How to avoid multiple installation/repair of same product using MSI Installer

Question

I want to make an MSI installer for my application and I also need to remotely deploy this application via active directory software deployment. I also need to make sure that this application is not installed multiple times and should not allow any repair or modification. To ensure this thing I have made ARPNOREPAIR=1 in my installer. This works fine if I try to install multiple instances manually or even silently. But I am facing problem when I am doing it using active directory. It always allow multiple installation which leads to a corrupt installation state. I want to is there any way I can make sure that multiple instances of the applications are not installed even if the versions are different.

Thanks

Answer 1

The easiest way to block all versions of a .msi package from being installed is to use the information provided by the UpgradeCode . You can find out if other versions of the related packages by adding the following (using WiX toolset syntax):

<Upgrade Id='PUT-UPGRADE-CODE-HERE'>
   <UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect='yes' Property='FOUND_RELATED_PACAKGE' />
</Upgrade>

That will set a Property named FOUND_RELATED_PACKAGE to the list of ProductCodes from already installed packages. Then you could block the install like so (using WiX toolset syntax):

<Condition Message='Another version of [ProductName] is already installed.">
    Installed OR NOT FOUND_RELATED_PACAKGE
</Condition>

Finally, it is very dangerous to block repair of an .msi package. There are many situations (including minor upgrade and patching) that depend on repair working for a package. It'd be much better to make your installation package resilient to repair since it is so fundamental to how things work.

Good luck!