[wix-users] DetectCondition for MsuPackage for KB3033929

[robert_yang at agilent.com]

"So is there any way to put a DetectCondition? Alternately is there any
other way that I can incorporate installing this particular MSU file and
then chain my current .MSI?"

We were looking at installing a .MSU for a Windows Hotfix earlier in the year (we are bundling MongoDB with this particular application, which on Windows 7 requires a certain Windows Hotfix if running as a service).  There is an API for detecting installed Windows Updates, but we found it somewhat unreliable, at least for the .MSU Microsoft sent us (if you uninstall the hotfix, the API reports it as still installed).  It is possible to use MsuPackage element in your bundle, and you would need a custom action which calls the API from your bafunctions.dll and sets an engine variable accordingly (if you have a custom bootstrapper application this is easier of course).

The annoying thing was that the hotfix itself seemed to know reliably whether or not it was installed, via some mechanism that Microsoft hasn't seen fit to publish publicly.  That and the silent hotfix installation would fail intermittently.  It was a nightmare, and we eventually settled on an application change which did not require the hotfix (via not running MongoDB as a service).

-Rob