I have two work modes in my installer:
use config files left from previous installation
delete all existing configs and put default configs instead
The mode is determined by the checkbox in the WPF UI of the installer. If second mode is selected, then CustomAction is run, which manually deletes the configs folder from disk:
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="RemoveConfigsFolder" After="RemoveFolders" Overridable="yes">NOT Installed AND DELETESETTINGS=1</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
I'm using NeverOverwrite attribute:
<ComponentGroup Id="Configs" Directory="INSTALLDIR" >
<Component Id="Configs" Permanent="yes" NeverOverwrite="yes">
<File Id="main.config" Name="main.config" Source=".\Configs\main.config" KeyPath="yes" />
</Component>
</ComponentGroup>
The first mode works fine in this case, but when I try to use second mode it fails and all configs are just deleted and never created again during the installation.
During my research of the issue, I think I've found the reason why this happens: https://community.flexerasoftware.com/showthread.php?96157-The-truth-the-whole-truth-about-quot-Never-overwrite-quot-and-quot-Permanent-quot-files&p=156826#post156826
Actually this is a Windows Installer issue. If you log the uninstall
you will notice that very early in the installation the Installer
decides that the component containing this file will not be installed
because it is marked "Never Overwrite" and a copy of this file already
exists on the target machine. The uninstall happens after that which
removes the existing file. This is because the Installer decides this
when the "CostFinalize" action is launched. This action HAS to be run
before the "RemoveFiles" action.
But how do I fix it?
The problem with settings such as Never Overwrite or Permanent is they look like build settings, but they are not really - they stick to the system attached to the component id. So resetting in the project won't help because it's associated with that id. It's also not clear why setting Never Overwrite might have been a solution to some problem, because by definition patches and overwrite upgrades won't overwrite it, but overwriting it is a requirement of your setup.
Even if you had not set Never Overwrite the Windows Installer rules would not overwrite the file if it was modified after install. So if you had installed it, then it was altered, and then you did an upgrade, the file would not be overwritten (which is another reason why Never Overwrite does not seem needed).
Another issue is that your custom action RemoveConfigsFolder is not marked with an Execute enumeration value, therefore it is immediate, therefore it does not run elevated, therefore it might simply be failing, so without seeing the code it's impossible to say if reports an issue if it can't do the remove. It's also not possible to determine if it explicitly specifies the full path to the folder correctly. So the most likely quick fix to this issue is to mark the custom action as execute deferred, and the DELETESETTINGS value will need to be passed in via CustomActionData.
My initial thought is to remove the 'Never Overwrite' property. Then create a component condition that checks if the file exists. My thought is that your custom action has the condition to correctly remove the config files. If the files do not exist then the components will be selected for install.
Related
I have a installer which asks the user to select feature. Whatever user selects, it will never be changed in case of modify and upgrade the installation. For example:
There are three features in my installer which are below:
<Feature Id="Standalone" Title="Standalone" Level="2">
</Feature>
<Feature Id="CentralCase" Title="Central case" Level="2" >
</Feature>
<Feature Id="MiddleEF" Title="Middle Ef" Level="2" Display="expand">
<Feature Id="GUI" Title="Client" Level="3"></Feature>
<Feature Id="AppServer" Title="Application Server" Level="3">
</Feature>
</Feature>
Now suppose user starts the installation and select the first feature which is standalone and install it. Now if user wants to modify, he should not allowed to change feature or even if user wants to upgrade, user should also not allowed to change feature. He can only upgrade what he selected at first time. Is there any way to do this?
ARPNOMODIFY: I guess it depends how critical it is that these features never change. You can set the ARPNOMODIFY in the MSI to
1 and there will be no button to invoke Modify from:
<Property Id="ARPNOMODIFY" Value="1" Secure="yes" />
Disclaimer below. Here be dragons.
msiexec.exe: However, you can still invoke modify by launching the MSI file itself (the default dialog sets should correctly disable the modify button though), but worse: you can go via the msiexec.exe command line and change anything you want:
msiexec /i "MySetup.msi" ADDLOCAL=MyFeature
This might be OK since it would appear to be seldomly used. However, you should be aware that remote management systems often rely on the msiexec.exe command line to handle MSI deployment, and as such the deployment system could be used to change feature state easily (via the deployment tool GUI, no command lines to deal with).
