Major upgrades with WiX

16th October 2008

I thought I was going crazy.. I’d built an installer using WiX and set the product version to 1.0.0.1. The plan was that installing a new version would automatically uninstall any old versions.

I then updated the version to 1.0.0.2 and installed the new version, only to end up with two installations.

Turns out that Windows Installer only looks at the first 3 digits of the ProductVersion (as the first Note mentions in the Windows Installer documentation on Major Upgrades) – so twiddling that 4th digit is not going to have any effect.

Here’s a sample .wxs file that works for me:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Wix xmlns\="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" xmlns:util\="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension"\>

  <?define version = "1.1.3.11" ?>

  <Product Id\="\*" Name\="WixUpgrading $(var.version)" Language\="1033" Version\="$(var.version)" Manufacturer\="WixUpgrading"

           UpgradeCode\="630aaa2d-a583-46db-85c4-eaf237590c61"\>

        <Package InstallerVersion\="200" Compressed\="yes" />

        <Media Id\="1" Cabinet\="WixUpgrading.cab" EmbedCab\="yes" />

        <Directory Id\="TARGETDIR" Name\="SourceDir"\>

            <Directory Id\="ProgramFilesFolder"\>

                <Directory Id\="INSTALLLOCATION" Name\="WixUpgrading"\>

                     <Component Id\="ProductComponent" Guid\="c768bc29-e2d6-4f1c-b711-2dcf91641fab"\>

             <File Id\="TextFile1.txt" Name\="TextFile1.txt" KeyPath\="yes" Source\="TextFile1.txt" />

           </Component\>

                </Directory\>

            </Directory\>

        </Directory\>

        <Feature Id\="ProductFeature" Title\="WixUpgrading" Level\="1"\>

            <ComponentRef Id\="ProductComponent" />

        </Feature\>

    <Property Id\="PREVIOUSVERSIONSINSTALLED" Secure\="yes" />

    <Property Id\="ALLUSERS" Value\="1" />

    <Upgrade Id\="630aaa2d-a583-46db-85c4-eaf237590c61"\>

      <UpgradeVersion Property\='PREVIOUSVERSIONSINSTALLED' OnlyDetect\="no" IncludeMinimum\='yes' Minimum\='0.0.0' IncludeMaximum\='no' Maximum\='$(var.version)' />

      <UpgradeVersion Minimum\="$(var.version)" IncludeMinimum\="no" OnlyDetect\="yes" Language\="1033" Property\="NEWERPRODUCTFOUND" />

    </Upgrade\>

    <InstallExecuteSequence\>

      <Custom Action\="PreventDowngrading" After\="FindRelatedProducts"\>NEWERPRODUCTFOUND AND NOT Installed</Custom\>

      <RemoveExistingProducts Before\='InstallInitialize' />

    </InstallExecuteSequence\>

    <CustomAction Id\="PreventDowngrading" Error\="Newer version already installed." />

    <CustomAction Id\="UIandAdvertised" Error\="Something about the UI."/>

    <InstallUISequence\>

      <Custom Action\="UIandAdvertised" Sequence\="3"\>ProductState=1</Custom\>

    </InstallUISequence\>

  </Product\>

</Wix\>