WiX custom action on major upgrade rollback not run

Question

I have a WiX setup which has

<MajorUpgrade Schedule="afterInstallInitialize" 
  DowngradeErrorMessage="A later version of [ProductName] is already installed. Setup will now exit." />

If an error during the upgrade occurs, the setup rolls back and restores the previously installed version. However, a scheduled task created via a custom action is lost and never restored.

The custom actions I'm using for creation/removal/rollback of the task are:

<!-- task scheduling -->
<CustomAction Id="CreateScheduledTask" Return="check" Directory="SystemFolder"
              ExeCommand="&quot;[SystemFolder]SCHTASKS.EXE&quot; /Create /RU &quot;[TASK_DOMAIN]\[TASK_USERNAME]&quot; /RP [TASK_PASSWORD] /SC DAILY /TN &quot;Maintenance&quot; /TR &quot;[\\]&quot;[SERVICELOCATION]Maintenance.exe[\\]&quot;&quot; /ST [TASK_TIME]"
              Execute= "deferred"/>
<!-- rollback in case something went wrong -->
<CustomAction Id="CreateScheduledTask_Rollback" Execute="rollback"  Return="ignore" Directory="SystemFolder" ExeCommand="&quot;[SystemFolder]SCHTASKS.EXE&quot; /Delete /TN &quot;Maintenance&quot; /F" />
<!-- removal of task -->
<CustomAction Id="RemoveScheduledTask" Return="ignore" Directory="SystemFolder" ExeCommand="&quot;[SystemFolder]SCHTASKS.EXE&quot; /Delete /TN &quot;Maintenance&quot; /F" Execute= "immediate"/>

which are queued as

<InstallExecuteSequence>
  <Custom Action="CreateScheduledTask_Rollback" Before="CreateScheduledTask"></Custom>
  <Custom Action="CreateScheduledTask"  Before="InstallFinalize"></Custom>
  <Custom Action="RemoveScheduledTask"  Before="RemoveFiles">
    <![CDATA[(REMOVE="ALL")]]>
  </Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>

The CreateScheduledTask-action had a condition of NOT Installed which I removed for testing purposes.

Can anyone tell me, what I'd need to do, in order to have the task re-created when the upgrade setup rolls back? P.S.: I do not have access to the domain, username or password the task was originally created with.

Rob Mensching Rob Mensching · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-11T13:07:46

You need another rollback custom action for RemoveScheduledTask that does essentially what is in CreateScheduledTask. For example:

<CustomAction Id="RemoveScheduledTask_Rollback" Return="ignore" Directory="SystemFolder"
          ExeCommand="&quot;[SystemFolder]SCHTASKS.EXE&quot; /Create /RU &quot;[TASK_DOMAIN]\[TASK_USERNAME]&quot; /RP [TASK_PASSWORD] /SC DAILY /TN &quot;Maintenance&quot; /TR &quot;[\\]&quot;[SERVICELOCATION]Maintenance.exe[\\]&quot;&quot; /ST [TASK_TIME]"
          Execute="rollback" />

<InstallExecuteSequence>
   <Custom Action="RemoveScheduledTask_Rollback" Before="RemoveScheduledTask"">
    REMOVE="ALL"
   </Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>

You will need access to the domain, username and password to create the task the same way it was originally. You can use the Remember Property Pattern to have the properties available during uninstall, although you'll want to add another couple actions to encrypt/decrypt the password before storing it probably.

WiX custom action on major upgrade rollback not run

1 Answers