A simpler way to add Windows Installer major upgrade functionality to your MSI in WiX v3.5

re: A simpler way to add Windows Installer major upgrade functionality to your MSI in WiX v3.5

Alan — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:11:00 GMT

Hi Aaron - Thanks for the update, and cheers for adding it to the documentation, I'm sure it'll help a lot of people out as I couldn't find anything else about this elsewhere.

re: A simpler way to add Windows Installer major upgrade functionality to your MSI in WiX v3.5

Aaron Stebner — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:57:18 GMT

Hi Alan - I looked at the WiX source code, and it will always use the property name WIX_UPGRADE_DETECTED when you use the MajorUpgrade element in your WiX authoring. This property can be used as a condition in other actions in your MSI just like if you set the property in an UpgradeVersion element. I talked a bit with Bob Arnson about this as well, and he believes that it is safe to use this property in this way, and so I'm going to add an item in the WiX documentation to make it "official" for this type of scenario (so that you don't have to rely on undocumented behavior in your installer).

re: A simpler way to add Windows Installer major upgrade functionality to your MSI in WiX v3.5

Alan — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:50:53 GMT

Thanks for the feedback. I took a look at an MSI which implements the MajorUpgrade element using Orca, and noticed a property called WIX_UPGRADE_DETECTED. Do you know if this works in a similar way to the Property attribute specified in an UpgradeVersion? I haven't had a chance to check it out myself, so just wondered if you knew anything about this property and whether it could be used (which would be ideal).

re: A simpler way to add Windows Installer major upgrade functionality to your MSI in WiX v3.5

Aaron Stebner — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:04:19 GMT

Hi Alan - The simplified MajorUpgrade element doesn't support this type of scenario. You will need to use the Upgrade and UpgradeVersion elements like Bob shows in the first example in his blog post at www.joyofsetup.com/.../major-upgrades-now-easier-than-ever if you need to set a property that will be used later on in your installation process.

re: A simpler way to add Windows Installer major upgrade functionality to your MSI in WiX v3.5

Alan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:12:16 GMT

When using the new MajorUpgrade element, is there a property set somewhere that can be evaluated elsewhere? In some situation it is useful to show a limited set of UI dialogs when doing an upgrade, so having the property in the old syntax was useful. Is there something similar I can use when using the MajorUpgrade element?