.net setup project force repair

Question

I am allready working a day or so on this probem and fail to figure it out.

So I have a .Net setup project with bootstrap setup.exe that I would like to "force reinstall" from command line I see in the command line parameters that there is a switch for that:

Windows ® Installer. V 5.0.7601.17514 

msiexec /Option <Required Parameter> [Optional Parameter]

Repair Options
    /f[p|e|c|m|s|o|d|a|u|v] <Product.msi | ProductCode>
        Repairs a product
        p - only if file is missing
        o - if file is missing or an older version is installed (default)
        e - if file is missing or an equal or older version is installed
        d - if file is missing or a different version is installed
        c - if file is missing or checksum does not match the calculated value
        a - forces all files to be reinstalled
        u - all required user-specific registry entries (default)
        m - all required computer-specific registry entries (default)
        s - all existing shortcuts (default)
        v - runs from source and recaches local package

now if I run the setup.exe as:

setup.exe /fa setupdll.msi it does not whant to work or any other subswicth under the /f tree

Is there anyone that can help with this?

EDIT1: This is working if I run it from the command line:

%windir%\system32\msiexec /fa setupdll.msi

The problem is it dones not do exactly the same as if I run the setup with the gui

The gui repair does the following:

Replace all files
REgisters the new files

The commmand line aproach does the following:

Replace all files But does not register the new dll into gac

Any idea why?

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 04 '14 at 10:21

Ok I know this is a hack aproach on everything but my use case is kinda specific and in case someone whanna do the same here is the why and how:

Synopsis: I have a c$ dll as com object to use it in another programming language and I created this setup to register the dll in the gac.

The problem is when I changed the dll and even if I put the new Product code and new version of the setup proejct and new version of the dll itself it did not get updated by the Visual studio setup project.

If I just do a repair with /ra it does not work if no version of the product is yet installed

My workaround / hack

Uninsatll the product by the /x setupdll.msi /passive 
Install the new version

Well I know it is very specific problem so I don't there is much use for this but combining some stuff ends up with wierd solutions :(

Anyway in case anyone has the same problem.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 04 '14 at 19:34

You're assuming that the setup.exe bootstrapper is also a general purpose tool to also do repair of your installed product, and it really isn't. It will send you to repair mode if you try to reinstall your MSI file, but a repair is not a reinstall. A repair does not "replace all files". It does a repair of the existing product (as defined by ProductCode).

The term "force reinstall" is a bit vague, because if you're referring to installing a new version of your MSI then you use RemovePreviousVersions when you build the new MSI file; if you want to repair it, use the msiexec command line to do that with /f plus whatever other options you need.

I suspect that what you really have is new version of your MSI file and its contents, and that means you need to increment the file versions of files you need updating (VS 2008 and above) and this might be useful:

https://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/visual-studio/updates-to-setup-projects/

.net setup project force repair

2 Answers2