[wix-users] Current state of driver deployment

[Phill Hogland]

In the provided link, I agree with jonks, Thomas S, and Bob's comments.  In my experience the problem is generally in the design of the driver or the driver's class installer.   Some types of drivers, like file system filter drivers are non-deterministic in unloading.  In this regard I previously posted some links to onlineocr.net regarding related discussions about getting filter drivers to unload more reliably.   While DifxApp was intended primarily to support PnP drivers it can be used to install some of these other kinds of drivers, but the behavior is at the mercy of the underling Driver Management APIs.  I doubt that there is a DifxApp fix that is possible in those situations.  I have not had issues using the WixDifxExtension with PnP drivers, but I would expect some issues when used with other types of non-deterministic drivers.

________________________________________
From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> on behalf of Rob Hamflett <robworksn at outlook.com>
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2016 9:08 AM
To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List
Subject: [wix-users] Current state of driver deployment

Hi all,

I'm having on-going problems with DIFXApp and I just wanted to check in
and see if this is still the expected way to deal with driver
installation, and whether anything has gotten better since the
information discovered in this thread:

http://windows-installer-xml-wix-toolset.687559.n2.nabble.com/DIFxApp-does-not-properly-rollback-to-the-old-driver-when-doing-a-major-upgrade-td5821359.html

As pointed out in the thread, it really seems that the expected method
of installing drivers does not at all fit well with software deployment.
Is this still the case? There's a recurring issue where the DIFXApp
custom actions leave things in a broken state, and a repair is needed to
correct the issue (even to uninstall). This mainly seems to be an issue
with rollback, but given the occurrences we're seeing here, that can't
be the only thing causing it. From reading the link above, it seems that
DIFXApp won't be fixed, and that it might not even be possible. Has
anything changed in the years since that thread? I have looked online
for updated information several times and I always keep coming back to
the same information.

Thanks,
Rob

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