Custom Action: I don't know of an auto-magic way to abort setup if the user tries to modify the feature structure invoked via the msiexec.exe command line, but I suppose you can use a custom action maybe right before InstallInitialize in the InstallExecuteSequence to abort the installation if ADDLOCAL, REMOVE or ADVERTISE are set? If you do not condition this custom action properly, it could cause a package that won't uninstall at all or upgrade properly.
Some unverified conditioning suggestions: How to execute conditional custom action on install and modify only?
MigrateFeatureStates: For a major upgrade the GUI will not run as if it is running modify, but a fresh installation (since the product GUID is new). Hence the original installation GUI is shown and not the modify one. Accordingly you might need to disable some GUI controls or hide whole dialogs to prevent feature selection (not sure in WiX default dialogs). Added a link for that below. The standard action MigrateFeatureStates will take care of preserving the feature installation states between versions, provided you haven't done anything drastic to the feature structure. You enable this standard action to run in the Upgrade table. Should be default to run in WiX MSIs I think.
UPDATE:
Preselected Property: There is a special property called Preselected that is to automatically hide feature selection. You can try to set it or check whether it is set automatically by WiX to see if it hides feature selection. I have honestly never tried it.
Some Further Resources:
Hiding whole dialogs: Wix, custom dialog when previous version exists
I'm using WiX 3.8 (the latest stable release, I think), and I can't seem to get a config file to not get uninstalled-and-reinstalled during a major upgrade.
There are lots of questions about this on SO -- a lot of answers point to this site as a good answer. However, the suggestion given doesn't work (for me).
What the site says is to place each config file in its own component and mark the file as the key path of the component. Something like this:
<Component Id="config.xml"
Guid="*"
Directory="folder_where_config_file_lives">
<File Id="config_file"
Source="$(var.Project.ProjectDir)bin\Release\configFile.xml"
KeyPath="yes"/>
</Component>
Great. Next it says to schedule RemoveExistingProduct after the InstallFiles action, like so:
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallFiles"/>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
Problem is, when I compile, I get this error:
The InstallExecuteSequence table contains an action
'RemoveExistingProducts' that is declared in two different locations.
Please remove one of the actions or set the Overridable='yes'
attribute on one of their elements.
This person also had that problem, but he seems to have solved it. What fixed it for him was adding a scheduling attribute to the , which effectively got rid of the "two different locations" declaration problem (I guess):
<MajorUpgrade Schedule="afterInstallInitialize"
DowngradeErrorMessage="A newer version of [ProductName] is already installed."/>
So when I substitute the schedule change attribute (which contains a attribute itself, I guess), not only does it not work -- the config file gets removed and replaced during the upgrade -- it causes even more weirdness. My project has a bootstrapper with a lot of MSIs, and although I get log files for the installation of all of the MSIs that are after the MSI that contains the config file, they aren't installed.
Let me repeat that: the logs say that the MSIs are installed, but they aren't. There's probably a rollback somewhere that I can't find in the log files, but reading the MSI log files it looks like the installation went swimminly.
Does anyone know a way for a config file to not be removed-and-reinstalled during a Major Upgrade in Wix 3.8? What I've mentioned above is the best info from the interwebs that I could find, but I've tried pretty much everything on SO to no avail.
The MajorUpgrade element has everything you need, including where the RemoveExistingProducts action is scheduled. Don't add a RemoveExistingProducts into a sequence as well.
RemoveExistingProducts shouldn't be after InstallFiles. It's not clear where that comes from, but the documentation doesn't say that's a choice:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa371197(v=vs.85).aspx
When RemoveExistingProducts is sequenced early (such as after InstallInitialize or InstallValidate) it means that you are effectively uninstalling the old product followed by an install of the new product upgrade, and that means uninstalling the config file and installing the one in the upgrade. The way to retain the config file is to schedule REP afterInstallExecute. This results in an upgrade that is basically a version-rules install of the new product over the older installed one. The version rules mean that if you want updated binaries you must update their file versions. The good news about data files (your config file) is that updated data files won't be replaced:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370531(v=vs.85).aspx
The older product then gets uninstalled, retaining the resulting set of files.
So sequencing of REP afterInstallExecute in the MajorUpgrade seems to be what you want. A caveat is that you need to follow component rules, which should happen automatically if you have auto-generated * guids in WiX.
