the new product, so it's important to follow component rules. If you want an upgrade to behave as if the user uninstalled the old product then installed the new one, then sequence RemoveExistingProducts in the InstallInitialize area. --> <RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallInitialize"/> I realize now that I don't even now which 'side' of InstallInitialize counts as "in" the InstallInitialize area. Is it "before" or "after"? (It seems that both would be "outside" of the actual InstallInitialize of course) In any case I don't want to get fancy, a complete uninstall/reinstall is all I need, not some fancy "only change the bits that need changing" thing that is surely going to go wrong. I just want it to work. It doesn't. I'm lost. Please help. :-) My merge module for the common parts of course uses the same component GUIDs in both products and installs all files to the same paths. If I launch the version 2 installer again and choose to repair the existing install, then it clues in to the fact that files are missing and installs them. Thanks in advance, Scott ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users
