I'm not familiar with this message, so here are a couple questions. Does the minor upgrade succeed (with or without reboot) if you aren't running your application? Do you actually update a file that is being held in use (has your exe or one of its core dll files had its version increased and built into the minor ugprade)? What sort of setup error are you seeing, and what are the log lines related to it (I wouldn't expect any errors for a required reboot)? ... View more

I can't think of any great ways to handle this. The bright side is that running repair on the broken app should fix it. If I understand correctly, the root of the issue is you had a resource which was partially private, and partially shared, and reported to WI as different components each time it was installed: the server dll or exe was private to each install; its registry data was shared; and each install of it was in a component with a new GUID. Perhaps ensuring the component has the same GUID might be enough in the future, assuming the COM data doesn't change significantly. Recent versions of InstallShield (perhaps just IS2009 and up) are much more careful about reproducing the same Registry table keys for the same Registry data, so between those two parts, it just might work out. If that's the case, just be careful about selecting the same component code in the future each time yo use this file, and perhaps write a custom ICE to check for the component code on a list of such known files, and verify the COM data is compatible (if you can come up with a definition for that). ... View more

Both InstallScript and MSI projects can call into .NET assemblies (in different ways; see DotNetCoCreateObject() and "Calling a Public Method in a Managed Assembly" aka Managed Code Custom Action respectively), but integrating an external dialog into your dialog sequence could be painful. If you're not dead set on offering a browser UI to your end user, it may be better to wire up script or custom actions behind a custom MSI or InstallScript dialog like the ones you're already using. ... View more

Another thing to check is the requiredExecutionLevel as specified in the manifest of your launched executable. Last I knew, trialware required admin privileges, and VS2008 by default provides a manifest which indicates it's safe to launch the exe as the (non-administrative) invoker. Perhaps try changing this to administrator. [Debbie pointed me to release notes (Q112040) where it's indicated that the trialware requirement for admin privileges was removed in IS12 SP1, so should not be an issue. It still may be worth testing, however.] ... View more

This is a known issue; a hotfix with resolution can be downloaded from http://community.installshield.com/showpost.php?p=424157&postcount=7 and is described more completely in that thread and in the referenced KB article. ... View more

It should be possible to create a single exe InstallScript package from the uncompressed build using ReleasePackager.exe; is the stub msi available in the uncompressed build? ... View more

The most compelling reason may be which UAC prompt you get on Windows Vista (assuming your setup.exe runs as invoker). Unsigned you get a message about an unknown program wanting to modify your computer; signed you are told what it is and who said so. (Admittedly you still get the unknown program at uninstall.) How worth it this is depends on the kinds of customers you cater to, and if they are likely to be using Windows Vista or later. The policy you're working under, while sensible in terms of who is authorized to use the certificate, certainly seems to present a limitation here. ... View more

Assuming you go down this route, consider how you want the MSI to run on older versions of Windows Installer, to cover for the case where someone does an administrative install and then just double-clicks the .msi file. Chances are you want to detect and prevent an installation that won't chain, but you may want to "degrade gracefully"... ... View more

Per my limited knowledge of VB and VBScript, the former supports Dim X as Y; the latter does not. The example in the help is VB, not VBS. Chances are good that most VB examples can be turned into VBS files with minimal changes (such as removing the as Y, and replacing constants like eptMsi with their integer values), but this is not guaranteed. I think that wscript object is also not likely to be available in the Windows Installer support for VBScript, at least unless you create it yourself. ... View more

And here I thought those square brackets might be an obfuscation. If that reproduces in simple tests, it's probably worth looking at and, assuming it's not too crazy (or intentional), fixing. That said, it sounds like you've got it working now? ... View more

I'll follow up with the KB, but here's the file that's supposed to be there. Yes, it should have a higher version number and more recent date. 🙂 As for the SAB, there should be the same file in a similar location, although generally the exact folder under [ProgramFilesFolder] differs. ... View more

It may help if you can clarify what sort of shortcut changes and/or ini differences (changes?) you wish to make based on this selection. In general there's not much built-in or easy support for this kind of thing in Express editions, but in some cases it still won't be easy even in the Professional or Premier editions, due to limitations in what Windows Installer lets you describe. The higher editions would at least let you author a dialog to let your users select a version, but after that it will depend on the exact differences you need to program. (Without the authored dialog, you'll probably have to resort to custom actions which would likely offer an ugly interface.) ... View more

Right, understood; we don't have anything better at this time. I mostly wanted to be sure you weren't describing breakage in previously working functionality. ... View more

I believe XML changes are tied to component state changes, so what you need is to create and/or condition a component such that it will only install in the upgrade scenario. Depending on whether you mean a minor or a major upgrade, the exact approach could be rather different. You could of course take this from a custom action approach, at which point you'll have to write similar conditions (and the whole XML update itself), but not worry about making a component only install in those certain scenarios. ... View more

My suspicion is that both of these paths refer to the file (do you have a mapped or subst drive?), but the file figures its own name as one thing, and we figure it as another. Then when it's time for fixing things up, we can't find our path in what it wrote. I could imagine this being exacerbated on a 64-bit machine. Does this still occur if you were to move this file to, e.g., C:\TMP? ... View more