I am creating my installer msi using WIX.
My older application is already installed on machine when I am installing newer version of the application then it removes all files and assembly of older version and put newer version files and assembly but in programs and features of control panel shows both older and newer version.
I am using following code for upgrade
<Upgrade Id="$(var.UpgradeCode)">
<UpgradeVersion Minimum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMinimum="no" OnlyDetect="yes" Language="!(loc.lcid)" Property="NEWPRODUCTFOUND"/>
<UpgradeVersion Minimum="1.0.0.0" IncludeMinimum="yes" Maximum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMaximum="no" Language="!(loc.lcid)" Property="UPGRADEFOUND"/>
</Upgrade>
<CustomAction Id="PreventDowngrading" Error="!(loc.CustomAction_PreventDowngrading)"/>
<InstallUISequence>
<Custom Action="SetWindowsTypeProp" Before="FindRelatedProducts">1</Custom>
<!--Custom Action="SetPresenceProperties" After="SetWindowsTypeProp">1</Custom-->
<Custom Action="PreventDowngrading" After="FindRelatedProducts">NEWPRODUCTFOUND</Custom>
</InstallUISequence>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="PreventDowngrading" After="FindRelatedProducts">NEWPRODUCTFOUND</Custom>
<RemoveExistingProducts Before="InstallInitialize"/>
</InstallExecuteSequence>
Please help me how to remove entry from programs and features
This means your MajorUpgrade isn't working. FindRelatedProducts isn't finding the older version and therefore REmoveExistingProducts isn't working. For recent versions of WiX you can remove a lot of this code and replace it with the newer MajorUpgrade element. It's a higher level abstraction that simplifies much of this authoring.
In order to have a successful MajorUpgrade several things have to happen:
1) Old and New MSI have to have the same UpgradeCode GUID. (Although it's technically possible for an MSI to remove unrelated Products by using additional UpgradeCode properties we'll ignore this for the purpose of this question.)
2) Old and New MSI must have unique ProductCode GUIDs.
3) New MSI must have a higher version ProductVersion property. Please note that only the first 3 numbers are evaluated. ( 1.2.3 -> 1.2.4 works 1.2.3.4 -> 1.2.3.5 does not )
4) Old MSI and New MSI must be installed in the same context ( Per User->Per User or Per Machine -> Per Machine )
5) Upgrade Table must be authored correctly. Use the MajorUpgrade element to assist in this.
I have installed major upgrade (say #206) successfully and included code as in (#206):
<Upgrade Id="$(var.ProductUpgradeCode)">
<UpgradeVersion Minimum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMinimum="no" OnlyDetect="yes" Language="1033" Property="NEWPRODUCTFOUND" />
<UpgradeVersion Minimum="1.0.0.178" IncludeMinimum="yes" Maximum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMaximum="no" Language="1033" Property="UPGRADEFOUND" />
</Upgrade>
Scenario is:
I have installed build #177 then upgraded to build #206. It is still allowed to install #177 which I want to prevent this downgrade.
From build #178 onward I have changed product GUID for major upgrade and which is working fine.
Please suggest how to prevent this. I don't want to downgrade build below 177. If I have done major upgrade on build no <= 177.
Your problem is the how the comparison of versions is done in MSI by default - 1.0.0.123 is treated the same as e.g. 1.0.0.33. You either have to increase your revision version to make the installer detect this as an older version or use a workaround.
You might for instance create a custom action to check against this very Revision version and place it e.g. before InstallValidate:
<CustomAction Id='MyVersionCheck' Return='check' (...) />
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action='MyVersionCheck' Before='InstallValidate' />
</InstallExecuteSequence>
Some more information can be found in this article, for informations about how to create custom actions i'd recommend this blog entry as a starting point.
I am creating a WIX installer for our software and now I have some issue when upgrading from previous Windows Installer packaged SW.
One thing before the problem, the upgrade from one WIX packaged SW to another WIX packaged SW is actually working fine, I am able to uninstall the older version and install the newer version. The real problem happens when the older version is Windows Installer packaged (which is our current solution) and the newer version is WIX packaged. Basically my WIX installer is unable to find out that a older version is already installed, so the newer version will be installed without uninstalling the old version.
How I make the connection between WIX installer and Windows installer: I set the UpgradeCode of WIX as the same as Windows installer one. I also check some examples online, and they suggest my current solution should work. Here is part of my .wxs file of the upgrade part:
<Upgrade Id="$(var.UpgradeCode)">
<UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="yes" Minimum="$(var.VersionNumber)" Property="NEWPRODUCTFOUND" IncludeMinimum="no" />
<UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="no" Maximum="$(var.VersionNumber)" Property="UPGRADEFOUND" IncludeMaximum="no" />
</Upgrade>
<CustomAction Id="PreventDowngrading" Error="A software with newer version number is found on this machine" />
<InstallUISequence>
<Custom Action="PreventDowngrading"
After="FindRelatedProducts">NEWPRODUCTFOUND</Custom>
</InstallUISequence>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="PreventDowngrading"
After="FindRelatedProducts">NEWPRODUCTFOUND</Custom>
<RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallFinalize" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>
One thing might be worth mentioning is our SW is actually a Windows Service, I am not sure whether that matters. Thanks for any help!
Having the same upgradecode is not enough. You must also check that the two packages have the same install type, i.e. they both get installed per-user or per-machine. If the install type is different Windows Installer will skip the removal of the old version.
