[wix-users] Wix Bootstrapper Not Uninstalling Self Upgraded MSI

[Rob Mensching]

Again, think about what happens if during the uninstall, after this custom action executes, an error is encountered and the bundle has to rollback. How do you reinstall the package your custom action uninstalled?

Also, if your bundle is per-machine, consider what happens if a malicious MSI was installed per-user and your script decides to uninstall it elevated.

The lack of solutions to those problems (particularly the first one) are the reason there isn't a "more native" way to handle this today.


-----Original Message-----
From: Arjen Mercado <Arjen.Mercado at hamiltoncompany.com> 
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2020 7:15 AM
To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Cc: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>; Matthew McAtamney-Greenwood <matthew.greenwood at uka2.co.uk>
Subject: RE: [wix-users] Wix Bootstrapper Not Uninstalling Self Upgraded MSI

Hi All,

Thanks for the response, Matthew. That's the route I was heading but I wanted to make sure there were no cleaner (more native) way to handle this. This route would mean that I would add the custom action to the bundle with an uninstall condition to ensure the powershell script to uninstall the MSI is only run during a bundle uninstall. Is there any way to make the change to the MSI installer (also WiX project) directly and somehow keep that dependency link it has to its parent bundle when upgrading the MSI separately?


-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew McAtamney-Greenwood [mailto:matthew.greenwood at uka2.co.uk] 
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2020 12:23 AM
To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Cc: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>; Arjen Mercado <Arjen.Mercado at hamiltoncompany.com>
Subject: Re: [wix-users] Wix Bootstrapper Not Uninstalling Self Upgraded MSI

Hi All,

Just my tuppence worth, but I am by far an expert in these matters.

My understanding is that when a bundle is installed, all components are linked as dependencies in the installer catalogue on the machine.
When you upgrade a component separately, the new version doesn’t have that dependency link and so the bundle uninstall skips it.

I believe that is expected as if you were it install that component manually for another reason (maybe it is required for another app) then you would not want the bundle to uninstall it as then that would break the other apps that require it.

If you do want that ability because you are 100% sure you won’t break anything (e.g. you are in control of all deployments) then you could create a Custom Action instead that runs a PowerShell script to specifically uninstall that component regardless of version.
However, it is not advised to do this.

Regards,
Izzy 

> On 16 Apr 2020, at 03:46, Arjen Mercado via wix-users <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Rob,
> 
> Regarding your question “How would the bundle rollback the independent MSI after it was uninstalled?”, the bundle installed the MSI but it was upgraded independently. I would think the bundle would still be able to uninstall it when the bundle itself is uninstalled due to the MSI having the same upgradecode. Instead I am finding the MSI orphaned and left installed when uninstalling the bundle.
> ________________________________
> From: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2020 7:04:02 PM
> To: Arjen Mercado; WiX Toolset Users Mailing List; Hoover, Jacob
> Subject: RE: Wix Bootstrapper Not Uninstalling Self Upgraded MSI
> 
> I think I understood the question. I was leaving hints to help think through the full design to help understand the current behavior before attempting to work around it.
> 
> Short replies here. Complete answers here: https://www.firegiant.com/services/
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arjen Mercado <Arjen.Mercado at hamiltoncompany.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2020 1:59 PM
> To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>; Hoover, Jacob <Jacob.Hoover at greenheck.com>
> Cc: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>
> Subject: RE: Wix Bootstrapper Not Uninstalling Self Upgraded MSI
> 
> I may be doing a bad job explaining the issue. This post: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28618422/wix-bootstrapper-with-individual-upgraded-msi-wont-uninstall describes my exact issue and I'm trying to confirm if the answer given is correct and if so, is there a work around?
> 
> 
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