Diagnosing PackageCode is not unique

[petritisHexagon]

I am trying to make a second patch. (I am using InstallShield 2016)

I have the original installer, and a first patch in a couple directories.

My .ism file in InstallShield has those 2 installers referenced in "Media -> Patch Design", then "Patch Design -> PatchConfiguration -> Latest -> Previous Setups" and the correct paths to their .msi files are shown.

When I try to make a new patch with:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield\2016\System\IsCmdBld.exe" -x -p MyProduct.ism -patch_config "PatchConfiguration"

It fails with:

ISDEV : error Val0003: The package code for the latest setup does not differ from that of the previous version. In order to perform an upgrade the package code MUST change. c:\patchconstruction\server\16.7.0.1\admin\MyProduct.msi

In the log file it makes I see this error:

ERROR: TargetImages.Target = 'PrevFull2': PackageCode {492FED04-153A-472C-8D82-CC061ADA3C45} is not unique.

I cannot figure out where that PackageCode is coming from.

I looked in my new .ism and the 2 older ones, they don't contain that GUID.   I opened the .msi files associated with them in InstallShield and looked at the "Installation -> General Information" setting for "Package Code" and could not find that value.

I tried Orca to see if I could find it, but I couldn't find PackageCode in it.

I would like to fix the problem, I suspect that if I can figure out where that "not unique" PackageCode is, that I can then figure out how to make it unique.

So, any ideas about how I can find that PackageCode?

Or even better, how can I fix the problem where it will not build a new patch.

[MarkusLatz · Accepted solution]

The "Package Code" is stored in the "Summary Information" Stream and you can see it in InstallShield here:

In Orca you can verify the Package Code here:

To generate a new package code every time you build a msi you can activate the following option in InstallShield:

regards

Markus

[petritisHexagon]

Finding the value in Orca pointed me to the fix.  I was able to see that my previous patches PackageCode was indeed what InstallShield was erroring about, and the other versions of the code clearly did not have the same GUID.

So the only way I could think of it being "non unique" was that the same patch was being included twice.  And clicking around in "Media -> Patch Design" and "Patch Design -> PatchConfiguration", I saw that the tree parent of the Previous Setups, was itself pointing to my last Patch.

So the last patch was included twice, causing the error about the PackageCode being non unique.

Specifically my previous patch was included 2 times:
* Once as "Patch Design -> PatchConfiguration -> Latest -> Previous Setups -> PrevFull2"

* Once as "Patch Design -> PatchConfiguration -> Latest"