I have a basic MSI project that consists of several features. We do not advertise the features, but simply use them to organize all the files. The files in particular that are not consistently self-healing themselves are xml files. What I am seeing is that when the files are in the parent feature, they self heal properly, but if they are in a child feature they do not.
Is there an explanation on why this could be happening?
Repairs are triggered by corruption of keys files of components and effect all of the components in the feature to which said component belongs to.
That said, XML files are non-versioned files so the only type of repair I might expect is to replace a missing xml file. An xml file that has been modified by the user typically wouldn't be 'repaired' since it now has user data and the default file versioning rules would prevent this unless you use version lying ( 'Always Overwrite' ).
It's hard to be more specific without looking at your actual installer and log file.
Repair is triggered through several ways. Advetised shortcuts, File Extensions, COM Activation. Even if your XML file is a keyfile, there would have to be another component that has a keyfile with one of the both repair entry points to trigger the repair automatically.
It's also possible for you to write MSI calls inside of your application to enhance this capability.
