Good to know! Hopefully WiX compiler can catch these errors in the future. What you described looked very similar to my past experience but, checking the old forum posts I see that it caused a different error: 1328.
Basically I had a case like: RTM.msi Update1.msi Update2.msi ... etc. My first patch targeted RTM.msi with update Update1.msi My second patch targeted Update1.msi with update Update2.msi. Note that I haven't targeted RTM.msi in the second patch. In this way I was producing patches that had only a preceding build as the target and patching worked until the third patch application. Why would one patch in this way? Well, patches between two consecutive update builds are noticeably smaller that the patches that target also the base RTM build. Not finding any good explanation of this error I eventually gave up on this approach and now I always target RTM. -----Original Message----- From: Shawn Dwyer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 11:24 PM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Patching fails with 1627 Thanks for the feedback and the helpful links. I've read all of Heath's blogs a few times, as well as all the other blogs and any Wix or MSI documentation I could find. I hadn't come across the white paper yet though so I'll be reading through that soon. Thanks for the link. Unfortunately as Tony mentions the information, if even out there, is scattered and seemingly incomplete. Most examples show you how to make a simple first patch that updates one file, but there don't seem to be any examples of more complex patching (with custom actions for example) or examples of creating subsequent patches and the different ways of doing it. Tony - In essence I was doing what you suggested. I had full installers that I was targeting for each patch: RTM - Patch1 TargetImage RTMPostBuild1 (removed launch condition) - Patch1 UpgradeImage and Patch2 TargetImage RTMPostBuild2 (updated file1 and adds directory2/file2) - Patch2 UpgradeImage and Patch3 TargetImage RTMPostBuild3 (updated file1 and adds directory3/file3) - Patch3 UpgradeImage After getting your feedback I decided to go back and just have each of the patches target the RTM just for fun. Patch2 built as expected but Patch3 still didn't build! Comparing Patch2.wxs and Patch3.wxs I changed one property at at time, until the only thing left that was different was the PatchCreation Id and the Id of the TargetImage element. I reread the MsiIntel.SDK\Patching\Readme.doc and sure enough this field is limited to 13 characters, and I had 15. I picked a shorter name and everything builds and installs/uninstalls now as expected. So for anyone else running into this issue, apparently one of the causes could be too many characters in the Id field of the TargetImage element, which has a max length of 13 characters. The same for the UpgradeImage element. For future reference is there a good way to debug PatchWiz errors? Or at least a list of the error codes and what the mean? Thanks again, Shawn ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users