In Wix , should Component guid be unique across msi?

1
votes

In our project , People normally copy paste the WIX files and they will change the product and upgrade code.

Normally this was working fine without any issue.

Recently we faced an issue that while uninstalling an msi some registry keys were not removed and when we verified that the log file recorded some thing like this.

Disallowing uninstallation of component: { GUID } since another client exists.

We were told that the Component guid might be used by another msi in the system.

should Component GUID also be unique across msi?

2
wixwindows-installer
Understanding MSI Component Rules - in practical use. – Stein Åsmul
View a component GUID and key path as the rough equivalent of a primary key. It should only point to one and only one absolute path. There is a 1-to-1 match. Change one, and you should change the other. – Stein Åsmul

2 Answers

1
votes

It might be normal - depends on the file. It might be a common Microsoft Dll that is in use by multiple products. Or a shared Dll from any other number of products.

However you imply that there's been some sloppiness in development and there might be duplicate guids in your own separate MSI setups. The short answer is that this is not really a WiX issue because it doesn't matter what tool you use to build MSI files. Component guids must be unique for a particular file or registry key. No duplicates. Actually Component guids need to be unique to a file or registry key across the entire system!!

Chris has given you plenty of reading.