Prevent Burn from uninstalling .NET package

Question

I'm using a WiX bootstrapper to install .NET and my application. The .NET installation is specified in a chain using the statement

<PackageGroupRef Id="NetFx40Redist">

When I uninstall using the bootstrapper, the .NET package is also uninstalled. How can I modify the above statement to tell the bootstrapper not to remove the .NET package?

EDIT: Following is the code I ended up writing to do this. Comments are welcome if there is anything I should do differently.

<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" xmlns:bal="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/BalExtension">

    <Bundle Name="appName" Version="$(var.Version)" Manufacturer="mfr" UpgradeCode="your-GUID"

    <BootstrapperApplicationRef Id="WixStandardBootstrapperApplication.RtfLicense" />
        <Variable Name="InstallFolder" Type="string" Value="[ProgramFilesFolder]mfrName\appName" />

        <Chain>
            <PackageGroupRef Id="Net4Redist"/>

            <MsiPackage
                    Id="MsiInstaller"
                    Compressed="yes"
                    SourceFile="$(var.SolutionDir)\appName_Installer\bin\$(var.Configuration)\appName_Installer.msi"
                    Permanent="no"
                    Vital="yes">
                <MsiProperty Name="INSTALLLOCATION" Value="[InstallFolder]" />
            </MsiPackage>
        </Chain>
    </Bundle>

    <Fragment>
        <PackageGroup Id="Net4Redist">
            <ExePackage Id="Netfx40Xxx" Cache="no" Compressed="yes" PerMachine="yes"
                 Permanent="yes" Vital="yes" InstallCommand="/q"
                 SourceFile="$(var.SolutionDir)\Bootstrapper\redist\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe"
                 InstallCondition="(VersionNT >= v6.0 OR VersionNT64 >= v6.0)"/>
        </PackageGroup>
    </Fragment> 
</Wix>

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 18 '13 at 18:19

1

Did you try using the "Permanent" attribute in the EXEPackage element?

EXEPackage

answered Sep 18 '13 at 18:19

Isaiah4110

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Thanks for the guidance. I've edited my question to show how I created the ExePackage. Is this the right way to do it? – Scott8501 Sep 20 '13 at 14:06
I dont see any changes to the question. – Isaiah4110 Sep 20 '13 at 14:24
Sorry, I should have made the changes first. They are there now. – Scott8501 Sep 20 '13 at 14:28
Looks good to me, can you run this and test the above scenario? – Isaiah4110 Sep 20 '13 at 14:55
Yes, it no longer uninstalls .NET. Every time I run the installer, it spends a bunch of time spinning on the .NET installer, like it is installing .NET every time, even though it is already installed. Not sure why that is happening. But my original question is resolved. – Scott8501 Sep 20 '13 at 21:41
Check the log file and see what exactly is happening. – Isaiah4110 Sep 24 '13 at 03:35

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 07 '14 at 20:40

Glad you solved your issue but, as you mentioned, you do not have any detect condition setup so that is probably why you are seeing .NET processing every time you run your installer. If you add the following registry search and detect condition to your example you should not see that anymore:

<Fragment>
    <util:RegistrySearchRef Id="NETFRAMEWORK40"/>

    <PackageGroup Id="Net4Redist">
        <ExePackage Id="Netfx40Xxx" Cache="no" Compressed="yes" PerMachine="yes"
             Permanent="yes" Vital="yes" InstallCommand="/q"
             SourceFile="$(var.SolutionDir)\Bootstrapper\redist\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe"
             DetectCondition="NETFRAMEWORK40"
             InstallCondition="(VersionNT >= v6.0 OR VersionNT64 >= v6.0)"/>
    </PackageGroup>
</Fragment>

Prevent Burn from uninstalling .NET package

2 Answers2