Can I make registration of COM+ Applications conditional
Hi I'm trying to write a Basic MSI installer to install a COM+ Application.
My project so far has the appropriate COM+ Application ticked in the Component Services section, displays the LogonInformation dialog to get users details and sets the account the COM+ Application is to run as to those user details: Username=[IS_NET_API_LOGON_USERNAME] Password=[IS_NET_API_LOGON_PASSWORD]
The install installs the COM+ Application and everything looks correct.
The problem comes when I try an update. Regardless of what I do, I keep getting "Error 27508.Error installing COM+ application MyApp. The identity of password set on the application is not valid" because the IS_NET_API_LOGON_USERNAME hasn't been set (because I haven’t shown the LogonInformation dialog).
I would prefer not to have to run the LogonInformation dialog each time I do an update if I can possibly avoid it. My solution was not to bother with the COM+ registration side of things and only updates files, especially since I don't want to alter current configuration of the COM+ Application. I tried setting conditions on both the Features linked to the COM+ Application and on the Installation Type (Installation tab for the COM+ Application) but to no avail. I can't see any other likely conditions to try configuring.
Am I taking the wrong approach to this? Should I always display the LogonInformation dialog and insist on a valid username and password for each update?
This one has been a thorn in my side, too. There is no way to extract the password out of the COM+ parameters (you can extract the username), but if you don't have a valid UID/PWD combo during the upgrade it will fail. My solution was to add a UID/PWD dialog during upgrades as well as new installs. I also found that if both of those properties were set to NULL then the install would also work, so I allow a "set it later" option. The only other possible solution I could think of was to have the install store the info somewhere for later retrieval, but that was a security concern I wasn't willing to try to defend.
