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Questions tagged [windows-installer]

Windows Installer is the installation service provided with Windows, based on the creation and installation of MSI files. In practice there will be a tool you're using to generate the MSI files, and you should tag your question with Windows Installer and that tool (WiX, Visual Studio Setup Project, InstallShield, Advanced Installer etc). Your issue may be with building, designing, or installing MSI files.

From the MSDN documentation:

Microsoft Windows Installer is an installation and configuration service provided with Windows. The installer service enables customers to provide better corporate deployment and provides a standard format for component management. The installer also enables the advertisement of applications and features according to the operating system.

Installer also handles registry related changes.

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Adding Custom prerequsites to visual studio setup project

I have a setup project that I need to install a redistributable that is not available in the default prerequisite list. Is it possible to add this redistributable to the bootstrapper that the setup project creates?
Web
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Windows installer deletes versioned file during product upgrade, instead of downgrading it

We use wix to create our setups. For upgrading, we use major upgrades as demonstrated in this answer by Rob Mensching. (In newer wix versions you can use the MajorUpgrade element.) This normally works well. The old product is removed, then the new…
Wim Coenen
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How to uninstall with msiexec using product id guid without .msi file present

I'm trying to automate the uninstallation of packages created using WiX for the purposes of changing the installed software stack & configuration without reprovisioning a whole OS. Eventually I'll use powershell scripting to do this but at the…
snoweagle
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Change my component GUID in wix?

When should I change or not change my component GUID in WIX? The Microsoft SDK information is confusing. Glytzhkof edit: To clarify, the question deals with when a component GUID should be changed for an MSI component. A component can change with…
Rohit
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How to change the Windows service startup type in a WiX installer

We need to modify the Startup type of our Windows service from "Automatic" to "Automatic Delayed Start". How do I do this? My code is like this:
Ray
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How to associate application with existing file types using WiX installer?

Related to this: How to register file types/extensions with a WiX installer? but not a duplicate. I need to handle existing file types (.jpg files). I do not want my app to be the default handler for .jpg. I would just like to extend the "Open with"…
Marek
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I screwed up, how can I uninstall my program?

My Wix installer worked installing my program, but it's broken for uninstallation. A file is removed too early, and it's needed further down the line. The uninstaller fails and reverts its changes. This means I can't remove the package from my…
fredley
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Is it feasible/sensible to wrap an Inno Setup installer inside an MSI for easier distribution via AD?

Our installer is written with Inno Setup and we are actually quite happy with it. Yet some customers keep asking for an MSI installer which they could more easily distribute via Active Directory. We have already gone to some lengths to make the…
Oliver Giesen
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Make WiX installation set upgrade to the same folder

How can I make a major upgrade to an installation set (MSI) built with WiX install into the same folder as the original installation? The installation is correctly detected as an upgrade, but the directory selection screen is still shown and with…
Magnus Akselvoll
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Upgrade a Windows Service without Uninstalling

Currently I have to uninstall the old version of my service before I install the new version. I am pretty sure this has something to do with it not being smart enough to update or remove the old service entries before adding the new ones. Is there a…
Jonathan Allen
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Visual Studio 2010 setup project: How to set company name used in default install location?

I have a console app project and a related setup project in the same solution. When I run the generated .msi, the install wizard shows following default Install location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Default Company Name\myApp\ How can I put my own…
zubair
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MSI install error: This advertised application will not be installed because it might be unsafe

I have created an msi to install my Windows form application and when i try to run the msi I get the following error: "This advertised application will not be installed because it might be unsafe. Contact your administrator to change the…
Rigobert Song
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Installation of Visual Studio 2010 (any edition) installs only 2 files in the C++ headers directory

I installed Visual Studio 2010 Premium on my Windows 7 workstation. After loading a test C++ project, I noticed that it could not locate iostream. I took a look in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\include and noticed that…
Bear Golightly
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InstallShield - relative file paths

How can I add a file to an InstallShield component specifying a relative path to the InstallShield project in order to make it easy compiling the project on different machines?
Cornel
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Best Windows Installation file Creator?

I'm not the best programmer so I found it was much easier to write a program as several separate executables, which occasionally call each other. But now I need an easy way to actually run them without writing detailed instructions like Run file…
pizzaPi
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