We use wix to create our setups. For upgrading, we use major upgrades as demonstrated in this answer by Rob Mensching. (In newer wix versions you can use the MajorUpgrade element.) This normally works well. The old product is removed, then the new product is installed.
However, apparently the above is not completely equivalent to manually uninstalling the old product and then manually installing the new product.
Consider for example the following scenario:
version 1.0 of our product is released, containing version 5.0 of a thirdparty dll
version 1.1 of our product is released, containing version 5.1 of the same thirdparty dll
version 1.2 of our product is released, downgrading to version 5.0 of the thirdparty dll again because we discovered that the new version introduced more problems than it solved.
Apparently with the wix upgrade logic linked above, the 3rdparty dll will disappear when upgrading from release 1.1 to 1.2. A repair is necessary to restore it.
Is there another way to upgrade, which would work for this scenario? I guess what I am looking for is upgrade logic which allows the downgrading of components, by behaving exactly as if one manually uninstalls the old product and then manually installs the new product.
We also encountered this problem where lower-versioned DLLs were not getting reinstalled on a major upgrade. I thought it was strange that the installer would decide which files to install based on the versioning of existing files, then completely uninstall everything, but still only install what what files had been determined to install before uninstalling the old product. This seems like it might be a bug in Windows Installer...
To fix this problem we moved the RemoveExistingProducts action above the CostFinalize action.
I know the documentation on MSDN recommends placing the RemoveExistingProducts afterInstallValidate, and I'm not sure if putting it before the InstallValidate action has any negative side effects for minor upgrades, but we have decided to only perform major upgrades for our products so this solution appears to work for us.
Behaviors like this generally have to do with the sequencing of RemoveExistingProducts. If it occurs late enough, Windows Installer will have figured out that there's a newer version of the .dll on the machine, so version 1.2 doesn't need to install it. However when the RemoveExistingProducts results in removing the .dll, nothing puts it back.
Things to try including changing the sequencing of RemoveExistingProducts, and lying about the version of the .dll in your 1.2 package (report a version number higher than the bad one). The downside of the latter is poor impacts on repairs or patching, as the .dll always looks out of date.
Try to schedule RemoveExistingProducts earlier, right after InstallValidate, and change the value of REINSTALLMODE property to amus. This way the old product will be completely removed before any files from the new product are copied, and a mode will force re-install of the files.
It's sub-optimal, but I fixed the same problem by renaming the third party dll and changing the GUID on the component node associated with it in the .wxs file.
Years later, this thread helped me in the right direction. An example for completeness with RemoveExisitingProducts moved before costing:
<Upgrade Id="UPGRADE-GUID-HERE">
<UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="no" Property="UPGRADABLEFOUND"
Maximum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMaximum="yes" />
<UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="yes" Property="NEWERFOUND"
Minimum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMinimum="no" />
</Upgrade>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<Custom Action="NoDowngrade" After="FindRelatedProducts">NEWERFOUND</Custom>
<RemoveExistingProducts Before="CostInitialize" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>
<CustomAction Id="NoDowngrade" Error="A newer version of $(var.ProductName) is already installed." />
Here's my final solution based on the answer given by #Spacemani.
It produces MSI table entries (Upgrade, LaunchCondition etc.) similar to this
<MajorUpgrade DowngradeErrorMessage="!(loc.DowngradeErrorMessage)" />
but gives you full control of the InstallExecuteSequence.
<!-- Product upgrade -->
<Upgrade Id="$(var.UpgradeCode)">
<UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="no" Property="WIX_UPGRADE_DETECTED"
Maximum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMaximum="no" IncludeMinimum="no"
MigrateFeatures="yes" />
<UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="yes" Property="WIX_DOWNGRADE_DETECTED"
Minimum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMinimum="no" />
</Upgrade>
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<RemoveExistingProducts Before="CostInitialize" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>
<Condition Message="!(loc.DowngradeErrorMessage)">NOT WIX_DOWNGRADE_DETECTED</Condition>
Note that you need to suppress ICE27 errors in your .wixproj file like this.
<PropertyGroup>
<SuppressIces>ICE27</SuppressIces>
</PropertyGroup>
I have a major upgrade that I am trying to do, but it just doesn't work. It simply installs the new program along side the old one. They are in different directories (as I changed the directory structure with the new version) so there are no conflicts, but the old one NEEDS to be erased in order for my product to function properly.
<Property Id="UPGRADE_NEEDED" Secure="yes" />
<Property Id="SAME_OR_NEWER_VERSION" Secure="yes" />
<InstallExecuteSequence>
<RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallFinalize" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>
<Upgrade Id="{PUT-YOUR-GUID-HERE}">
<UpgradeVersion Minimum="5.1.3" OnlyDetect="yes" IncludeMinimum="yes" Property="SAME_OR_NEWER_VERSION" />
<UpgradeVersion Minimum="5.1" Maximum="5.1.3" Language="1033" Property="UPGRADE_NEEDED" MigrateFeatures="yes" IncludeMinimum="yes" />
That is my upgrade elements (with GUID removed of course). If anyone can find where the problem lies I would greatly appreciate it.
There are some general rules for an upgrade to be working:
Old and new products must have identical UpgradeCode values and
different ProductCode values.
Old and new products must have identical values for
InstallAllUsers [i.e. a per-machine
installation cannot upgrade a per-user
installation and vice-versa.]
New product's setup Version (the setup project, nothing to do with file
versions) must be higher.
All setup versions (again, not file versions) must be 1.0 or greater.
Further details how to correctly implement an upgrade using WiX can be found in this thread:
How to implement WiX installer upgrade?