I've just encountered another couple of problems when testing chained MSI scenarios. For each MSI I am setting the ecoReinstallInstalled flag in the ISChainPackage table, and passing REINSTALLMODE="vomus" as the Install property:
1. If there is an error in the chained MSI, the whole installation invariably rolls back.
2. When running an installation that is trying to install an older version of the chained MSI, the MSI actually runs, whereas if the MSI is run standalone I get a message saying that a newer version is already installed. This is not a problem with respect to the actual components as the newer versions remain as per Windows Installer rules, but my Add/Remove Programs entry now erroneously shows the older version number.
Are there any settings to tell it to a) continue even if the chained MSI errors? And b) skip the installation if it is older than the currently installed version?
Any help with these issues would be much appreciated.
The main point of running packages as part of a single transaction is that they all succeed or fail together. Thus, if you want to be able to ignore errors from one of the packages, don't do it as part of your transaction. As one approach, you could move it to a prerequisite.
As for installing over newer versions, assuming you have major upgrades, and such, set up correctly, I don't know why that wouldn't prevent this. However it should be straightforward to compare versions as part of something which becomes the condition for a chained package.
Much as I wanted to avoid having to put in "pre-checks", I have now done this to prevent the chained msis from running if a newer version is already installed.
The latest problem I'm running into is that one of my chained msis is installed dependent on a feature selection in the main project. However, if the user runs a "modify" on the project and deselects that feature, the chained msi doesn't run to remove the product. I've set a Removal Condition of "&Feature=2" as mentioned in the recent White Paper, but this doesn't appear to have the desired effect.
Basically I am having the same problem. But I am not quite sure on how to implement the solution of giving the elevated privileges to the .msi package. Could any one help me with any property change that may help. Or if any install script is written then with the actual script that needs to be scripted.
But the script is not calling the .exe package that it is supposed to launch. Am I missing anything? Do I need to include any more custom actions or anything? Please help
