Having a string in a MSI / WiX version number

Question

I'm trying to convert our NSIS setup to a WiX/MSI based one. I used to use version numbers like 1.0.4 or 1.0.4.898, which works fine. However when I make a beta, I call it 1.0.4beta1, which is different from 1.0.4 (for example, it says 'beta' in the aboutbox, so it's actually build with different preprocessor #defines). This doesn't seem to be possible with WiX, the Version attribute of a Product can only contain a 'xxxx' string. How do I encode free-text status in the version string, like beta or demo status? Thanks.

Answer 1

Windows Installer doesn't allow this (it encodes the ProductVersion property into a DWORD registry value). You must instead place your custom version string in another property.