[wix-users] Issue with Default Web Site on uninstalling MSI

[Ven H]

Thanks a lot for the details, Edwin. Unfortunately, I am not sure if they
would be OK with creating a different website. In my case, our application
will be installed on a dedicated server. So, what I am thinking is to store
the Physical Path (which is probably the main thing required) of the
Default Web Site in registry and read that during uninstall using a
deferred CA and create a Default Web Site and apply this path after
uninstall. Looks like that is my only option. I hope I will get the
registry values in my deferred CA using an immediate CA and pass over those
to the deferred CA after uninstall.

Regards,
Venkatesh

On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 9:12 PM, Edwin Castro <egcastr at gmail.com> wrote:

> I haven't done this in like 5 years but you the behavior you are
> describing sounds just like the behavior I remember.
>
> We didn't try to determine if the behavior was correct or not. Instead we
> recognized that sharing (and modifying) a resource we did not create would
> lead to problems. Some other MSI could come along and modify/configure the
> default web site in a way that breaks us and we wouldn't know. So we
> decided to create a website for each web service we installed. Uninstall is
> now easy! Just remove the website.
>
> Note, if you insist in configuring the default web site, then you are
> respilonsible for detecting the original values for the settings you are
> configuring and saving the original values somewhere you can read them
> later, like during uninstall. WiX will not do that for you.
>
> Of course, for that to be beneficial you must have the ability to tell
> iis:WebSite to *not* remove the website at uninstall. I haven't checked but
> my memory was you couldn't do that. iis:WebSite effectively takes ownership
> of the default web site. Suppose you have two MSI installing a  multiple
> virtualdirs in the default web site. You will still delete the default
> website when you uninstall any of those MSI regardless of the order.
>
> You can have shared websites if that is something you want but you need a
> shared component that only configures the website and all MSI that install
> that shared component must do it exactly yue same way (same guid, key path,
> etc.) because you really, really have to follow the component rules
> correctly so that reference counting works correctly.
>
> My recomendation create your own website and leave the default website
> alone.
>
> --
> Edwin G. Castro
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 07:29 Ven H via wix-users <
> wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org> wrote:
>
>> I have an MSI through which I am configuring the Default Web site in IIS.
>> The markup looks like below.
>>
>> <Component Id="cmpDefaultWebSite"
>> Guid="4E02DA37-61AE-4648-97A2-3130E7FE50D8" Directory="APP_DIR"
>> KeyPath="yes">
>>         <iis:WebSite Id="DefaultWebSite" Description="Default Web Site"
>> ConfigureIfExists="yes" Directory="wwwroot" AutoStart="yes"
>> StartOnInstall="yes">
>>           <iis:WebAddress Id="DefaultWebSiteAddr" Secure="yes" Port="80"
>> />
>>         </iis:WebSite>
>>       </Component>
>>
>> Basically, we are adding some virtual directories and applications in the
>> Default Web Site, by referring to its Id, like below. There are many
>> components like below.
>>
>> <Component Id="cmpData" Guid="3A0FC121-533F-4637-ACC8-465730EB6378"
>> Directory="APP_DIR" KeyPath="yes">
>>         <iis:WebVirtualDir Id="Data" WebSite="DefaultWebSite" Alias="Data"
>> Directory="Data">
>>           <iis:WebApplication Id="Data" Name="Data"
>> WebAppPool="CustAppPool" />
>>         </iis:WebVirtualDir>
>>       </Component>
>>
>> Everything works fine as expected. But, when we uninstall the MSI, the
>> Default Web Site also seems to be getting removed, although the MSI is
>> only
>> configuring the Default Web Site during installation and not creating it.
>> So, during uninstall, the expectation is that, it will only rollback its
>> changes and not remove the Default Web Site.
>>
>> Can anyone please advise what could be wrong and how to fix it?
>>
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>