IMO, Windows Installer was invented before XML caught on and the component rules don't handle it well. What I prefer to do is to not fight this behavior. Write your application so that one config file is owned by the installer and can always be safely overwritten and another config file that holds your user configuration data and that MSI doesn't know about. This second file should take override the first file.
I've created an installer that upgrades our software, but for some reason the XML configuration files (those of our software) are removed when upgrading.
This appears to happen if all features of the software are upgraded.
Our software is an archive type thing. If I install just that feature and upgrade it everything is fine.
However, if I install all services accompanying the archive and upgrade those then all configuration files (and each is in a different folder!) are gone.
As an example:
<ComponentGroup Id="AutoArchiveTool" Directory="AutoArchiverFolder">
<Component Id="C_AutoArchivingTool_Gateway_exe_config" NeverOverwrite="yes" Guid="{A62D5200-FDE0-4DA1-A04A-7FBDACEA83B2}">
<File Id="F_AutoArchivingTool_Gateway_exe_config" Source="$(var.Gateway.TargetDir)Gateway.exe.config" KeyPath="yes"/>
</Component>
... more script
</ComponentGroup>
If you log the installer you can even see that it's recognized as "never overwrite":
Disallowing installation of component: {A62D5200-FDE0-4DA1-A04A-7FBDACEA83B2} since the keyfile exists and the component is marked to never overwrite existing installations
Yet it's gone after the upgrade. What am I missing?
I've see the "Permanent" property, but that's not what I want. I want the installer to leave the config files alone during an upgrade. Not leave them (config files) after removal.
NeverOverwrite does not mean "don't uninstall" so:
a) if the component ID changes between the original install and the new one the sharing won't work as you intend and the ref count will decrement and the file will be removed, this being when the upgrade is scheduled "late", such as afterInstallExecute.
b) If the upgrade is scheduled early (such as afterInstallInitialize) all the old product is uninstalled first, then the new product is installed. You haven't said where your upgrade is sequenced, but sometimes Windows Installer screws up in an "early" upgrade: it decides that the file won't be overwritten, but fails to re-evaluate this when the install turns out to be an upgrade. In this case your upgrade will complete and the file will be missing. If you have this issue then a repair of the product will restore the file from the new version of the product (because that is the current owner of the component). This won't help.
So make sure that the component ID didn't change and your upgrade is scheduled late, such as afterInstallExecute. In addition, do the upgrade with verbose logging to verify what's going on.
Having said all that, NeverOverwrite is often used to solve a problem that doesn't exist. The file overwrite rules (that are invoked by a "late" upgrade) say that modified files won't be overwritten:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370531(v=vs.85).aspx
So if the first setup installs the file, then it gets updated by the app, then your upgrade runs it will not replace the modified file anyway, and there is no need to set NeverOverwrite.
I'm working on the upgrade feature for my WiX-based installer.
As part of the instalation, we are installing a web.config file and then using a custom action to update the connection strings inside the file.
But this causes a problem when we run our upgrade. We would like to have the RemoveExistingProducts scheduled for after InstallFinalize since this is most efficient in terms of not removing and reinstalling files that have not changed. But this leaves the original web.config file in place at the time when Windows Installer is trying to determine whether it should update it or not. Since it's last modified date is more recent than its creation date, Windows Installer decides not to update it (see versioning rules that Windows Installer uses). But we need it to be updated.
One obvious solution is to change the scheduling of RemoveExistingProducts to after InstallValidate - but this is inefficient, and also, I don't think it would give us the opportunity to migrate settings from existing files, should we need to do that.
Any other ideas?
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
How to Explicitly Remove dll During Majorupgrade Using Wix Toolset
Below is an older answer. I don't think option 2 works properly anymore:
There are many ways - none are ideal.
1: You can use a companion file to force update of the file in question. Provided the companion file specified always gets updated, this may be the way to go. Essentially this means that you link the non-versioned file to the version update logic of its companion file (files are updated together). I have never used this in WIX, but I think it's as easy as adding the CompanionFile attribute to a File element and point to the ID of the file you want to "version follow". Inside the MSI file it will look something like this:
2: You can use a custom action to delete the file before file costing (or better yet, rename it to a backup format). The problem is that if the setup fails the file will be missing. If you rename the file instead of deleting you can put it back in case the setup fails via a rollback custom action. Sometimes I use the RemoveFile table to remove files on install, but depending on the sequencing specified in InstallExecuteSequence this may not work (deletion must happen before msi does file costing).
