A bit of a shameless plug here, but it sounds like your needs might be in line with what I was once attempting. During our development life cycle, we have multiple instances of the same core payload (Develop, Test, Live, etc) but from different points in time. Instead of cutting independent MSI's for each instance, I wanted to use embedded instance transforms to accomplish the same thing. For me, I wanted to have a unique UpgradeCode and ProductCode for each instance so it would be easy to independently detect and service.
Wix 3.x out of the box didn't meet all my needs, so I submitted a small patch (http://wix.codeplex.com/SourceControl/network/forks/jchoover/Instances/contribution/1652) that allows you to specify the ProductCode and UpgradeCode as attributes on your Instances/Instance element. All the testing I did on this patch appeared to function, however I never got to writing unit tests or updating the Wix documentation and the change was never accepted into the main Wix source repository. For now I have decided against Instance transforms due to time constraints and the increase in complexity they create. My current solution is to cut a unique MSI file per named instance I wish to support but don't embed any of the CAB files so that they all can share the same data payload. I would ask yourself what are the business requirements that are driving you to want to install two instances of the same product, and see if there is a simpler way of accomplishing it. Jacob -----Original Message----- From: Sven Riede [mailto:sven.ri...@alliedvisiontec.com] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 2:17 AM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Installing multiple versions of the sameproduct under the same upgrade code Hi John, Thanks for the hint to instance transforms. I did not know about that. But as far as I understood, it is good for installing multiple instances of the _same_ product. That is not what I want. I want to have different versions of the same application to be installed in parallel. I did some testing in the meantime. I created two MSI packages that are mostly the same. They share the same upgrade code, but have different product and package IDs and different version numbers. Furthermore they install into different folders on the target machine. I also added some DLLs as components. One of them got a newer version in the newer MSI, but the component IDs itself were not changed. The result is exactly what I wanted: both versions can be installed on the target machine at the same time and the new DLL is copied to the folder of the new package only, the old package still has the old DLL. But I have a dim feeling that there might be something wrong, because I still do not fully understand all concepts of Windows installer programming. Can anyone see a problem in this scenario? Thanks, Sven -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: John Cooper [mailto:jocoo...@jackhenry.com] Gesendet: Mittwoch, 2. Mai 2012 15:03 An: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Betreff: Re: [WiX-users] Installing multiple versions of the same product under the same upgrade code You want an installer designed to use instance transforms. It can be tricky and a lot of authoring has to be done manually to make it all work, but I do have one installer that currently supports up to 16 instance transforms. -- John Merryweather Cooper Build & Install Engineer - ESA Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.(r) Shawnee Mission, KS 66227 Office: 913-341-3434 x791011 jocoo...@jackhenry.com www.jackhenry.com -----Original Message----- From: Sven Riede [mailto:sven.ri...@alliedvisiontec.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 2:07 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [WiX-users] Installing multiple versions of the same product under the same upgrade code Hi, I want to have multiple versions of the same product to live on the target machine at the same time. Each of them has its own installer. To have a common key for all versions I would like to share the upgrade code. From what I have learned so far, the upgrade code is good for a major upgrade that uninstalls the older version. But is it safe to use the same upgrade code for multiple versions without uninstalling the older ones? I have seen that Microsoft does it - among others - for the MSVC 2005 Redistributables. Does anyone have experiences with this? Thanks, Sven ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ WiX-users mailing list WiX-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wix-users NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended exclusively for the individual or entity to which it is addressed. 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