[wix-users] Reboot to replace in use file results in incorrect Date Created

[Tyler Gustafson]

I think this may be a windows installer issue (not Wix) but I wanted to post here to see if anyone else has experienced it, seen any documentation on it, or knows where I can look for log files telling me what is happening after the system reboots.

For reasons I won't defend we have a legacy installer which is not in control of it's service and doesn't automatically stop the thing on an upgrade. This keeps a .jar file in use if the tech forgets to stop the service manually and causes the installer to require a reboot on minor upgrades.

After upgrading but before rebooting I check the logs and find entries like these:
File: C:\foo\bar.jar;         Overwrite;          Won't patch;      Existing file is unversioned and unmodified - hash doesn't match source file
Info 1603.The file C:\foo\bar.jar is being held in use.  Close that application and retry.
Info 1903.Scheduling reboot operation: Deleting file C:\foo\bar.jar. Must reboot to complete operation.
Info 1902.Scheduling reboot operation: Renaming file C:\foo\TBMF1A5.tmp to C:\foo\bar.jar. Must reboot to complete operation.

Checking the files at this point I find:
Bar.jar
                Created                 11/05/2017
                Modified             11/05/2017
TBMF1A5.tmp
                Created                12/05/2017
                Modified             12/05/2017

Next after a reboot I find that bar.jar has been replaced with the tmp file as the logs indicated it would be but although it's modified date has been properly updated, it has kept the created date of the original file.
                Created                11/05/2017
                Modified             12/05/2017
(Note these tests are done on 29/05/2017. The dates are coming from the files themselves not today's date.)

If I either do a fresh install, or the same upgrade path but stop my service first (no reboot required), bar.jar turns out correctly
                Created                12/05/2017
                Modified             12/05/2017

If anyone has some insight into this it would be greatly appreciated. I am trying to do minor upgrades and patches but because this unversioned file potentially gets modified > created, the next time I do a minor upgrade it's considered locally modified and doesn't get updated. You wouldn't expect a .jar file to end up locally modified and this guy's gone undetected in the past.

Thanks,
Tyler Gustafson
Solacom Technologies, Inc.
tgustafson at solacom.com