Problem We had a report of two MSIs that operate fine independently but when using Msimsp.exe [Windows Installer] to generate a patch, the following error was generated: ERROR: UpgradedImages.MsiPath 'c:\target\LeanMean.MSI' Drill Down Open...

A frequent question on the support lines for Windows Installer is ‘how do I do UI widget X or UI behavior y?’ While native Windows Installer UI has many widgets and behaviors occationally we have to say ‘Sorry, you can’t do that with native Windows Installer...

No. A type 38 custom action always returns success. You can’t halt the installation with it. The fine print for type 38 custom action on MSDN says: Return Values This custom action type always returns success. Which means one cannot stop the...

Earlier, in my blog , I digested a piece of a legacy internal troubleshooting document into the post: Troubleshooting: InstallValidate Nulled out my Request . Turns out there's more to this story. We've received a report of an Uninstall in which the REMOVE...

Design Question If a component is shared by multiple products, which product code does MsiGetProductCode return? Design Pointer Whichever one it finds first. There’s no guaranteed order. If you want to identify a specific product, then only query for...

Troubleshooting Question Can I physically navigate to the MSI source cache and see where my baseline file is backed up when I apply a patch? Troubleshooting Pointer It is in the %windir%\installer folder, but is marked as hidden/system. Yes, you can...

Problem We have a Spanish version of our product. We are building a Service Pack 1 patch for the same. In the RTM version of the product, the MSI Language ID is 1034, while the localized assemblies have language ID 3082. Now, when I try to apply this...

Problem On W2K3 SP1 machines, our package is failing with the following message while it is successful on W2K and WinXP. MSI (c) (64:08) [18:58:59:083]: Rejecting product '{guid}': Non-assigned apps are disabled for non-admin users. Contact your system...

Problem My MSI installs a service. The service creates temporary data under an installation folder (INSTALLDIR\Web) to a subfolder with a randomly generated name. When user uninstalls the product, I want to force delete the of these randomly generated...

The Windows Installer Team released a new version of PatchWiz (v4.0 Beta) to the Windows Installer Beta program today. For those of you who have used the current version of PatchWiz to create patches, you are probably familiar with the fact that it is...

As part of the ongoing MSDN Communities effort, the Windows Installer Team is pleased to announce the creation of the Windows Installer Team Blog.  Stay tuned for tips and tricks, announcements and other information from the Windows Installer Team. ...