Jacob is working towards a solution to this using the Bundle update feature in 
WiX v3.9.

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-----Original Message-----
From: gregbty [mailto:greg.bea...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 10:42 AM
To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: [WiX-users] Updater application using Bootstrapper UI/Bundle

I'll fill in some background information before the question. (/smile)

I started working on a custom updater application that essentially needed to 
perform the following tasks:

1) Get latest version information for application from a remote location
2) Display release notes and latest version information to the user
3) Download the setup package (currently with WCF via TCP or directly via
HTTP)
4) Install the setup package

I was able to set this up fine without any issues. But I wanted to extend it 
and provide actual progress and status to the user through the updater 
application instead of just opening the MSI file after downloading it. The 
Bootstrapper Engine already provided this logic, so why reinvent the wheel?

We already are using WiX with a custom Bootstrapper UI for our installer. I 
ended up integrating the updater logic there as well so that we could ensure 
that users always had the latest package before installation. Then I started 
wondering whether or not I could just use the Bootstrapper UI post installation 
as my updater application instead. I could just pass in various command line 
arguments to accomplish the flow that I wanted. The big problem is that there 
is a circular dependency. The Bootstrapper bundle needs the final MSI and the 
updater needs to be included in the MSI to ensure that it is installed with the 
application.

So I have a few questions that I haven't found any definitive answers to:

1) Is it possible to "install" the executing Bootstrapper application into the 
application's folder? Is there some variable exposed? (This is probably a long 
shot since the MSI knows nothing of the Bootstrapper)

2) Is it possible or in the works to externalize a MSI package in a bundle 
chain? Can I use the DownloadUrl property or somehow hook into a Boostrapper 
engine event that allows me to download the MSI package for the bundle at run 
time (The DetectUpdateBegin event comes to mind).

3) Is it possible to create a "fake" bundle with a "fake" MSI that can be used 
to just build the Bootstrapper application? Then, would I able to ignore the 
bundle completely and use an event like DetectUpdateBegin to force the 
Bootstrapper application to install a package not listed in the bundle?

I want to get these questions answered to determine whether or not it's worth 
it going down this rabbit hole. Thanks in advance!



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