upgrade not updating most files

[Kelter]

Basic MSI.

During a minor upgrade, most of my files are not being replaced. A few things looked odd to me:

1. even though ReinstallModeText is set to vemus, the installation log shows vomus is being set when i run the minor upgrade. Why would this happen? Checking the log confirms that ReinstallModeText is vomus.

2. if i run a repair after running the upgrade, then the old versions of files overwrite the new ones. this seems to defy the "v" in vomus/vemus. Why should this happen?

3 During InstallValidate, those components that are not being installed have their Feature Action set to Reinstall, yet their components are all (Installed: Local; Request: Null; Action: Null)

I did not change the upgrade code, the product code, feature codes, or component codes. (if i had, it shouldn't have known that the states of these components was Installed.)

Under what conditions could this be the case?

[TsungH]

ReinstallModeText property is a built-in InstallShield private property used during maintenance mode to set REINSTALLMODE Property, which is really what you should be looking at, using ReinstallMode ControlEvent.

Kelter wrote:
1. even though ReinstallModeText is set to vemus, the installation log shows vomus is being set when i run the minor upgrade. Why would this happen? Checking the log confirms that ReinstallModeText is vomus.

2. if i run a repair after running the upgrade, then the old versions of files overwrite the new ones. this seems to defy the "v" in vomus/vemus. Why should this happen?

[Kelter]

thanks for your reply!

The reinstallmode action properly set the reinstallmode, but the real problem still persists. do you have any insight into the other questions?

i should note that these components are part of a merge module, but the module id is still the same and the component names are the same. the feature tree has not changed, and the package is structured the same as it was before. I have one file per component and that file is the key file.

the most direct question, i believe, that needs to be answered is, regarding the (Installed: Local; Request: Null; Action: NULL). How can that happen if the parent feature is (Installed: Local; Request: Reinstall; Action: Reinstall), REINSTALL=ALL, REINSTALLMODE=vemus, and IS_MINOR_UPGRADE is set by the setup.exe.

[TsungH]

Perhaps, shooting in the dark here, there is a condition on the component. In any case, there should be a reason for the behavior. The values of Installed/Request/Action are the determination made by Windows Installer; to understand why, you will need to look earlier in the sequence, probably in CostFinalize Action.

If you have not, please refer to Checking the Installation of Features, Components, Files.

[Kelter]

thanks again!

in the UI sequence, REINSTALLMODE doesn't get set to vemus until after the costing actions, but in the execute sequence, REINSTALLMODE is set to vemus before the costing actions. in fact it's part of the CommandLine listed right at the top of the InstallExecute action.

there are no component conditions.

[Richard_Winks]

When I had a similar problem in the past it was because from one minor version to the next I had removed a component definition.

During execution of the upgrade installation all seemed to behave as normal but I found no new file content after completion. The Add/Remove entry indicated the new version.

If I simply left the component definition but deleted its content the minor upgrade replaced old files with new files. It did not delete the old content for the deleted component.

Richard

[Kelter]

I was going to post this as soon as i'd actually finished my testing, but i found a post on installsite which suggested looking for SELMGR errors. That actually pointed me to... a removed component! It seems like strange behavior that a missing component would just completely nullify all of the components in a package.

Thanks for your post, Richard! We appear to have converged!

[TsungH]

I would have never guessed it, a removed component! It would have required a major upgrade.

Good to know the behavior.

[Kelter]

Glad i'm not alone in my confusion! The funny thing is that i didn't even intend to remove that component. it was added to our previous release after we'd branched in source control, and i didn't integrate the change into the main branch. oops.

thanks again!