WIX Installer upgrade

Question

I am trying to create an MSI using WIX and I seem to have stumbled across a small issue that is confusing me a bit in regards to the upgrade. I have followed about 3 tutorials on the subject and each one gives me the same result. When I try to upgrade the application I get a generic

Another version of this product is already installed.

message. After looking around I saw that in order to successfully upgrade I need to specify a new Product GUID. This seemed odd to me because the main WiX website said that that is only needed for major installs. Since I wasn't getting much luck I decided to go with it. Lo and behold it successfully executed the installer, but when I checked in Add/Remove Programs I now had 2 copies of the application installed. This is driving me crazy. Please see the below .wxs and please show me my errors where applicable.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">

<Product Id="PRODUCT-GUID-GOES-HERE-B86BCC79EEFD" Name="Sample Application" Language="1033" Version="$(var.ProductVersion)" Manufacturer="Sample Inc." UpgradeCode="$(var.UpgradeCode)">
    <Package Id="*" Keywords="Installer" Platform="x64" InstallerVersion="200" InstallPrivileges="elevated" InstallScope="perMachine" Compressed="yes" />

<Upgrade Id="$(var.UpgradeCode)">
  <UpgradeVersion Minimum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMinimum="no" OnlyDetect="yes" Language="1033" Property="NEWPRODUCTFOUND" />
  <UpgradeVersion Minimum="$(var.RTMProductVersion)" IncludeMinimum="no" Maximum="$(var.ProductVersion)" IncludeMaximum="no" Language="1033" Property="UPGRADEFOUND" />
</Upgrade>

    <Media Id="1" Cabinet="media1.cab" EmbedCab="yes" />

    <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
        <Directory Id="ProgramFiles64Folder">
    <Directory Id="Sample" Name="Sample">
      <Directory Id="INSTALLLOCATION" Name="Sample Application">
        <!-- TODO: Remove the comments around this Component element and the ComponentRef below in order to add resources to this installer. -->
        <Component Id="SampleApplication" Guid="APPLICATION-GUID-GOES-HERE-c7247f5d1b42" Win64="yes">
        <!-- TODO: Insert files, registry keys, and other resources here. -->
          <File Id="SampleEXE" Name="Sample.exe" Source="Sample.exe" ProcessorArchitecture="x64" KeyPath="yes" />
        </Component>
      </Directory>
    </Directory>
        </Directory>
    </Directory>

    <Feature Id="Complete" Title="sample64" Level="1">
        <!-- TODO: Remove the comments around this ComponentRef element and the Component above in order to add resources to this installer. -->
        <ComponentRef Id="SampleApplication" />

        <!-- Note: The following ComponentGroupRef is required to pull in generated authoring from project references. -->
        <ComponentGroupRef Id="Product.Generated" />
    </Feature>

<CustomAction Id="NoDowngrade" Error="A later version of [ProductName] is already installed." />

<InstallExecuteSequence>
  <Custom Action="NoDowngrade" After="FindRelatedProducts">NEWPRODUCTFOUND</Custom>
  <RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallFinalize" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>

<InstallUISequence>
  <Custom Action="NoDowngrade" After="FindRelatedProducts">NEWPRODUCTFOUND</Custom>
</InstallUISequence>

</Product>
</Wix>

Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

Set Product/@Id to "*" to get automatic product code changes and use the MajorUpgrade element . For more context, see my blog .