[wix-users] How to disable append of package id to condition variables?

[Christopher Painter]

Or for a different opinion....

http://blog.iswix.com/2010/09/in-defense-of-merge-modules.html

FWIW, I've authored thousands of merge modules and earned a slightly obscene amount of money over the years doing it.   Merge modules can work very well or very poorly.


Now you can define a property and set the suppress attribute on it  and allow a property in the MSI to drive the condition in the MSM.   You'll get a build warning telling you not to do this but sometimes that is the right thing to do.  Sometimes it isn't.

I've worked on large installers (20+ products consuming different subsets of 200+ features, 2000+ merge modules, 20,000+ files )  and I would generally use conditions on components as the last resort.   Instead consider splitting your merge modules into more merge modules  and organizing them around when they should and shouldn't be installed.   Marry these merge modules up to features/subfeatures and have the MSI  control which feaures get installed  without being tightly coupled to conditions inside components.

This same concept can be equally applied to fragments, libraries, binary libraries and so on.  It's all very similar stuff  just  merge modules have the benefit  of  working with other toolsets  and the downside of a heavier encapsulation.

Regards,
Chris


-----Original Message-----
From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Bob Arnson via wix-users
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 1:03 PM
To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Cc: Bob Arnson <bob at firegiant.com>
Subject: Re: [wix-users] How to disable append of package id to condition variables?

Maybe we should repost our 10+-year-old blog posts and call them #vintage? #tbt?

-----Original Message-----
From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of Rob Mensching via wix-users
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October, 2018 13:54
To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Cc: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>
Subject: Re: [wix-users] How to disable append of package id to condition variables?

Use .wixlibs instead? http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2008/10/10/what-are-.wixlibs-and-why-would-you-use-them/

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 Short replies here. Complete answers over there: http://www.firegiant.com/


-----Original Message-----
From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of John Stevenson-Hoare via wix-users
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 5:35 AM
To: wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org
Cc: John Stevenson-Hoare <John.Stevenson-Hoare at ffei.co.uk>
Subject: [wix-users] How to disable append of package id to condition variables?

I am using WiX Toolset 3.11 from Visual Studio 2017 with WiX Toolset Visual Studio Extension 0.9.21.62588.

I have several WiX projects that build merge modules that are ultimately compiled in to a setup project. Many of the components in the merge modules install a file conditionally based on a property value defined as follows:

<Condition><![CDATA[(SERVER_SELECT_BUTTON=1 OR SERVER_SELECT_BUTTON=3)]]></Condition>

When I link, using light.exe, the process appends the package id to the property value so that the resulting condition in the merge module, as viewed in Orca, looks like the following:

(SERVER_SELECT_BUTTON.AED155B3_E75E_4DCF_BADD_1FC6015C6865=1 OR SERVER_SELECT_BUTTON.AED155B3_E75E_4DCF_BADD_1FC6015C6865=3)

Each merge module uses the same condition, but as the package id differs, I get many similar but clearly different conditions in the final setup project (.msi).

How can I prevent light.exe from appending the package id? My setup project needs the property parts of the conditions to be simply SERVER_SELECT_BUTTON otherwise the files are not installed.
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