3: Then there is the sledgehammer approach: set REINSTALLMODE = amus to force overwrite all files regardless of version. I shouldn't even mention this since it is horribly dangerous (you can end up overwriting system files, or on newer Windows versions trigger a nasty runtime error as files are protected). Use it only for dev testing, and don't think it is a quick fix. It causes more problems than it solves.
As a variation, an acceptable approach may be to set the REINSTALLMODE to emus (replace older and same version files). This can help if you don't want to increment the version numbers but keep rebuilding your binaries - as is the case in a lot of .NET. My guess is this will cause a whole new range of problems though - most significantly binary different but version identical files in the wild if you use it for public releases - a deployment smell if ever there was one. As a QA/DEV only approach it could work though. But seriously, why bother? Just auto-increment the build version of the binaries and the problem is solved reliably.
Links:
How to Explicitly Remove dll During Majorupgrade Using Wix Toolset
Only iffy ones. You could remove the specific file early with a custom action, but be sure to condition this right! Or you could specify a version for the file so upgrade rules will treat it like replacing a non-versioned file with a versioned one, but then patches can get antsy about having the wrong version of this file.
Don't use a custom action to update your config file is the other obvious idea. Instead get WIX to do the update via the XML extensions. E.g.
<Component Id="web.config" Guid="f12ff575-ad5f-47bc-a5c9-40b1e3a7f9f5" >
<File Source="$(var.SrcPath)\web.config.config" KeyPath="yes" />
<util:XmlConfig Id="AppSqlInstanceName"
File="[#web.config]"
Action="create"
ElementPath="//configuration/connectionStrings/add[\[]#name='YourStringKey'[\]]"
Name="connectionString"
Node="value"
Value="metadata=res://*/YourModel.csdl|res://*/YourModel.ssdl|res://*/YourModel.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string="data source=[SQLSERVERANDINSTANCE];initial catalog=DatabaseName;integrated security=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;App=EntityFramework""
On="install"/>
</Component>
This is using a [SQLSERVERANDINSTANCE] variable which needs to be setup before hand.
I have an application with several files that contain configuration parameters and other data that changes as the user uses the application. These files can change with newer versions of my software, but the user can also modify them (or they may be changed by the application itself). Basically, I'm looking for a solution to prevent the users' changes to these files from being overwritten but also a way to install the potentially updated files when the user upgrades my software.
With RPM on *NIX you could use the %config function to define a file as a configuration file and RPM would then rename the existing file (if it existed) and install the new one on an upgrade (maybe not ideal, but I could live with something like this for WiX).
I'd like to install my config files to a subdirectory or even a different name (e.g. default.cfg) and then use the <CopyFile> element in WiX to copy the files to their correct locations. This way, the default files would get removed on install and overwritten on an upgrade, but the actual user files would stay the same. Unfortunately with <CopyFile>, Windows Installer still wants to manage (and remove) the destination file.
I've also considered using the QtExec action in WixUtilExtension to basically do "copy default.cfg reallocation.cfg" but this wouldn't quite work and it is a bit of a hack.
What is the correct way to handle this?
My recommendation is usually to have the user editable content in a separate file and manage that via the application instead of the install. That also means the separate file is "user content" and should be left out of the install.
I've found trying to do migration of user data declaratively to be deceptively difficult. Trying to do it at setup time when you need to think through install, uninstall, repair, patching and rollback for all of those cases only makes it worse.
For example, what does the RPM behavior do on "repair". Copy the user data out of the way and replace it with a good file? That's probably correct 60% - 80% of the time. And uninstall, should the file be removed? That's tricky if the user is going to just upgrade to the next version.
Again, better to let them decide what to do with their tweaks to the configuration. IMHO.
I think there is no "clean" way to do this, because a msi project must be able to uninstall itself completely by design. I think the best way to solve this, is by using a custom action which executes a batch file and put your configfile update logic in that batch file. The custom action looks like this (only relevant parts):
<Directory Id="MYDIR" Name="MyDir">
<Component Id="update.cmd" Guid="YOUR-GUID">
<File Id="update.cmd" Name="update.cmd" KeyPath="yes"
Source="source\update.cmd" />
</Component>
</Directory>
<CustomAction Id='RunUpdate' Directory='MYDIR'
ExeCommand='[SystemFolder]cmd.exe /c update.cmd' Return='ignore'/>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action='RunUpdate' After='InstallFinalize'>NOT Installed</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>