CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wixwindows-installerwix3.11
SiD
SiD

Reputation: 109

MSI Reinstall Issue with Specified Account already Exists error

We have 2 installer sources in WiX to create installer for a single product with same Product Version, GUID and Package GUID also.

Those 2 installer projects will yield different outputs, one output being just a single MSI file (File1.msi) and other project output is a CD-ROM structure having different MSI file name (File2.msi).

So now issue arises when we installed the product using single MSI file, upon that if we invoke MSI from the other CD-ROM output, we end up getting below mentioned error.

WiX dialog

I tried keeping same MSI filename for both kind of installer output, then this above error dialog was resolved but repair functionality isn't working.

If some files were deleted in the product's destination folder, it says source file not found error pointing to CD-ROM installer source folder.

Please help where I'm going wrong. I want to support Repair installation without this errors.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2635

Answers (2)

Stein Åsmul
Stein Åsmul

Reputation: 42136

Updated: Compile your main MSI, then run administrative image on it and put the extracted files and MSI on the CD? Put the compressed version on there as well - just in case they prefer that kind of release (happens).

I am not sure what will happen when you run both setups this way, but I think the MSI flagged as an administrative image extract might be detected by the engine. I am not sure. Should work. Built-in approach for MSI, and you are not fighting wind-mills.

User Accounts: Are you creating any NT User Accounts? Did you set the FailIfExists attribute to yes? Please check here: User Element (Util Extension). What is the setting for UpdateIfExists? (if any).

Other Issues: There might be other issues as well as Rob mentions. You can not use the same package code for both release types because a package code by definition identifies a unique file. All kinds of X-Files-like problems occur if you try to "hack" this. Not a fight you want to take on.

Administrative Installation: Why would you want to distribute different setups on CDs these days? Corporations that use your setup will run an administrative installation on your setup extracting all files - which is a much better concept. It is essentially a glorified file-extraction, and it is a built in Windows Installer concept intended to make a network installation point for software - among other things. It essentially extracts all files and translates the Media table to use external source files.

List of Links:

Upvotes: 0

Rob Mensching
Rob Mensching

Reputation: 35901

The dialog is expected. You can't change the name of the MSI except during major upgrades.

After that, if you rebuilt to create the different layouts, each MSI probably has a unique PackageCode and that makes them unique packages. That is most likely why repair isn't working. A verbose log file should tell all.

Upvotes: 3

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